Seventy Years of Archaeological Research on California’s Farallon Islands

ABSTRACT

The Farallon Islands are a cluster of small islands ∼32 km off the coast of San Francisco Bay. These islands total < 1 km² in area and lack surface freshwater, but are home to scores of breeding seabirds and seals and sea lions. At least three archaeological projects have been conducted on Southeast Farallon, focusing on the islands’ two known archaeological sites (CA-SFR-1 and CA-SFR-24), both primarily related to an early nineteenth century Russian fur trade hunting camp with no evidence of prehistoric human occupation. Little has been published on these expeditions despite their implications for understanding colonialism and culture contact, historical ecology, and the history of San Francisco. We synthesize the history of archaeological research on the Farallon Islands. We discuss the artifacts and faunal remains recovered from these projects, the state of the collections, and how these data articulate with broader California archaeology and the archaeology of small islands.

RESUMEN

Las islas Farallon son un grupo de cinco islas escarpadas a unos 32 km de la costa de la Bahía de San Francisco. Estas pequeñas islas tienen una superficie total de menos de 1 km² y carecen de agua dulce superficial, sin embargo albergan a decenas de aves marinas, focas y leones marinos. A pesar de su pequeño tamaño, al menos tres proyectos arqueológicos durante los últimos 70 años se han realizado en el sureste de Farallon, centrándose en dos sitios arqueológicos previamente conocidos en las islas (CA-SFR-1 y CA-SFR-24). Ambos sitios son relacionados principalmente con el comercio de pieles ruso o campo de caza a principios del siglo XIX sin mostrar evidencia de ocupación humana prehistórica. Poco se ha publicado sobre estas expediciones a pesar de sus implicaciones que podrían esclarecer temas sobre el colonialismo y el contacto cultural, la ecología histórica, la historia de San Francisco y otros temas. Por medio de esta publicación, sintetizamos la historia de investigaciones arqueológicas en las islas Farallon. Discutimos los artefactos y restos de fauna recuperados a través de los proyectos Farallon, el estado actual de las colecciones y cómo estos datos articulan mas ampliamente con la arqueología de California al igual que con la arqueología de islas pequeñas en general.

KEYWORDS:

• Small islands
• historical ecology
• fur trade
• historical archaeology
• Farallon Islands
• Late Holocene
• San Francisco Bay

Acknowledgments

We thank Paolo Pellegatti, Natasha Johnson, and Linda Waterfield of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology for their help accessing collections and archival records associated with Riddell’s excavations on the Farallones and for assistance working to determine the location of various materials at UCB. At CAS, we thank Moe Flannery, Christine Garcia, Sue Pemberton, and Jack Dumbacher for help accessing collections and graciously answering our many questions. Seth Cotterell provided help in accessing archival materials at CAS. Peter Pyle and David Ainley shared helpful information about past Farallon research. Katherine Crowe of the National Anthropological Archives granted access to the Smithsonian’s Federal Permit Records. The 1998 UCLA expedition to SEFI was supported by an Ahmanson Field Research Grant from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. We thank Ariadna Gonzalez Aguilera for help with the Spanish abstract. Finally, we thank Mark Allen, Mark Hylkema, and two anonymous reviewers for important comments on our manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.