Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T19:41:58.330Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The House of the Sea: An Essay on the Antiquity of Planked Canoes in Southern California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Brian Fagan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Chumash tomol, a sophisticated planked canoe, came into use in the Santa Barbara Channel region of Southern California about 1,500 years ago. It is often assumed that planked watercraft were first developed in the region at about that date. This paper argues, on theoretical grounds, that planked canoes were developed much earlier in Southern California, perhaps as early as 8,500 years ago.

Resumen

Resumen

Hace 1,500 años, el la región del canal de Santa Barbara en el sur de California, se comenzó el uso de una canoa sofisticada hecha de tablas gruesas (tomol en la lengua Chumash). Se ha asumido que canoas de este tipo de manufactura fuerón desarolladas por primera vez durante este mismo período. Este ensayo argumenta desde una base teórica que las canoas de tablas gruesas fuerón desarolladas con mucha mayor anterioridad en el sur de California, talvez hace 8,500 años.

Type
Forum
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , January 2004 , pp. 7 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Altschul, J., and Grenda, D. 2002 Islanders and Mainlanders. SRI Press, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. 1995 Transportation Innovation and Social Complexity among Maritime Hunter-Gatherers. American Anthropologist 97:733–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, J. (editor) 2001 The Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Cunningham, R.W. 1989 California Indian Watercraft. EZ Nature Books, San Luis Obispo, California.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J. 1999 Maritime Subsistence at a 9,300-Year-Old Shell Midden on Santa Rosa Island, California. Journal of Field Archaeology 26:255–265.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J. 2001 The Archaeology of Aquatic Adaptations: Paradigms for a New Millennium. Journal of Archaeological Research 9:281–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fagan, B. 1995 Time Detectives. Simon and Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Fagan, B. 2003 Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Gamble, L. 2002 Archaeological Evidence for the Origin of the Plank Canoe in North America. American Antiquity 67:301–315 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, R. 1968 Seagoing Canoes among the Indians of Northwestern California. Ethnohistory 15(1): 11–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, J. (editor) 1933 A New Original Version of Boscana's Historical Account of the San Juan Capistrano Indians of Southern California. Smithsonian Institution Miscellaneous Collections 92(4).Google Scholar
Heizer, R. F., and Massey, W. C. 1953 Aboriginal Navigation off the Coasts of Upper and Baja California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 152:282–311.Google Scholar
Heyerdahl, T. 1971 The Ra Expedition. Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Hudson, T., and Blackburn, T. C. 1982 In The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, Vol. I: Food Procurement and Transportation. Anthropological Papers No. 25. Ballena Press/Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Cooperative Publication, Los Altos and Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Hudson, T., Timbrook, J., and Rempe, M. 1978 Tomol: Chumash Watercraft as Described in the Ethnographic Notes of John P. Harrington. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Ballena Press, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Johnson, J. R., Stafford, T. W. Jr., Ajie, H. O., and Morris, D. P. 2002 Arlington Springs Revisited. In Proceedings of the Fifth California Islands Symposium, edited by Brown, D. R., Mitchell, K. C. and Chaney, H. W., pp. 541–545. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, California.Google Scholar
Johnstone, P. 1980 The Sea-Craft of Prehistory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Raab, M. 1997 The Southern California Islands During the Middle Holocene. In Archaeology of the California Coast during the Middle Holocene, edited by Erlandson, J. and Glassow, M., pp. 167–184. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar