Handle

Between 1963 and 1964, Sheldon Rootenberg and his wife Geraldine traveled to Margarita Island, off the north coast of Venezuela, with plans for carrying out an archaeological survey of the island. At that time Rootenberg was a doctoral student at UCLA and the project was intended to provide the basis for his dissertation. In nine months they discovered and mapped about 170 archaeological sites across the island, collected surface materials and probed few sites with small trenches and test pits. Then, with support from a local foundation, they shipped the archaeological materials to Los Angeles to be analyzed and studied. As sometime happens, however, life took a different turn and he never completed his research.

In 1974, Mr. Rootenberg contacted the museum to find a home for the collections and his donation of more than twenty-five boxes was readily accepted by the museum staff. But then, surrounded by many other boxes of archaeological materials from California, Nevada, Africa and Central America that arrived to the museum in the same year, the Rootenberg collection ended up lying uncataloged and unremembered in the off-campus storage for over 40 years.



"tract homes" of La Isleta - alphabetically numbered, Margarita Island
Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives
Photo by Sheldon Rootenberg, 1964

In the last two years all those materials have been transferred to the museum new storage facility and we had a chance to open lots of dusty boxes, evaluating their contents, and to plan for their future while revisiting their history prior to ending up in Berkeley. For the Margarita Island collection we were able to contact Mr. Rootenberg, and few months ago he came to visit the museum for a conversation about his old project. Five decades later, Sheldon and Geraldine still had vivid memories of that year in Venezuela and they told us stories about the project and some of the people involved in it, gave us clues about the the notes found in the bags and discussed about the maps, the field notes and the Kodachrome slides that had been in his care all these years and are now in the museum archives. The slides are the cherry on top of an already valuable collection; they supply an important addition  to the archaeological record and also furnish colorful, serene, and melancholic at the same time, glimpses of daily life in a landscape that is long gone.

house more than 100 years old east of Flandes, Margarita Island
Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives
Photo by Sheldon Rootenberg, 1963

"outdoor" bar and juke box in El Guamache, Margarita Island
Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives
Photo by Sheldon Rootenberg, 1964

By the 1960's, only few north American archaeologists had worked in Venezuela and the Caribbean Area, collaboration with local scholars was at its beginning and literature, especially in English, is not abundant and not easy to find in California libraries. But a paper published in 1959 by Cruxent and Rouse, suggested that the islands off the north coast of Venezuela were populated as early as 5000 B.C., first by groups of hunter-gatherers and later by small farming and fishing communities that in time developed an extensive network with other Caribbean islands. In this context, Sheldon Rootenberg saw the opportunity to develop a project that could eventually turn into a doctoral dissertation and successfully applied for funding by arguing that "what is needed now is a number of extensive studies of the various prehistoric and historic stages, and the purpose of this project is to conduct a comprehensive study of the prehistory of the island through archaeological survey and extensive excavation."

Hearst Museum - uncatalogued
potsherd, rim and decorated handle
Venezuela, Margarita Island, Site 87
Collected by Sheldon Rootenberg, 1964

Few weeks before leaving Los Angeles, Rootenberg wrote to Irving Rouse at Yale University presenting his project and asking for comments and advice. Rouse had been involved in Venezuelan archaeology for some years and reminded the young student of previous excavations on the island, with the recommendation to review the old materials for comparison. Additionally he suggested more places of importance for future research and mentioned that his book - Venezuelan Archaeology - was going to be published within few months. Later correspondence between the two tells of some difficulties locating and comfortably viewing the old collections before returning home; and also that the notice of the book being actually published reached the island too late to secure a copy while still in the field. Some frustration is palpable but there is also a lot of excitement over his discoveries of new sites and of distinctive tools made of modified shells, all of it neatly documented in over 150 pages of notes and sketches.
For all that work the collection represents a lasting contribution to Venezuelan archaeology although it was destined to remain Rootenberg's last archaeological adventure. By 1966, prof. Rouse too had moved away from Venezuela to the Caribbean islands, just north of Margarita, to investigate the nature and origins of their early populations.




woman with freckles with cigar and basket on head in Loma de Guerra, Margarita Island
Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives
Photo by Sheldon  Rootenberg, 1963

costumed men dancing in streets of San Francisco on their "April Fool" day (December 28)
Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives
Photo by Sheldon Rootenberg, 1963

In addition to the progress in the field and exciting discoveries the documents tell another story, one that I am familiar with. The story of a graduate student coping with the ups and downs of doing research in a foreign country for the first time: money is short and everything appears to be much more expensive than at home, the car keeps breaking down in the middle of nowhere and your mattress have seen better days. And if that is not enough, an even bigger challenge is represented by your local colleagues that can be openly skeptic of foreigners and their ideas, and express sudden disappointment (in a different language!) over small things while you feel the pressure of having to impress and convince them over and over. I know how unsettling that could be: I have been through similar situations and not all my archaeological memories are happy ones. But while I will never know why Sheldon Rootenberg parted ways with archaeology, I am sure that if he had gone back to Margarita Island to work with the same people for seven or eight years the way I was fortunate to do, his diaries would have fewer and fewer mentions of those small inconveniences.

