Island of the Blue Dolphins
OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS. OH MY GOSH. *_____* I just got back from THE COOLEST TALK EVER by Dr. Jon Erlandson (director of my museum and West Coast and Ancient Maritime Archaeology GOD). OH MY GOSH.
So, Dr. Erlandson's primary area of study is in the Channel Islands off the coast of California. The furthest west of these islands is San Nicolas Island, which is the island where Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell took place. Island of the Blue Dolphins was one of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE books as a kid. I read it, oh, a trillion times.
ANYWAY, he doesn't usually work on San Nicholas, but he and some archaeologists were called in to do a brief survey for shell middens by the Navy (who runs the island now) last year and while there, he found THE MOST AMAZING THING. LIKE SERIOUSLY.
He was surveying a likely cliff face and spotted a whale bone sticking out of an eroded area that was older than where they were focusing their search (deeper in the stratigraphy). But, being a nerd like we all are, he went OOH NEAT MAYBE IT'S A FOSSIL (possibly with the fact that the museum was going to do an exhibit about the evolution of whales in mind) and went to check it out.
Under the whale bone was two mostly still buried redwood boxes, as well as a few basket water jugs. Artifacts. And he was all !!! and he called everybody over and they were all !!! and they all decided to drop what they were doing and start working on preserving these boxes because they were in danger of being damaged by erosion or looted now they'd been exposed (which could have only been very recently because they were amazingly intact and erosional forces are super fierce in the area).
They had very little time because their flight left at 2pm the next day. But they are archaeology rock stars! And they got the boxes out! And then got on their plane and left them with the Navy archaeologists that worked on site.
And guys, guys. Not only is the stuff they found in these boxes super awesome in its own right (stuff that is rarely found in archaeological sites and stuff that Dr. E had never seen before and he's been AROUND), but there's some very tantalizing evidence that it belonged to the actualfax lady that Island of the Blue Dolphins is based off of.
If you didn't know, Island of the Blue Dolphins was inspired by a Native American woman called (by the people who found her) Juana Maria. Historical records report that when the missionaries came to San Nicolas to round up the last of the Nicoleño from the island, she got left behind (either just flat out or by jumping overboard like in the book). She lived on the island all alone from 1835 to 1853 and when someone finally tracked her down (she had evaded several attempts to collect her), no one could understand her language and she died shortly after. All the stuff she brought with her from the island was either destroyed in the big San Francisco earthquake or lost by the Pope (srsly).
So the boxes seem to be a buried cache of materials and tools scavenged from around the island (because of various different eras of projectile points and technology). The people who were trying to capture Juana Maria reported that she had stashed things in trees and in caves, so burying a cache like this may not have been out of character. Also, there are harpoon toggles in the boxes that are distinctly Northwest Coast hunting technology, not Channel Island. This suggests the stuff in the boxes was collected after some Aleut hunters came down and massacred the hell out of the local population in 1815. The number of people on the island by the time the missionaries came to round them up in 1835 was between 7 and 20. Dr. Erlandson says this kind of narrows the suspect pool a bit.
There's a lot of work to do since the find got kind of tied up in a government snafu, but there's potential for finding DNA on a pipe in the collection and all sorts of analysis yet to be done. But I'm going to (and I think Dr. Erlandson is at least inclined to) at least pretend that it's hers. Because how cool is that?
And hopefully someday soon, pictures of the artifacts will be posted on the web because there are some seriously gorgeous decorative abalone shell fish hooks that I would love to show you all.
So, Dr. Erlandson's primary area of study is in the Channel Islands off the coast of California. The furthest west of these islands is San Nicolas Island, which is the island where Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell took place. Island of the Blue Dolphins was one of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE books as a kid. I read it, oh, a trillion times.
ANYWAY, he doesn't usually work on San Nicholas, but he and some archaeologists were called in to do a brief survey for shell middens by the Navy (who runs the island now) last year and while there, he found THE MOST AMAZING THING. LIKE SERIOUSLY.
He was surveying a likely cliff face and spotted a whale bone sticking out of an eroded area that was older than where they were focusing their search (deeper in the stratigraphy). But, being a nerd like we all are, he went OOH NEAT MAYBE IT'S A FOSSIL (possibly with the fact that the museum was going to do an exhibit about the evolution of whales in mind) and went to check it out.
Under the whale bone was two mostly still buried redwood boxes, as well as a few basket water jugs. Artifacts. And he was all !!! and he called everybody over and they were all !!! and they all decided to drop what they were doing and start working on preserving these boxes because they were in danger of being damaged by erosion or looted now they'd been exposed (which could have only been very recently because they were amazingly intact and erosional forces are super fierce in the area).
They had very little time because their flight left at 2pm the next day. But they are archaeology rock stars! And they got the boxes out! And then got on their plane and left them with the Navy archaeologists that worked on site.
And guys, guys. Not only is the stuff they found in these boxes super awesome in its own right (stuff that is rarely found in archaeological sites and stuff that Dr. E had never seen before and he's been AROUND), but there's some very tantalizing evidence that it belonged to the actualfax lady that Island of the Blue Dolphins is based off of.
If you didn't know, Island of the Blue Dolphins was inspired by a Native American woman called (by the people who found her) Juana Maria. Historical records report that when the missionaries came to San Nicolas to round up the last of the Nicoleño from the island, she got left behind (either just flat out or by jumping overboard like in the book). She lived on the island all alone from 1835 to 1853 and when someone finally tracked her down (she had evaded several attempts to collect her), no one could understand her language and she died shortly after. All the stuff she brought with her from the island was either destroyed in the big San Francisco earthquake or lost by the Pope (srsly).
So the boxes seem to be a buried cache of materials and tools scavenged from around the island (because of various different eras of projectile points and technology). The people who were trying to capture Juana Maria reported that she had stashed things in trees and in caves, so burying a cache like this may not have been out of character. Also, there are harpoon toggles in the boxes that are distinctly Northwest Coast hunting technology, not Channel Island. This suggests the stuff in the boxes was collected after some Aleut hunters came down and massacred the hell out of the local population in 1815. The number of people on the island by the time the missionaries came to round them up in 1835 was between 7 and 20. Dr. Erlandson says this kind of narrows the suspect pool a bit.
There's a lot of work to do since the find got kind of tied up in a government snafu, but there's potential for finding DNA on a pipe in the collection and all sorts of analysis yet to be done. But I'm going to (and I think Dr. Erlandson is at least inclined to) at least pretend that it's hers. Because how cool is that?
And hopefully someday soon, pictures of the artifacts will be posted on the web because there are some seriously gorgeous decorative abalone shell fish hooks that I would love to show you all.
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