In 1888 an archaeological collection of material from Bahía de Los
Angeles in Baja California was deposited in the United States National
Museum by Dr. Edward Palmer. Although the material was duly catalogued,
together with Dr. Palmer's notes, it has gone undescribed until the
present.
Dr. Robert F. Heizer called this collection to the attention of the
senior author in 1948. At that time the archaeology of Baja California
was receiving emphasis at the University of California because of
the interest of the Associates in Tropical Biogeography, under the
chairmanship of Dr. C. O. Sauer. The late Professor E. W. Gifford, then
Curator of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California,
arranged with Dr. T. Dale Stewart of the United States National Museum
for a temporary study loan of the collection.
From the beginning, the division of labor between the authors has been
primarily in terms of "hard" and "soft" artifacts. Massey has handled
the analyses of the imperishable artifacts, their ethnographic and
archaeological distributions, and the distributions of all artifacts
for Baja California. Mrs. Osborne has dealt with the netting, textiles,
and cordage, and the distribution of their techniques outside Baja
California. Dr. Lila M. O'Neale began the analysis of the textiles
and netting and directed it until her untimely death. Professor E. W.
Gifford advised on the initial description of the imperishable
artifacts.
This presentation has been delayed for many reasons, but the intervening
years have added much detailed information to the original data, both in
the literature of anthropology and in subsequent field work.
We are very grateful to friends, past and present, for their help and
encouragement. We wish to acknowledge the support of the Department of
Anthropology, University of California, for the photographs of the
imperishable materials. Thanks are due Bob Ormsby, a University of
Washington student, for the drawings of netting. All other drawings and
the maps were done by June M. Massey. We acknowledge with thanks the
assistance of Mrs. Gene Marquez, whose services as a typist were
provided by the Department of Biological Sciences of the University of
Florida.
Above all we wish to dedicate this small work to the memories of two
tireless teachers and workers in anthropology--and in humanity: Dr. Lila
M. O'Neale and Professor E. W. Gifford.
W.C.M.
C.M.O.