Slab

Philip Mill Jones may well be the least celebrated archaeologist of the early age of the discipline in California. Few months ago I gave a small presentation about the museum and I learned that many graduate students were not familiar with his name. Indeed in 1956 Heizer and Elsasser had noted that while the Uhle's (Peru) and the Reisner's (Egypt) collections became well-known among scholars and students, Jones contribution had been (as of 1956) little recognized. 

Between 1899 and 1901, P. M. Jones was appointed by Mrs. Hearst to conduct field investigation, mostly in California, but in other parts of Western North America as well. Jones was a medical doctor, not an archaeologist. Perhaps for that reason he was primarily interested in ancient Indian burials but he had a keen sense of the scientific nature of his enterprise and pioneered the use of photographs and field notes in California archaeology.

Adobe Holes; top of Mound # 5, showing trench commenced. Man at extreme end of mound

Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives.
Photo by Philip M. Jones, 1901

Jones spent the early months of 1901 on Santa Rosa Island where he investigated thirty five ancient sites that resulted in vast archaeological assemblages now curated in Berkeley*. He wasn't the first one but most of the earlier collectors could be classified simply as looters. Many other archaeological expeditions expanded on Jones' findings in the following decades but a comprehensive body had not yet been produced. Indeed, in his review of Archaeological Investigations on Santa Rosa Island in 1901, William J. Wallace hinted that the editors [Heizer and Elsasser] could have done better justice to Jones' collections from Santa Rosa Island by reevaluating them in light of more recent discoveries rather than limit themselves to transcribe his diaries and field notes. These manuscripts are incredibly valuable and yet disappointing from a modern archaeological standpoint given the lack of drawings and more detailed photographs. They are, however, very descriptive of all aspects of the expeditions. Among other details we know that the crew often operated under bad weather conditions and that Jones himself was frequently feeling sick from cold and flu. Rain, strong winds and fog are mentioned often in his pages. One day in February the crew couldn't leave for the fields because the fog was so thick they could not locate their horses! Many years ago I found myself in a foggy situation when my teammates had to walk next to the car to help me drive along a narrow and steep trail on our way to a cave.

Jones' Horses in Guadalupe, California

Hearst Museum Archaeological Archives.
Photo by Philip M. Jones (?), 1901

I personally find unfortunate that many years later (1972) Robert Heizer decided to dust off Jones' collection to produce another small volume titled California oldest historical relic? The subject of this little pamphlet was a stone slab collected on Santa Rosa Island, which he postulated could be Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo gravestone. It isn't. The main argument is that Cabrillo died on San Miguel Island and he was likely buried there. Afterward the fleet sailed north and reached Oregon before returning to Mexico ending an expedition that most contemporaries considered a failure. They didn't return to Santa Rosa Island: how did the slab travel there?
Philip Mills Jones was not aware of the carvings; he collected this and other similar slabs and thought they were produced and used by Indians, not White explorers or early settlers. Would he collect the slab if he thought it belong to Cabrillo's grave? There is no answer to that question but Jones wasn't necessarily interested in historic, non native, sites. He was also not a scam artist and it is hard to imagine why, in his long prologue about the discovery of the stone, Heizer hinted at the possibility that the slab could be part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by Jones. It wasn't, of course, and his legacy did not deserve the casting of such doubts many years after his death.

Hearst Museum 1-5086
slab
Southern California, Channel Islands, Santa Rosa Island
Collected by Philip M. Jones, 1901

* Most of the Jones's collection from Santa Rosa Island was hurrily deaccesioned in 2019 and it's no longer curated at the Hearst Museum.

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.

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