Beginning around 3,500 - 4,500 years ago new features of subsistence, technology, and society began to appear at somewhat different times in different parts of California. Settlements became larger, and there were more of them. Many settlements were located in ecotones, areas where two or more environments came together. By settling in such prime locations, people could exploit a wider variety of resources without having to relocate their homes. Over time, smaller camps were established in other areas, forming satellite communities. Eventually, each major community was surrounded by peripheral settlements and new forms of social and political relationships emerged, especially non-egalitarian political systems. Accompanying these changes were marked differences in wealth as well as access to goods and services, both within and between communities, resulting in some societies becoming highly stratified, with elites, nobles, commoners, poor, and vagabonds, and in some communities, occupational specialist guilds arose. Also during this time period, there was considerable movement of people, both by people within the state as new areas were permanently settled, and by people moving into California from other areas and bringing with them new languages.
Intensive and highly
specialized subsistence strategies
Sophisticated environmental
management strategies
Long distance exchange
and resource redistribution networks
As the Archaic Period gave way to the Formative, subsistence practices began to evolve away from the broad spectrum utilization of plants and animals for food to a more focal subsistence economy. Everywhere in California, with the exception of the southeastern desert regions, each society relied heavily on just a few species as staples while other species were proportionately much less important, serving as supplements or as standbys in case the primary staples failed some year. Rich acorn crops were important everywhere, while shellfish played a major role in the subsistence patterns of people living in the San Francisco Bay area. To the north, the annual salmon runs contributed to dense populations while to the south, along the Santa Barbara Channel, people exploited the prodigious resources offered by the sea: sea mammals, schools of deep-water fish, shellfish. Inland, desert peoples harvested tons of mesquite and screw-bean pods while in the great Central Valley people relied heavily on salmon and acorns.
All across California people learned to collect certain crops in great surplus, store them for other seasons, and thus exceed the limits imposed on population size that the leanest season imposed. Furthermore, as time passed, groups began to redistribute their surplus with others so that the carrying capacity of the various environments was raised. Eventually, population densities and groups sizes grew and the cultures that emerged were comparable to those of rich farming areas in other areas of North America. By the time that Spanish colonization of California began, more than 300,000 Indians called California home, a greater number than in any area of comparable size anywhere in North America. The actual population size that could be supported varied greatly, from less than 0.5 a person/sq. mile in inland desert areas to more than 10.4 people/sq. mile in the biotically rich Santa Barbara Channel and southern Sierran foothills regions.
The Indians also used a variety of environmental management strategies to enhance the resources available to them. All across the state, hillsides and other plant-producing areas were regularly burned for the purposes of increasing food yields, clearing the understory below oaks and pines to facilitate harvesting, and to provide forage for animals. Such animals as deer and elk prefer to graze or browse on recently burned-over land, presumably because shoots from burned-back brush and from new grass growing in ash contain more minerals attractive to the animals.
In some areas of southern California rocks were aligned in river beds to slow the flow of water and retard erosion. The principle of artificial planting was also understood, as was the relationship between soil quality and plant growth. In many areas people deliberately planted wild grasses and other plants to extend their natural availability. Additionally, careful harvesting and familiarity with growth cycles allowed basketmakers to always have healthy stands of plants available to them.
The Formative Period people were confronted with great environmental diversity and a patchwork of locally abundant resources that varied greatly in their availability. These factors helped shape societies that were interdependent, passing both essential foods and exotic goods and materials through complex trading networks that linked the Santa Barbara Channel region with the southern San Joaquin Valley, the obsidian resources areas of the North Coast Ranges with the San Francisco-Monterey Bay region, the Central Valley societies with those living along the coast. All over California, village-to-village or partner-to-partner trading networks developed, traders &middlepersons grew wealthy. And as their control over valued resources and food increased, they gained a level of political, economic, and social power that had never before existed in California. These trade networks carried acorns, salt, fish, shell artifacts, &hides over a network of trails that joined a myriad of small groups and larger societies.
One cannot overestimate the importance of trade in middle and late Formative times, especially the trading of food resources. Trading of food had the effect of moving resources from one environment to another, from areas of plenty to areas of scarcity, thus alleviating temporary, local food shortages and spreading resources more evenly around the state. As a consequence, people could draw on the resources of much larger areas than their own territory, the carrying capacity of the local environment was raised, which in turn allowed groups to become larger and population densities greater.
One mechanism that allowed trade to be even
more productive was the development of a money system based on shell beads.