Stalk

On May 19, 1904, Joseph Peterson started to dig a trench through the West Berkeley mound, one of the oldest and largest prehistoric shell mounds in Central California. Paid with funding from Phoebe Hearst, he was following the steps of P. M. Jones, E. Furlong and Max Uhle to become one of the earliest field archaeologist to work on behalf of the recently established museum of anthropology. In addition to the excavation at the West Berkeley mound, he was dispatched to an handful of places in the San Francisco Bay area to salvage archaeological materials disturbed by building or road constructions. All these efforts resulted in over 250 catalog records.
It was a busy spring semester, perhaps unexpectedly so, for a 27-year old schoolteacher from Snowflake, Arizona, who had arrived at UC Berkeley just a few months earlier to pursue a degree in Anthropology. Peterson ended up spending only one or two full semesters at Berkeley and by the fall of 1904, he and his family had gone back to Snowflake where his old job was waiting. Leaving Berkeley behind, however, did not sever his ties with archaeology and his academic mentor Alfred Kroeber. In January 1905, Peterson responded to a letter from Kroeber and a plan to begin an exploration of the many ancient ruins around Snowflake began to take shape:

In reply will say that I’ll furnish you the information required as soon as possible. I can give you a rough map of the ruins in this vicinity from memory. It will be useless to visit any of the ruins at present as snow covers the ground to a depth of about 6 inches with no prospects of disappearing for some time.

Kroeber also asked Peterson to gather information on the whereabouts of other expeditions in the area:

With respect to Dr. Palmer’s intentions I can give nothing definite as the last time I saw him I had not received your first letter. I may be able to glean some information from parties who were with him. I was unable to find any of them yesterday. [...]. As far as intruding on his ground is concerned, I think there is sufficient material to avoid this, other than in a general way. Especially is this so if the leading idea or object in view differs. Shall need no funds until we can decide on plans.

Frank Palmer was a Californian antiquarian who, despite a lack of training, had been tasked by the Southwest Society (a branch of the American Institute of Archaeology) to organize an expedition in Arizona. The underlying scope of the project was to collect high-quality artifacts to be exhibited in a new public museum in Los Angeles. While arguably competing for the same treasures Kroeber had a more academic attitude about it. Palmer and other collectors of the time were amateurs, with no proper training in field methodology and, in his words, did little to "bring out points new to science". For the latter to happen amateurs like Palmer should be replaced by trained archaeologists, like Peterson.

Hearst Museum 2-9577
bowl with snake design
Arizona, Navajo County, near Showlow
Collected by Joseph Peterson, 1908

Kroeber was very interested in the archaeological record of the southwestern United States, more so than he was about California archaeology. One of the reasons was that Ancient Pueblo people were farmers and had domesticated animals, they built permanent villages with large buildings that would indicate a level of social complexity that was not yet recognized for hunter-gatherers. Ancient Pueblo people also had a rich tradition of pottery making, and shapes and decorations could be used to distinguish different cultural traditions and to create chronological sequences. California Indians, with few exceptions, didn't rely on domesticated species and while they used clay to create figurines, pipes and other objects, they did not make pottery. That was enough evidence to persuade Kroeber that the lifestyle of California Indians had remained substantially unchanged for thousands of years. He expressed this conviction by dismissing Uhle's interpretation of culture change at Emeryville and, as Heizer recalled years later, effectively limiting archaeological research in Central California by channelling most of the department budget to ethnographic research. But with Peterson in Arizona, Kroeber saw an opportunity to directly acquire valuable archaeological collections for a relatively low cost and with far superior provenience information that those received by exchange with other institutions or those from Phoebe Hearst personal collections.

Hearst Museum 2-9826
paint mortar
Arizona, Navajo County, near Snowflake
Collected by Joseph Peterson, 1907

Kroeber had high expectations for the Arizona project but Peterson could only partially fit the image of a professional field archaeologist. This was not for lack of enthusiasm, however. Between 1906 and 1908, Peterson explored and collected objects from about 25 ruins that likely dated between the 9th and 11th century AD. His notes about provenience and the relationship between objects, features, rooms and burials are well written but ultimately lacking in details and it is unknown if he took any photos while at work. He knew, however, Kroeber's appetite for all things that fit the image of prehistoric farmers and he didn't fail to please his mentor as these clips about turkeys and corn nicely illustrate:

Turkey bones are found in the ruins lower down the river than this game ever comes at present day, and it is reasonable to assume that turkeys were domesticated. I have now on hand a few specimens including 15 or 20 crocks, as many stone specimens, and about 40 smaller articles. I have the complete skeleton of a turkey evidently buried with rites, and about 8 human skeletons.

