differences in projectile points and burial customs. Phase I is
characterized by large percussion-flaked blades and points (pl. 21) which
occur in the Tank Site (LAn-1) from the surface to 60 inches in depth with
the greatest frequency below 18 inches (see table 4), and no similar type
points or blades have been found in LAn-2. Phase II projectile points are
smaller, varied in type, and are pressure flaked (pls. 22, 23, _f-m_).
These points are confined to the upper 18 inches of the Tank Site and are
exclusive to LAn-2. There are three forms of interment in the Tank Site,
all of which characterize Phase I: (1) primary inhumation, extended, prone
or supine, head southerly; (2) reburial, segments of long bones only,
generally under an inverted metate; and (3) fractional burial with
interment of long bones only. By virtue of its deep occurrence the
reburial is the most ancient in the Tank Site (Treganza and Malamud, 1950,
p. 135, burial 8). Phase II burials are flexed, with no specific
orientation, and occur both with and without rock cairns. These burials
were all limited to LAn-2.
Since clear-cut stratigraphic evidence is lacking it is difficult to
assign other classes of artifacts as being definitely associated with any
one specific phase of the Topanga Culture. Some general statements can be
made. The large quantity of basalt core tools, especially scraper planes,
occur deep in the Tank Site and are far less common in LAn-2. Manos and
metates bear out the same relationship; however, both these types of
artifacts span the time gap from early occurrences to the historic period.
It is only when one or both of these elements characterize or dominate a
site, such as in LAn-1, that they have diagnostic or comparative value in
so far as the Topanga Culture is concerned.
Cog stones, discoidals, and crescentic stones, or "amulets," are unique
types of artifacts, and when found in the right association with other
artifacts may prove to be valuable horizon indicators. Cog stones and
discoidals occur most commonly along the interior margin of the southern
California littoral, and, where documented, the mano and metate are also
present. Crescentic stones, as an artifact type, have been most
objectively associated with the San Dieguito of the San Diego coast and
the San Dieguito-Playa (Lake Mohave) Culture of the eastern desert.
However, the crescentic stone in its various forms expresses considerable
latitude in time and space.
Certain elements in the Topanga Culture might be viewed as "_index
artifacts_" when they occur as associates. To have comparative value it is
the combination of traits which create the cultural pattern and not the
isolates. Phase I is characterized by a combination of extended burial
with the head south, reburial of long bones under metate, fractional
burial, percussion-flaked projectile points and blades, dominance of flake
and core tools, dominance of milling stones with wide variation in the
hand stone (mano), crescentic stones, stone cogs, and stone discoidals.
The latter two may occur late in this first phase. Phase II has flexed
burials with no specific orientation, an occasional rock cairn in
association, pressure-flaked projectile points constituting several types,
and dominance of the cobble mortar and pestle as milling implements,
though the latter may occur toward the end of Phase I.
Through lack of clear-cut stratigraphic evidence, all other artifacts
described for the Tank Site will have to be considered either as late
Phase I or early Phase II. Unless subsequent excavations at LAn-2 produce
data of a nature different than that already described, this latter site
should represent the type site for Phase II of the Topanga Culture.
Following the first published Topanga report, two village sites along the
adjacent coast have been excavated, both of which share comparative traits
with the two phases of Topanga Culture (Wallace, 1954, 1955; Peck, 1955).
Both authors were handicapped in making comparisons, since this final
report was not available. With future comparisons to be made, a
clarification of some statements might be in order. Wallace (1955, Table
I, p. 220) in presenting "milling stone horizon cultural assemblages" uses
nine broad comparative categories for five different geographical areas in
which each area is known by one or more excavation sites. The traits
listed by Wallace under the heading of Topanga are those characteristic of
Phase I with the possible exception of the mortar and pestle. "Few clam
disk beads" are also listed. The only shell artifact found in the Tank
Site was a single massive clam-disk bead which, because of its shallow
occurrence (4 inches), is probably a Phase II artifact.
Peck (1955, p. 70), comparing Zuma Creek with Topanga, mentions the
following as occurring at the Tank Site (LAn-1): "... hard calcareous mass
at lower levels." Reference must be to the nonculturally altered sandstone
base of the site, since the lowest portion of the cultural deposit, the C
profile, is rather soft (Treganza and Malamud, 1950, p. 130). Peck notes
burial markers as: "stone platforms, red ocher abundant, and flint tools."
Large aggregates of stone were common in the Tank Site and are termed
_features_, being composed of large quantities of boulders, whole and
broken artifacts, and frequently a segment of human long bone (fig. 1).
Frequently one or more metates occurred with burials. Red ocher was
abundant in small granules throughout the site and appeared more
frequently in the burial areas, but not to the extent as to class an
interment as being a red-ocher burial in the traditional meaning or even
as a burial marker. Flint tools consist of a single chert blade. Varied
silicates occur as artifacts in the Tank Site but not as grave markers.