While shell beads had been manufactured and used by Archaic Period people,
valued as ornaments and burial offerings, it was in the Pacific Period that
strings of shell beads began to be used as a medium of exchange. In northwestern
California, the common form of money was the dentalium shell, imported from
Washington's Puget Sound. Disk beads of clamshell, strung in standard lengths,
served as the common form of money in central California, as did whole olivella
shell beads of steatite and baked magnesite. In southern California, strings
of shell disk beads made of mussel, clam, abalone, &olivella served
a similar purpose.
Strings of beads had mutually agreed-upon values and were used for a variety of purposes: to purchase goods and services, from food to houses to boats; to purchase food during local shortages, or when seasonal resources were unavailable; to repay debts &obligations; to demonstrate wealth &status; &as offerings in burials, the amounts proportional to the social importance of the deceased. Additionally, by placing beads in graves, and thus restricting the amount of money in circulation at any one time, inflation was controlled.
The growth of material wealth, the control of resources, short and long-distance trade and redistribution of resources, and the accumulation of surplus foods and goods was paralleled by the growth of increasingly complex forms of society. Archaeological expressions of this growth included larger settlements, more settlements, a greater variety of structures within settlements, a clustering of houses within settlements to reflect neighborhood or kin groupings, rapidly growing amounts of "luxury" or nonutilitarian artifacts, growing differences in the amount of luxury goods owned by different households, the subdivision of cemeteries into areas dependent on social status, and the growing differences in the amounts of luxury goods buried with individuals of each area. All of these were reflective of new forms of social development among the Formative Period societies. The major forms included:
Cooperative Labor Groups
During Archaic times, the basic economic unit, in fact the only economic
unit, was the family. But during the Formative, as populations continued
to rise, new economic labor units arose to meet the demands of increasing
numbers of people. Such units, carrying out activities through cooperative
labor, could extract more energy more efficiently than the nuclear or extended
family. Trade expeditions included dozen of individuals, each representing
a different kin group. Rabbit and antelope drives, or the construction of
fish dams, or offshore net-fishing drew the cooperative labor of several
neighboring communities. Some of these were organized along kinship lines,
while others were organized according to sex, age, residence or skill.
Occupational Specialization
During Archaic times, members of each household generally produced just
enough goods to meet their own needs, partly because of the demands of their
mobile lifestyles and partly because of low population densities. However,
when energy extraction technologies improved to the point where large surpluses
of foods and other items could be acquired and stored, sedentism became
the norm, people needed to spend less time in day-to-day subsistence activities,
and part- and full-time craft specialists arose. Such individuals produced
a surplus of a single product and exchanged that surplus for other needed
goods &services and the Formative saw many kinds of specialists arise:
basketmakers, shell workers, canoe builders, net weavers, projectile-point
makers, bow makers, stone carvers, and more.
Other kinds of specialists also arose during the Formative whose specialties were not in providing products, but in providing services. Among such service providers two stand out: the village and/or multi-village leader and the shaman.
Leaders organized, planned, and made decisions to make the work of others more productive. The lived in relative luxury, their establishments supported by their communities, and were usually released from ordinary labor. Leaders were individuals of prestige, both feared and respected and were assisted by a managerial or administrative class. These bureaucrats usually composed a council who provided advice &consent to the leaders. Such councils existed at each level of sociopolitical organization, from the extended family up through larger kin-based units (such as the lineage) to the local territorial group, to supra-territorial groups.
Shamans were the principal religious functionaries among California groups and were perhaps, as we saw in the discussion of the Archaic period, the earliest specialists to emerge in native California societies. Shamans were the principal philosophers, scientists, doctors, poets, and intellectuals of their group. They served as mediators between the sacred and profane worlds to aid the soul of the deceased in their journey to the world of the dead, they received instructions from the supernatural world on proper life-styles in the here and now, as well as diagnostic and curative techniques. And through their expert use of various curing techniques they were able to restore harmony to both the individual and the community.
Territoriality
At the beginning of the Paleo-Indian Period there were no more than 1,000 - 2,000 people in the whole state. By the end of the Archaic period, some 4,000 years ago, population had risen to perhaps 25,000 people. But over the next several millennia, the human population would explode so that by about 800 - 1,000 years ago the population had reached some 300,000 persons. Consequently, by middle Formative, not only was California full of people (in many cases living cheek-to-jowl with each other), but the pressures being brought to bear on resources led to increased competition between groups. Eventually borders between groups were formalized and guarded and armed conflict over real and/or perceived territorial infringements became quite common. Ethnographic accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries describe warfare for almost every group.
Sociopolitical Integration
During the Archaic period, societies were fairly egalitarian with few if any social distinctions among members of any particular group. But during the Formative, as food production technologies allowed vast surpluses to build up and sedentism became the norm, social distinctions emerged. The need for sociopolitical leadership, the burgeoning trading networks, the evolution of a money system, and the emergence of various occupational specialists (in medicine, religion, trade, craftwork, navigation, war, administration), led to differences in wealth and social status.