I enclose under separate cover a stalk of wheat the history of it as reported to me as follows. A party in the Grand Caňon region found in a small vase a few shrunken kernels. How long they had been there is not known as the vase was taken from a ruin. The people who gave me the stalk stated that they received only five of those shrunken kernels from which after three years time they have produced their patch of a few square rods. As I had never seen wheat similar to the specimen I thought I would try at least to find out if it is a common form or if it is something new. The story of its retaining its fertility throughout centuries seems incredible yet the owners gave me the story as a fact.

Hearst Museum 2-8861
stalk
Arizona
Collected by Joseph Peterson, 1906

The letters Peterson wrote to Kroeber tell the story of genuine anthropological fervor not supported by adequate resources and budget as his frequent concerns about shipping charges seem to indicate. The collection includes about 850 catalog records; a substantial number and yet it pales compared to the amount of material amassed by earlier and contemporary expeditions to the Southwest that are now scattered in many museums. The fast-paced spoiling of ancient ruins in many parts of the country led to the Antiquity Act of 1906, something that Peterson acknowledged in a letter as a cause for delays in his plan to explore certain ruins. He never received a permit to work on public land and the project came to an end in July 1908 with Peterson promising to send more maps and reports but the correspondence ends there.
Despite any shortcomings, the Peterson collection was a great achievement and it remains as a testimony of the early days of archaeology as an academic discipline; it was never published but it was exhibited multiple times over the decades. We know that Joseph Peterson traveled to California in 1934: perhaps he had a chance to see his objects in the museum's old Southwest Hall in San Francisco.

P.S. Imagine my surprise when one afternoon few weeks ago a colleague came to tell me that there were visitors in the galleries who said they were Peterson's relatives and they were asking about the collection. I ran upstairs to meet them and we talked for a little bit. The memory of their grandfather days as an archaeologist for UC Berkeley is still alive and so is the connection between them and the Hearst Museum. It was an incredible chance to ask them about old photographs of the excavations that may still be in their possession. If they ever find them I hope they will consider donating them to the museum where they will accompany the Peterson Collection for the next 110 years.

Waste

The Hearst Museum has been closed for over one year now. The cause behind this closure was the opportunity to renovate the exhibit galleries and the Kroeber Hall basement. For the latter to happen safely staff, interns and volunteers have been working to inventory and curate all the objects currently housed in the basement. The bulk of the archaeological collections include the assemblages from Nevada and the Great Basin. Few weeks ago we inventoried the content of few cabinets Robert Heizer used to store his research collections. Among other specimen there were about hundred coprolites, leftovers from his research on dietary patterns among prehistoric Indians. 

Featured today are two of those coprolites, both from animals and collected at Lovelock cave, Nevada. 

Hearst Museum TEMP 2013.
coprolite, coyote (?)
Nevada, Churchill county, Lovelock cave

Dessicated feces are among the best finds archaeologists can hope for. They can provide information about diet, travel, hunting and gathering strategies and the environment. The dry conditions in Nevada provided a great environment for their preservation and the Hearst Museum curates hundreds of them.
Between 1967 and 1969, Heizer and colleagues sampled and analyzed hundreds of coprolites mainly from Nevada with samples from Utah, Kentucky, Peru and Mexico. Some samples were re-hydrated using a solution of trisodium phosphate in glass jars. During disaggregation they suggested to use a screw-cap lid, tight, as the odor was disagreeable. Part of the sample was then sieved and analyzed, the rest was placed back in glass jars for future research. Last week one of the conservators opened one of those jars. I wasn't there but I heard that the smell is still surprisingly vile.

Hearst Museum TEMP 2013.
coprolite, bear (?)
Nevada, Churchill county, Lovelock cave

In his 1970 publication, Heizer complained that too few scientists joined his effort as many samples that were sent around were neither analyzed nor returned. When is possible, the Hearst Museum is contacting the institutions that loaned the specimen to ask if they want them returned but like 40 years ago I do not expect many enthusiastic responses, especially for the liquid leftovers.