Peck (1955, p. 70) also lists manos as occurring in pairs. Two was not
characteristic for the Tank Site as mano caches occurred, numbering from
two up to six (pl. 19, _a_, _b_).
It has been difficult to place the Topanga Culture in a compatible time
perspective with the other known early cultural assemblages of southern
California. Topanga, between its two phases, has elements in part
comparable to all of these earlier cultures but lacks a majority of
artifacts common to any one. Paramount for an explanation is the
"abnormal" quantity of lithic artifacts classed under the broad heading of
core and flake tools which occur in the Tank Site. Most characteristic are
scraper planes, choppers, and a variety of heavy-duty scrapers. Western
archaeologists fail to share any common understanding as to what these
artifacts mean in time and function. The many subvarieties into which
these major classes have been divided suggest they are more the product of
a too elaborate or overextended typology rather than varieties that have
cultural significance. In part, the Topanga papers make the same error in
attempting to describe objectively a large mass of data and at the same
time devise some system whereby not only the Topanga artifacts but other
materials could be made more meaningful in terms of cultural comparisons.
Needed is a reëxamination of the entire concept of "core tools" in western
North America. Earlier, few people recognized or reported such tools. Now
the other extreme has the artifact versus the "naturifact" and the talk of
culture in such loose terms as preblade industries.
Habitual thinking has perhaps contributed to the general idea that a
lithic assemblage of core tools characterized by percussion flaking has
come to represent both antiquity and a hunting- or skin-dressing economy.
This may be true in instances where the physical and the biological
evidence are sufficient to support such a claim.
The general antiquity of the Tank Site can be established on the grounds
of physical evidence but the great quantity of core tools invites
speculation to account for their occurrence in a nonhunting culture. Some
4,994 core tools were collected from the Tank Site of an estimated
presence of 50,000. This figure is exceptionally high, compared to other
southern California sites of assumed similar age. Greatest in amounts were
scraper planes and core hammerstones. Curiously enough, none of the
scraper planes, regardless of finish, shows any degree of wear of
battering on the presumed working edge or polishing on the under surface
as would be expected to occur with use. This is true of similar artifacts
from the San Dieguito, La Jolla, and Lake Mohave cultures. Possibly as a
fleshing tool no such wear would result, but evidence of skin dressing is
lacking with so little mammal bone occuring in the site. A wood-working or
plant-fiber economy likewise would hardly necessitate any great quantity
or variety of tools. The large pulping plane used to remove mescal fiber
from a leaf was rare even among the historic Diegueno.
To account for the large number of "core tools" in the Tank Site,
especially scraper planes, choppers, and core hammerstones, it is
suggested these tools are actually crude implements used in the
manufacture and maintainence of more refined implements directly
associated with the mass production of the food economy, that is, the
milling stones known as the mano and metate. The function of these
primitive mills is to grind, necessitating a rough contact between the
surface of the mano and the metate. When the surfaces are worn smooth,
caking of meal (acorn) occurs on the polished faces, resulting in the
reduced efficiency of the mill. Primitive peoples who have used the mano
and metate solve this problem in one of two ways. In the Southwest and in
Mexico volcanic scoriaceous or vessicular basalt is selected for either or
both the hand stone and the grinding slab. As wear progresses new holes
are constantly opened up on the surface of both the grinding tools and
hence the mill constantly maintains full grinding efficiency and is
self-sharpening. If granites, sandstones, or schist are used, as is often
the case, then on frequent occasions the grinding surfaces have to be
artificially pitted. To do this a core is made containing angular points
and edges and sharp blows are struck on the faces of the mano and metate,
removing small pitts (fig. 5, _b_, _f_; Treganza and Malamud, 1950, pl.
22, _b_, _c_, _g_). This latter technique of pecking or crumbling is the
same as that used to shape or reduce a stone to a desired rough form
preparatory to grinding as a finishing technique. It was discovered in our
own experience in the manufacturing of stone artifacts (Treganza and
Valdivia, 1955) that when a core hammerstone lost its sharp edges through
battering it was of little use, and continued use of such a blunt
hammerstone often broke the object being manufactured.
Where this pecking technique is used to sharpen manos and metates three
end products result in terms of exhausted tools and become part of the
camp refuse. Hammerstones occur as subangular nodules with battered blunt
edges; manos, when they are worn too thin, usually break in the process of
pitting, and the metate in time wears through or the bottom gets knocked
out resulting in a "killed" artifact. What has earlier been referred to by
many authors as the "ceremonial killing" of an artifact might also be
viewed as the end product of function.
It is noted that Phase II site LAn-2 shows a sudden decline in core tools
accompanied by a decline in manos and metates. Presumably the mortar
becomes a replacement.