By late Formative times, many California Indian societies became highly stratified, with elites (nobility, bureaucrats, religious specialists, craftspecialists) comprising 25% of a group's population. Below the elites were the commoners, then the poor, and in some areas slaves or vagabonds. Members of the elite class controlled distribution systems through control of political and ritual privileges and/or the control of capital resources and surplus. They maintained special knowledge and tended to marry among themselves.
The high population density and extensive social scale and societal complexity that developed during the Formative were not just a consequence of efficient technology and a fortunate environment whichprovided an extraordinary amount of energy potential. They were also a consequence of specific social institutions which served to increase productive resources & redistribute energy. And at the base ofthese social institutions was kinship. In fact, kinship was the single most important basis for organization among Formative societies.
Whereas Archaic settlements were composed of fewer than a hundred people, many Formative period settlements had populations of 500 - 1,200, some even as many as 1,500 or more. As communities grew in size, it became more and more advantageous to organize the community into smaller, more manageable groups in which houses were spatially organized on the basis of kinship ties between heads of households. Such miniature "neighborhoods" served to formalize relationships between people in a world in which people no longer personally knew every member of the community. Furthermore, since there were no formal laws to regulate activities, such groups presented a way to direct people's movements that relied less on the informal contact characteristic of a smallercommunity. One of the most important bases for defining group membership was kinship. Kin relationships among people gave them avenues for interaction with each other for support, so that lines of kinship provided an important means of organization both within and between Formative communities.
Other kinds of organization also appeared to regulate relationships among people and to carry out a wide range of special tasks & functions. The basis for membership in these organizations ranged from where one lived to what one's age or sex was to voluntary associations of friendship or interest. Some were temporary, organized for specific jobs, then disbanded once the job was ended. Others were organized at regular intervals, such as the cooperative work groups engaged in harvesting salmon from the northwest coast rivers. In some areas task-specific groups served special functions on a permanent basis, such as the ?antap society of the Chumansh. The ?antap society was both religious and economic in nature, and took on some governmental function. Because all of the upper-class members of Chumansh society belonged to the ?antap society, it created a unifying bond among the political powers throughout the entire Chumansh world.
Elaborate Public Ceremonies
One of the most dramatic features of California's ethnographically known cultures is the occurrence of great public ceremonies featuring elaborate costumes, music, rituals, & choreography. Unfortunately, little archaeological research has been carried out aimed at tracing these rituals back into the pre-European era. But from the work that has been done, it appears that at least three regional systems of public rituals arose by at least A.D. 500 and a fourth just shortly before or after initial contact with Europeans. These major religious systems are commonly known as:
Each of these religions established common philosophical assumptions that integrated large numbers of people into social, economic, political, and ritual networks of considerable dimensions, including many thousands of people and sometimes hundreds of communities. These systems were intimately involved in the economic aspects of California societies in that ritual events were usually associated with the production and distribution needs of each group and its neighbors.
World Renewal
In northwestern California, Yurok, Hupa, and Karok villages along the Klamath River participated in a series of rituals and dances that were considered essential to the maintenance of world order, the health of individuals, productivity and availability of plants, animals, and fish, assistance from spiritual beings, and the prevention of natural disasters. The ceremonies encompassed a wide range of ritual performances which, among other things, afforded opportunities for wealth display and costuming. They also included various first-fruits ceremonies tied to a ceremonial calendar and specific locations as well as serving as a time when the recently deceased were remembered and mourned.
Kuksu Religion
This system was predominant from the northern end of the Sacramento Valley southward to the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley and was common to the Pomoans, Miwok, Patwin, Nisenan, Hill and Valley Maidu; Cahto; Yuki and Huchnom and may have spread as far south as the southern end of the San Francisco Bay region. Of paramount importance was the impersonation of the Kuksu spirit and petitions to the spirits for the renewal of the world and the continuation of environmental abundance.
Most of the peoples who practiced the Kuksu religion had one or more secret societies whose members were socially, politically, and economically superior to nonmembers. Secrete society members administered and led cycles or rites & ceremonies, usually including curing, singing, & dancing, in which elaborately costumed members represented transformed divinities, ghosts, or spirits. In so doing they recreated sacred time and restored people to the unsullied state that had prevailed at the time of creation.
Toloache
This is a datura-based religion, apparently of considerable time depth, and common to the peoples of south-central and southern California. Datura, or jimsonweed, is a plant with dramatic narcotic properties and among many societies of pre-contact California it was used by shamans to facilitate the acquisition of power from supernatural sources which was then used for healing, divining, and diagnosing, among other things.
