โ Scribed by Francis J. Magilligan
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The stated purpose of this book is to present an "interpretive framework from which new ideas about the past can spring and the types of new data needed to address these can be identified" (p. 9). It is written for the professional cultural resource management (CRM) and academic archaeologists of southern California, but others should also find it interesting and stimulating. However, scholarship is wanting. The many relevant studies not considered, the insufficient concern for citation accuracy, and the factual errors make this work less than a major contribution to the field.
There are eight chapters, each written by one or two authors, including Hsain Ilahiane, William McCawley, Rene L. Vellanoweth, and the editors. Chapter 1 states the purpose of the book; Chapter 2 is a critical evaluation of the anthropological literature of Pacific and Pacific-Rim island societies, and of research relevant to the study of the California Bight. Chapter 3 summarizes the ethnohistory of the region with emphasis on the Chumash and Gabrielino. Chapters 4 and 5, respectively, review the literature on the paleoenvironment and archaeology of the Bight. Chapters 6 and 7, authored by Grenda and Altschul, and chapter 8, by Altschul, incorporate the book's primary objective, an interpretive framework, and its application to the archaeology of the California Bight.
Altschul and Grenda's analysis divides the California Bight geographically and socially. Geographically, they discern the Northern Bight, which includes the North Channel Islands and the adjacent mainland coast and mountain ranges; the Central Bight, comprised of the South Channel Islands, the Los Angeles Basin, and adjacent mountains and desert; and the Southern Bight, encompassing the coast of San Diego County, the neighboring Baja coast, and the Coronado Islands. Socioeconomically, the region is divided into Core, Semiperipheral, and Peripheral areas. The adaptive strategies and variation in cultural complexity of each area is examined in its environmental context. The Core area, in which the highest population density and the most complex cultures developed, includes the coastal margin from Point Conception south to Newport Bay in Orange County, and the major Islands of Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Santa Catalina. The Semiperipheral area is a narrow strip along the coast from Newport Bay to Baja, and inland from the Core coastal strip, incorporating the Los Angeles Basin, inland coastal ranges, and river valleys, northwest to Point Conception. San Clemente, San Nicolas, and San Miguel islands are also included in the Semiperipheral area. Other areas to the east and north, as well as the small Channel Islands, belong to the Peripheral area.
Grenda and Altschul argue that the traditional approach to the study of social organization and the rise of social complexity is too small in scale for comparative study. They offer two scenarios: (1) a north-south cultural cline, explaining social developments on the basis of resource availability and corresponding population density, and (2) an explanation of social differentiation based on competition for resources and attendant defensive strategy. Altschul and Grenda assert that the resource-rich Northern Bight supported a large human population aggregation which led to political centralization and social stratification, while the less-fruitful Central Bight organized its smaller population into less powerful chiefdoms, and the sparse resources of the Southern Bight promoted only small, egalitarian units.
The separation of these three individual cultural trajectories in the late Holocene, when population increased throughout the area, raises the question: What was the advantage of the Northern Bight? Human settlement filled the closely spaced resource patches in the Northern Bight. As one moves south,
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