An Archaeological and Historical View of Quiroste Tribal Genesis

Abstract The ethnographic Quiroste tribe has been described as the most powerful tribe on the San Francisco Peninsular coast (Milliken 1991:186). Archaeological and historical information from within their ancestral territory, especially at Año Nuevo State Park, reveals a long tradition of in situ cultural developments spanning the middle and late Holocene. Año Nuevo State Park was the center for Monterey chert stone tool production, and a source of export for economically important olivella and abalone shell. These resources, along with abundant terrestrial and marine foods and materials, established the Quiroste as a prominent polity among the many others that controlled territories throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Resumen La tribu etnográfica Quiroste ha sido descrita como la tribu más poderosa en la costa de del península de San Francisco (Milliken 1991:186). La información arqueológica e histórica desde adentro de su territorio ancestral, especialmente en el Parque Estatal de Año Nuevo, revela una tradición larga de desarrollo cultural in situ abarcando el Holoceno Medio y Tardío. El Parque Estatal de Año Nuevo fue el centro de producción de herramientas líticas de sílex Monterey y una fuente económicamente importante de exportación de conchas de olivella y abulón. Estos recursos, junto con la abundancia de alimentos terrestres y marinos, establecieron la Quiroste como una entidad política importante entre los muchos otros que controlaron los territorios por todo el área de la Bahía de San Francisco. European explorers, missionaries, and colonists arriving at the San Francisco Peninsula in the early 1770s found a region controlled by a mosaic of individua

Investigating Native Californian Tobacco Use at Mission Santa Clara, California, through Morphometric Analysis of Tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) Seeds

Excavations in the Native ranchería at Mission Santa Clara, California, recovered a large assemblage of predominantly uncharred archaeological tobacco seeds, including many morphologically intact specimens, associated with deposits from ca. 1790–1840 CE. This assemblage, estimated to contain over 4600 tobacco seeds, provided an unprecedented opportunity to explore tobacco use by Native people living at a California mission. Morphometric and linear discriminant analysis of modern comparative tobacco species was used to identify archaeological tobacco seeds at the species or species-group level. Analysis revealed the presence of domesticated tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca), and at least one other kind of tobacco (either Nicotiana attenuata, Nicotiana quadrivalvis, and/or Nicotiana acuminata) at Mission Santa Clara during the period of occupation. This evidence suggests that domesticated tobacco and tree tobacco were cultivated and processed at Mission Santa Clara. Domesticated tobacco cultivation and processing reflect hybrid cultural practice, with traditional indigenous methods applied to a novel plant. Tobacco representation in a pit feature associated with mourning ceremony materials indicates an association between ceremonial contexts and intentional tobacco burning, as well as a possible association between native tobacco species and ceremonial practices