Summer 2024 Newsletter

An Indigenous Approach to Archaeology: the Integrative Cultural Resources Survey

By Mohini Narasimhan, AMLT Communications Manager

The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB) have been leaders in Tribal-led archaeological research for over a decade. Tribal-led and Indigenous archaeology provides alternatives to conventional archaeology, which has historically been characterized by problematic and extractive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The AMTB and the Amah Mutsun Land Trust (AMLT) have used Tribal-led archaeological research to relearn, affirm, and revitalize traditional knowledge systems to restore Indigenous stewardship practice in Mutsun and Awaswas territories. The primary framework of Indigenous archaeology AMLT has introduced is the Integrative Cultural Resource Survey (ICRS), an archaeological survey developed through partnerships between the AMTB, AMLT, UC Berkeley, and other archaeology, ethnobotany, and restoration ecology experts. 

The ICRS provides a proactive and comprehensive approach to cultural and natural resource assessment and stewardship and most importantly, presents a survey method that centers on an Indigenous perspective for how cultural sites are identified, documented, and defined. Through the ICRS, AMLT has weaved the western approach with its own Indigenous perspective to work towards the common goal of comprehensively documenting all cultural resources and ancestral sites. 

Using a conventional framework, archaeologists typically consider cultural resources (such as artifacts, shells, or bedrock mortars) as indicative of a cultural site. However, for the Amah Mutsun and many other Indigenous Californian tribes, plants and other natural resources used for traditional purposes and features of the landscape also are considered cultural resources, and their presence therefore is also an indicator of a cultural site. Documenting all these kinds of resources is not only necessary to protect and steward sacred sites, but also essential for other Tribal cultural revitalization efforts.

How can we learn about ancestral sites without harming the site or the soil?

During an ICRS, survey methods aim to document three components of the landscape: 1) non-biological Indigenous cultural resources such as archaeological sites, caves, and springs; 2) vegetation type; and 3) ethnobotanical resources significant to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, including plants that were traditional used for food, crafting, ceremony, and medicine. By piecing together these various components, the ICRS is able to comprehensively and systemically document natural resources at a landscape scale. 

The primary archaeological survey method for collecting data used by the ICRS is called the “catch and release” surface survey units system (SSUs). With the “catch and release” system, archaeologists and members of the Native Stewardship Corps – AMLT’s work training and cultural relearning program for young-adult Tribal member – collecting samples are able to screen the soil at the surface level and complete the lab work in the field, like a lab on wheels. This innovative method turns on its head the idea that archaeology must disrupt the soil and extract cultural heritage in order to identify archaeological sites. The catch-and-release surface survey unit system is minimally disruptive to the soil, and this method does not include the collection or retention of any Indigenous artifacts or ecofacts.

If sensitive areas are encountered during an ICRS, Native Stewards may employ ground penetrating radar scans. Ground penetrating radar is a geophysical locating method that uses radio waves to capture images below the surface of the ground in a minimally invasive way. Similar to the catch-and-release surface survey unit system, ground penetrating radar scans provide an innovative way to learn about ancestral sites without having to dig them, a principle that comes from Indigenous perspectives on archaeology. Non-invasive survey methods, like ground penetrating radar, gives us a way to locate priority deposits, like ancestral earth ovens and food processing areas, while increasing avoidance of other sensitive cultural areas, such as burials and other features the Tribe wishes to avoid and protect in place.

After documenting a cultural site, what comes next?

Tribal-led cultural resources assessments provide invaluable information on tribal histories and cultural landscapes. A crucial implication of the ICRS is that Tribal people are at the center of the project, from collecting and evaluating their own evidence to developing culturally appropriate management recommendations. This has led to important dialogue and partnership in which the AMTB has and will continue to provide guidance directly to land managers and public agencies on how to protect and steward the landscapes.