Sharp

A few days ago, the radio show This American Life recalled the story of the Georgia Rambler, a 1970s reporter who would travel to small towns across the state searching for regular folks with interesting stories to publish in the Atlanta Journal. A similar project was carried out in the mid 1940s by Lena Creswell, a retired physician from San Diego, California who traveled the United States as a freelance writer. In May 1945 the Desert Magazine (link; page 23) published her short article about a man who lived in a small house in a remote part of the Jacumba Valley in Imperial County, California. His name was Mr. Happy Sharp, an avid collector of Indian artifacts that he picked up on his property and in neighboring counties.
The PAHMA lists about 500 catalogue numbers of items that Mr. Sharp collected between 1930 and 1935, for the most part potsherds that document some of the variations in ceramic typology and decoration of southern California. Among other things he donated or sold to the museum, there are few of the oldest archaeological objects from southern California that are currently curated in this facility. This knife fragment is considered to be associated with early Holocene hunter-gatherers of the so-called San Dieguito culture whose early occurrence have been dated to about 10,200 years ago (BP). Typical tools of the San Dieguito people were domed scrapers - such as the one in the second picture - often in association with rather elaborate lithic flakes retouched into a crescent shape. These tool kits show that no matter their proximity to the Pacific coast these hunter-gatherers were still primarily thriving by hunting large and small mammals like their immediate predecessors.
Mortars, pestles and other grinding implements that broadly indicate the regular exploitation of other kinds of resources - such as seeds and grasses - will appear in the archaeological record of southern California few hundred years later with the people of the so-called La Jolla culture.


















Hearst Museum 1-68609
Knife fragment, San Dieguito type
United States, California, Jacumba Valley
Collected by Happy Sharp, 1930-1947






















Hearst Museum 1-86974
Small scraper plane
United States, California, CA-SDi-175
Collected by Adan E. Treganza, 1949

Blade core

This obsidian core was collected by Robert F. Heizer during one of his archaeological expeditions in Guatemala. Unlike jade, which was circulating primarily among the upper classes of central American societies, obsidian was readily available to most households. Cores and blades were produced and traded in large numbers to be used, with appropriate modifications, in hunting, farming, woodworking, weaponry and  ritual. In a 1971 volume, Heizer and colleagues published an account of blade production among the Atzecs as told by the Spanish missionary Motolinia, soon after the Spanish conquest.

Robert F. Heizer came to UC Berkeley in the 1930s as an undergraduate transfer from Sacramento Junior College, then an active center for archaeological research in northern California. He received his BA (1936) and PHD (1941) working closely with Alfred Kroeber and, soon after World War II, he was appointed Assistant Professor (1946) in the Anthropology Department. He was Curator of North America Archaeology at the PAHMA from 1956 until his death in 1979.

One of the first to realize that archaeological research in pre-war California was rather crude in its field methods and general modus operandi, Heizer was always a strenuous proponent of rigorous methodology and a pioneer of scientific applications. It is thus perhaps surprising that early in his career his attention to detail was apparently a matter of concern, as expressed in this hand-written note archived at the museum. The author of the note was Llewellyn Lemont Loud who had worked for the museum since 1911 and spent years excavating and recording archaeological sites in California and Nevada.

More than 60 years later, the remarks feel more like rivalry between different institutions than personal grudge or criticism. Loud himself was a cause for frustration for Alfred Kroeber who, at times, questioned Loud's commitment to wrapping up his archaeological reports in a timely manner. It took Loud 17 years to complete the publication of his excavation at Lovelock cave, Nevada (1912-1929).

Hearst Museum 3-22955

Obsidian prismatic blade core

Guatemala, Papalhuapa, "Templo de Montezuma"

Collected by Robert F. Heizer, John Graham and H. Williams, 1965

Frog

For the last few months the Hearst Museum of Anthropology has been in the process of moving a substantial portion of the collections out of one storage area that was recently sold by the University. One of the last pieces we moved was a 39.1ft. (11.9 m.) totem pole from British Columbia. The totem was originally erected around 1870 for a Haida man named Haostis and his wife K'awa; it was brought to the museum in 1911. During the moving process the totem was temporarily unwrapped and almost fully visible for the first time in 36 years; since it was removed from the museum's patio in 1974.

Totem poles served the purpose of illustrating particular events in the history of the owner's family and its rights over the land. They were also erected to commemorate deceased members of the family or household. What follows is what a Tlingit elder told the museum curators in 1964:
"This is a Grizzly bear pole. Head with Raven coming out of mouth refers to a story of a man who told a lie for gain. Putting the leg or foot of upper figure in ears of major heads is a Haida idea. Man at bottom in bears' grasp is a deceased relative; hat indicates social status. Bird at top of pole is a Raven"

Almost all totem poles display the crests of one or more families connected with the owner. This particular specimen has a grizzly bear (for Haostis) and a frog (for K'awa).

Frogs are ubiquitous in the art from the Northwest Coast though, at the time the totem was carved, they appeared to be a quite uncommon figure of the Queen Charlotte Islands landscape. The Haida have an explanation for this phenomenon that it is not what a biology journal would publish but it is a much better story to read to kids before they go to bed. James Deans recorded the story in 1870.

Hearst Museum #2-10723

Totem pole (detail)

British Columbia; east coast of Queen Charlotte Is.

Collected by C.F. Newcombe, 1910