Recovered from approximately one-tenth of the Tank Site were 2,556 manos,
329 metates, both whole and broken, and 1,478 worn-out hammerstones. No
clear breaking point could be established between an unused scraper plane,
which is really a core with one or more flat bottoms, and a partly used
hammerstone, or between just a plain core and a partly used hammerstone.
Probably most of our scraper planes might be considered potential
hammerstones. This being the case, the scraper plane may be just a "myth
artifact" growing out of the literature and typologies rather than being
an existing reality. This does not imply that all so-called core and flake
tools or even some scraper planes should be considered in the same light.
It merely points up the fact that Western terminology and typology might
be reëxamined. One exception might be considered in the Type IA scraper
planes (Treganza and Malamud, 1950, pl. 17, _a_), which, because of
symmetry, flat base, marginal and all-over surface flaking, are similar to
the classical forms of the San Dieguito Culture.
The possibility that this "abnormal" quantity of the core tools
characterizing the early phase of Topanga can be related to a functional
part of a seed-gathering economy relieves some difficulties in making
cultural comparisons, and provides a more realistic approach. Why Topanga
should have more core tools than other reported sites may also have an
answer. Some early archaeologists failed to recognize core tools and
naturally did not collect them. Sites immediate to the coast generally
have a split marine-land economy, and though the metate and mano are
present, the core tools used for purposes of pitting such artifacts are
distributed more widely in a mound mass charged with shell refuse. Often,
along the coast, beach cobbles and cobbles from marine conglomerate
provide the only lithic source close at hand, and a resulting tool made
from a cobble resembles more a chopper or a "teshoa" flake. This is
particularly true of metate-producing sites around Santa Barbara. The Tank
Site is adjacent to a massive basalt outcrop from which angular core tools
were manufactured. Thus, quarry refuse, and immediate lithic supply, and
an economy demanding a great many pecking tools, plus erosional factors
that might have concentrated artifacts in the course of time, can in part
help explain the great quantity of core tools found at Topanga.
[Illustration: Table 8
Suggested Chronology of Early Milling and Hunting Cultures of Southern
California]
Since Carbon-14 dates are lacking, Topanga can receive only a relative
position in a not too well understood southern California cultural
sequence. Cultural placement therefore rests upon the recovered types of
artifacts, the physical and chemical alterations of both mound mass and
artifacts, and the physiographic location of the Topanga sites in terms of
a paleogeographic environment. That two phases of the Topanga Culture
exist is shown by stratigraphic evidence in the Tank Site with supporting
evidence in the adjacent LAn-2 characterizing a Phase II period.
Recently a cultural chronology has been suggested for southern California
coastal archaeology (Wallace, 1955, p. 227, table 3). Earlier a similar
chronology was constructed (Treganza, 1950, table 8) which lacked recent
data but was more comprehensive and included possible cross-cultural ties
with the desert cultures of the southwestern part of the Great Basin.
Presented here is a modification and more limited view of the earlier
chronological chart (table 8), differing from the chronology presented by
Wallace mainly in the duration of time, and the inclusion of more recent
data. Without knowledge of two phases of the Topanga Culture and without
the aid of complete data, Wallace dates Topanga at about 2000 B.C. but not
over 3000 B.C. Sites (or cultures) such as Oak Grove, Little Sycamore,
Malaga Cove II, and La Jolla I are given a date between 0 B.C. and 3000
B.C. (average, 1500 B.C.). With more specific dating for the peripheral
areas, especially the central California Middle and Early Horizons, a date
of 2000 B.C. for Topanga seems far too conservative to fit comfortably
into any over-all generalized chronology for California. Likewise, if
Phase I of Topanga is related, as is suggested, to the San Dieguito of San
Diego County, and the latter is related to the ancient Lake Mohave (Playa)
Culture of the eastern desert, then the acceptance of a date of a little
over 3000 B.C. for these cultures would suggest the geologic dating for
ancient Lake Mohave as too early or that coastal southern California has
suffered a considerable cultural lag. It is doubted that either is the
case.
Though claims have been made for Third Interglacial occupation of the
southern California coast, convincing evidence is still lacking. The
organized cultural activities of man first appear as a combination of
shore-line and milling activities directed toward the collection and
preparation of food. This simple ecological adaptation could have occupied
considerable periods of time involving little or no cultural modification
in the direction of technological change. It does not seem to conservative
to date Phase I of Topanga between 4000 B.C. and 8000 B.C. and Phase II
with some overlap from 2500 B.C. to 5000 B.C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Campbell, E. W., W. H. Campbell, E. Antevs, C. A. Amsden, J. A. Barbieri,
and F. D. Bode
1937. The Archaeology of Pleistocene Lake Mohave, SM-P No. 12.
Heizer, R. F., and E. M. Lemert
1947. Observations on Archaeological Sites in Topanga Canyon,
California. UC-PAAE 44:237-258.
Peck, S. L.
1955. An Archaeological Report on the Excavation Of a Prehistoric Site
of Zuma Creek, Los Angeles County, California. Archaeological Survey
Assoc. of Southern Calif.
Rogers, D. B.
1929. Prehistoric Man of the Santa Barbara Coast. Santa Barbara Museum
of Nat. Hist.
Rogers, M. J.
1929. The Stone Art of the San Dieguito Plateau. AA 31(3):454-467.
Menasha.
1939. Early Lithic Industries of the Lower Basin of the Colorado River
and Adjacent Desert Areas. SDM-P No. 3. San Diego.
1945. An outline of Yuman Prehistory. SWJA 1(2):167-198.
Treganza, A. E.
1950. The Topanga Culture and Southern California Prehistory.
Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. University of California.
1954. Salvage Archaeology in Nimbus and Redbank Reservoir Areas,
Central California. UCAS No. 26.
Treganza, A. E., and E. G. Malamud
1950. The Topanga Culture: First Season's Excavation of the Tank Site.
1947. UCAR 12(4).
Treganza, A. E., and L. L. Valdivia
1955. The Manufacture of Pecked and Ground Stone Artifacts; A
Controlled Study. UCAS (32):19-29.
Walker, E. F.
1936. A Ceremonial Site at Porter Ranch, San Fernando. SM-M 10:98-104.
1945. The Dig at Big Tujunga Wash. SM-M 19:188-193.
1951. Five Prehistoric Archaeological Sites in Los Angeles County,
California. SM Vol. VI.
Wallace, W. J.
1945. The Little Sycamore Site and the Early Milling Stone Cultures of
Southern California; A Ant XX(2):112-123.
1955. A Suggested Chronology for Southern California Coastal
Archaeology. SWJA 11(3).
PLATES
EXPLANATION OF PLATES
Plate 17
Phase II burials from LAn-2. _a._ Burial 4 flexed on back with associated
rock cairn. _b._ Burial 4 with cairn removed. _c._ Burial 1, flexed with
associated rock. _d._ Burial flexed on left side. _e._ Burial 10, LAn-1,
showing sets of leg bones from two individuals.
Plate 18
Burials, features, and artifacts from LAn-1. _a._ Burial 11, showing only
long bones and mandible fragment. _b._ Feature 21, showing metate
fragments and human long bone. _c._ Slab and shallow-basin metates. _d._
Feature 24, weathered metate fragments.
Plate 19
Features, LAn-1. _a._ Feature 25, a cache of six manos. _b._ Feature 14, a
cache of four manos. _c._ Exposed features in central portion of site.
_d._ Feature 15 and showing burial 10 in upper left.
Plate 20
Features, LAn-1. _a._ Feature 26, showing inverted metates, manos, and
core tools. _b._ Feature 22, showing deep-basin metate that has been
turned over, and manos, _c._ Feature 28, showing inverted "killed" metate,
metate fragments, and manos. _d._ Feature 23, showing large concentration
of metate fragments, core tools, manos, and fire-fractured stone.
Plate 21
Topanga Culture Phase I projectile points and blades from LAn-1. _a-i._
Patinated basalt specimens. _j._ Laminated chert. _k-l._ Chert. _m._
Crescent stone or "amulet."
Plate 22
Topanga Culture Phase II knives and projectile points. _a, b._ Chert and
obsidian knives. _c-e._ Side-notched points. _f, g._ Contracting-stem
points. _h, i._ Lozenge points. _j, k._ Contracting-stem points. _l-u._
Lozenge points.
Plate 23
Cog stones, drills, and projectile points. _a-c._ Cog Stones. _d-e._
Quartzite hand reamers or drills. (Specimens _a-e_ are from Tank Site,
LAn-1.) _f-m._ Topanga Culture Phase II projectile points from LAn-2.
Plate 24
Pestles and charmstone (?) fragment. _a-c._ Pestles from LAn-1. _d._
Flanged pestle from LAn-2. _e._ Belmnite fossil fragment or charmstone
from LAn-1.
[Illustration: Plate 17. Phase II Burials from Site LAn-2]
[Illustration: Plate 18. Burials, Features, and Artifacts from Site
LAn-1]
[Illustration: Plate 19. Features, LAn-1]
[Illustration: Plate 20. Features, LAn-1]
[Illustration: Plate 21. Topanga Culture Phase I Projectile Points and
Blades from Site LAn-1]
[Illustration: Plate 22. Topanga Culture Phase II Knives and Projectile
Points]
[Illustration: Plate 23. Cog Stones, Drills, and Projectile Points]
[Illustration: Plate 24. Pestles and Charmstone (?) Fragment]