From the Island of the Blue Dolphins: A Unique Nineteenth-Century Cache Feature From San Nicolas Island, California

ABSTRACT

A cache feature salvaged from an eroding sea cliff on San Nicolas Island produced two redwood boxes containing more than 200 artifacts of Nicoleño, Native Alaskan, and Euro-American origin. Outside the boxes were four asphaltum-coated baskets, abalone shells, a sandstone dish, and a hafted stone knife. The boxes, made from split redwood planks, contained a variety of artifacts and numerous unmodified bones and teeth from marine mammals, fish, birds, and large land mammals. Nicoleño-style artifacts include 11 knives with redwood handles and stone blades, stone projectile points, steatite ornaments and effigies, a carved stone pipe, abraders and burnishing stones, bird bone whistles, bone and shell pendants, abalone shell dishes, and two unusual barbed shell fishhooks. Artifacts of Native Alaskan style include four bone toggling harpoons, two unilaterally barbed bone harpoon heads, bone harpoon fore-shafts, a ground slate blade, and an adze blade. Objects of Euro-American origin or materials include a brass button, metal harpoon blades, and ten flaked glass bifaces. The contents of the cache feature, dating to the early-to-mid nineteenth century, provide an extraordinary window on a time of European expansion and global economic development that created unique cultural interactions and social transformations.

Keywords:

• Pacific Coast
• North America
• globalization
• colonial history
• culture change
• technology

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Amira Ainis, Jennie Allen, Jessica Colston, Troy Davis, Richard Guttenberg, William Kendig, Rebekka Knierim, Queeny Lapeña, Jane Mitchell, Nicholas Poister, Chelsea Smith, Kevin Smith, and Emily Whistler for help in the field and lab. We are also grateful to Scott Byram, Paul Collins, Marla Daily, Don Dumond, Dan Guthrie, John Johnson, and Tom Wake for help identifying or interpreting the context or contents of the cache feature. Rusty Van Rossmann drafted Figure 3 and William Kendig created Figure 5. Finally, we thank Torben Rick, Scott Fitzpatrick, Randy Schumann, and three anonymous reviewers for help in the review, revision, and publication of this article. Our research was supported by the United States Navy, the University of Oregon, California State University, Los Angeles, and the United States Geological Survey.