Native Persistence at a California Mission Outpost

The Bioarchaeology and History of the Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo

Jelmer W. Eerkens, Lee M. Panich, Christopher Canzonieri, Christopher Zimmer

• Publisher: University of Florida Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781683405085, 9781683405023
• eBook ISBN: 9781683405238
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Collaborative research revealing the lives of Ohlone individuals buried at an eighteenth-century Spanish mission outpost

 

Construction work in 2016 at Sanchez Adobe Park, the site of a historic Spanish mission outpost in the San Francisco Bay Area, led to the surprising discovery of human skeletal remains. This book presents a series of bioarchaeological studies done in collaboration with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Mission San Juan Bautista, the state-appointed Most Likely Descendants of the Ohlone people buried in this cemetery, to explore persistence and change in the lives of Native Californians recruited into the Spanish missions during the late 1700s.

This volume presents cutting-edge research techniques used to study the health, diet, social connections, and medicinal practices of these Ohlone individuals. Studies include obsidian and glass bead sourcing, osteological and paleopathological analysis, stable isotope analysis, and proteomic studies of dental calculus. By comparing these findings with historical records, researchers are even able to identify several of the individuals by name and reconstruct their life histories.

This volume reveals continuity in some traditional Ohlone behaviors as well as new practices influenced by the Spanish. It offers unique insights into the experiences of Native communities during early colonization on California’s Pacific coast. It also serves as a key example of collaborative bioarchaeological research carried out by a tribal community, a local parks department, and both professional and academic archaeologists.

Contributors: Diana Malarchik | Kristen Broehl-Droke | Alyson Caine | Beth Armstrong | Glendon Parker | Anna Berim | Shannon Tushingham | Alan Leventhal | Tammy Buonasera | Christine Marshall | Michelle Zimmer | Monica Arrellano | Austin Cole | Tanya Smith | David Gang | Ramona Garibay | Jason Miszaniec | Melody Tannam | Kyle Burk | Mario Zimmermann | Christine Austin

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: Situating the Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo
• 2. A Brief History of Archival and Archaeological Research at the Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo
• 3. Life and the Biological Consequences therein at the Mission Period Site of Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo (CA-SMA-71/H), 1787–1794
• 4. Proteomic Sex Estimation and Detection of Immune Proteins in Tooth Enamel at the Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo (CA-SMA-71/H)
• 5. San Pedro y San Pablo as a Venue for Cultural Persistence: Mortuary Practices and Exchange Networks on the Margins of the Mission System
• 6. Dietary Persistence and Change in California’s Mission Period: Stable Isotope Evidence from Tooth and Bone from Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo (CA-SMA-71/H)
• 7. Proteomic Analysis of Dental Calculus as Insight into Mission Period Diets in California
• 8. Biochemical Ethnobotany of Ohlone Plant Use during the Mission Period
• 9. Examining Heavy Metal Exposure at Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo during the Mission Period in Northern California
• 10. Dental Biodistance and Kinship at Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo
• 11. Peopling the Past: Life Histories of Native Residents of the Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo
• 12. Persistence of Traditional Lifeways, and Change, during the California Mission Period at Asistencia de San Pedro y San Pablo
• Appendix: Images of Human Skeletal Remains
• List of Contributors
• Index