In 2016, AMLT signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bureau of Land Management that described how the two organizations would work together to steward cultural and natural resources on its properties, including the Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument (CCD). From the Tribe’s perspective on stewarding a landscape, any sort of activity or development where there are cultural sites and resources will have an overall effect on the cultural landscape and the resources accessible to Tribal members. This new partnership with BLM presented an opportunity for the Tribe to provide input on how the agency made decisions to develop the property. To that end, with a generous grant from Conservation Lands Foundation, AMLT began several projects to conduct integrative cultural resource surveys of CCD over the course of three years. 

The first of these assessments began at the lower Laguna Creek watershed. BLM was considering how to develop that land for public recreation, which included the process of constructing a trail across a broader area where cultural sites had been previously documented. Through results from an integrative survey that recorded archaeological, ethnobotanical, and vegetation-type data all at once, AMLT provided guidance that followed Tribal perspective on how BLM could build a trail to avoid areas with high-density of cultural and natural resources.

During this first project, Chairman Valentin Lopez of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band introduced to BLM the idea of a culturally significant landscape. This is the idea that all the resources together - not just the number of cultural sites but also all the features of the land such as its spring heads, rock shelters, and patches of traditionally used plants - create a landscape that requires special protection and necessitates stewardship. 

Chairman Lopez explains: “When we look at archaeological sites we should not consider the extent or significance of the site as the size of the midden mounds or locations of remains. We should look at all sites in terms of an “archaeological landscape”. We need to ask how did the people live here, what did they eat, what did they make and where did the resources for their activities come from? If the ancestors ate acorns, where did they come from? If they ate fish, where did they come from? Basketry materials, housing, hunting locations, are all part of the greater archaeological landscape and therefore it is quite appropriate to declare Laguna Creek and the greater landscape and associated resources…to be significant and an integral part of the archaeological landscape”. 

In a hallmark gesture, BLM adopted this concept of a culturally significant landscape and more broadly AMLT’s framework of Indigenous-led archaeology through accepting AMLT’s recommendations and continuing their work and partnership with the land trust. This sets a significant precedent for what partnerships with public agencies in AMLT’s stewardship territory can look like, which will serve to further strengthen the Tribe and land trust’s efforts to protect cultural resources and sacred sites from development.

Following this initial project, members of the Native Stewardship Corps carried out the “catch and release” surface survey unit system along with ethnobotanical resource and vegetation mapping from 2018 to 2021 in multiple locations within CCD. Through their dedicated hard work and fresh perspective, 12 previously unrecorded cultural sites were identified in CCD. Results from these surveys also highlighted specific areas where stewardship was urgently needed to protect sensitive natural and cultural resources. Specifically, the ethnobotanical surveying involved in the ICRS has been extremely useful for the Native Plant Propagation program, an adjacent stewardship effort of AMLT, which has focused on collecting seeds from plants located on the CCD property by Native Stewards during surveying.

The ICRS is an exemplary model for how to monitor, protect, and enhance natural and cultural resources in a way that is proactive, holistic, and grounded in Indigenous perspectives and priorities. With methods like the ICRS, the AMTB is the ultimate authority on cultural resource identification, protection, and stewardship. It allows AMLT to ensure archaeological research is conducted ethically and respectfully, to advocate for the protection of Sacred Sites from development during the early stages of evaluation, and continue to develop its leadership in cultural resources assessment. Most importantly, through providing a way to locate and document all cultural resources, the ICRS plays a crucial part in supporting AMLT’s vision that the Amah Mutsun are able to fulfill their obligation to Creator to take care of Mother Earth and all living things. In the future, AMLT hopes to bring the ICRS to all of Mutsun and Awaswas territories.

Broadly, the use of the ICRS in projects with BLM is a blueprint for how public agencies can work with Tribes to identify, protect and steward cultural landscapes in a way that centers Indigenous perspectives and honors Tribes’ political and cultural sovereignty. Eventually, AMLT would like to share this model with other Tribes, Tribal organizations, and conservation organizations by producing an integrative cultural resources survey template which describes AMLT’s approach and methods in sufficient detail that they can be followed by others.