Among the Yokuts of the San Joaquin Valley toloache was ingested in group rites and the visions experienced gave information about what was causing illnesses or trouble. Toloache was also used on an individual basis to assure luck in gambling, to cure certain illnesses, and to attain personal visions. Further south, among the Chumansh, the use of toloache centered in the secret society, ?antap, the members of which presided at ceremonies in which the sun and the earth were worshipped.
Chingichngish Religion
Primarily centered among the Luiseño-Juaneño, Gabrielino, and Ipai-Tipai peoples of south coastal California, this religion may have developed just prior to European settlement. Little is known of this religion as most of its esoteric knowledge has been kept secret, but apparently a culture hero named Chingichngish came among the people preaching a new body of beliefs which became fused with preexisting beliefs and practices. Among the new teachings were strict codes of conduct, a respect for authority, a prohibition on the use of Chingichngish's name in swearing or oaths, respect for family and social obligations, and an insistence on reciprocity and food-sharing. To ensure that these codes and behavioral patterns were followed, a special class of supernatural spirits, the "avengers" was created.
The key technological advances of the Formative Period included oceangoing canoes, fish dams, deep-sea fishing nets, the bow and arrow, and as noted above, craft specialization.
When Europeans first sailed the coastal waters of California they found themselves in one of the richest maritime environments on earth. Great schools of bonito, albacore, skipjack, yellowfin, bluefin and other deep-sea fish were drawn to coastal waters, attracted by myriad shoals of sardines, anchovies and lesser species. Enormous herds of sea mammals (whales, sea otters, porpoises, dolphins, seals, sea lions) provided a bounty of different foods. Rich kelp beds near Santa Barbara made that region one of the most productive prehistoric fisheries on the Pacific coast. The development of the seagoing dugout canoe in northern California and the sewn-plank canoe in southern California allowed people for the first time to fish offshore systematically, enhancing the exploitation of these high-abundance seasonal resources. Related to this was the development of large nets for deep-sea fishing and the use of cooperative labor crews and craft specialists, including boat builders, captains, navigators and boat owners.
Fish Dams
Fish dams also enhanced exploitation of high-abundance aquatic resources. In northwestern California, fish dams, constructed from logs, were built entirely across a river. Anadromous fish (spawn in fresh water - live in salt water) trapped behind the dam during their spawning run could be harvested in larger quantities than with traps, nets, or spears. In the interior, similar dams were built on the larger rivers, while rock dams were built in smaller streams (see image at right). Such dams, or traps, were not only used to trap the fish, but served to assist the fish in propagating their species.
Bow and Arrow.
At some point in time, perhaps as early as 500 A.D., bow and arrow technology spread into California, replacing the spear and the dart and spear-thrower which had been in use since Paleo-Indian times. The bow offers several advantages: greater range, more power, potentially greater accuracy, and is less cumbersome to use in wooded habitats. Overall, the bow improved hunting effectiveness and contributed to the success of Formative subsistence strategies. It also made inter-group warfare much more deadly.
This period represents the transition from the diffuse economies of the Archaic to more focal adaptations. As energy extraction technologies improved, permanent settlements became larger and expanded into new regions previously occupied only on a part-time basis. Several separate traditions can be seen in the archaeological record, including the Berkeley of the San Francisco Bay region, the Campbell of coastal southern California, and the Cosumnes of the Central Valley.
Berkeley
Shortly after 4,000 years ago, new peoples moved into the San Francisco
Bay bringing with them a basically Windmiller cultural pattern. They adapted
to estuaries, bays, and marshes, supporting themselves on a bounty of fish,
shellfish, watefowl, and many edible plant species. Many sites were located
in ecotones, areas where two or more ecozones intersected. By settling in
such areas they could exploit more efficiently a wider variety of resources.
Campbell
This is an early to middle Formative tradition found in coastal southern
California. In the Santa Barbara area people relied on the hunting of deer
and sea mammals while to the south the use of chaparral seeds and acorns
were more important. Additionally, all Campbell peoples made use of shellfish
as well as developing the ability to fish offshore.
Cosumnes
Like the Campbell, the Cosumnes is also an early to middle Formative tradition
that developed in the Delta region out of the preceding Windmiller. Cosumnes
people continued to live near the lower San Joaquin &Sacramento rivers,
locating their villages on knolls or other high points of land above the
floodplains, as well as on the grassy terraces lining these rivers' westward
draining tributaries. Salmon fishing and acorn harvesting were important.
There are indications that territoriality was emerging, since some Cosumnes
burials have projectile points embedded in them.
During the middle formative previously unoccupied parts of the state were permanently settled for the first time (southern Sierra, the lower Klamath River, the coast betwen Santa Cruz &Morro Bay). Cultures continued to increse their emphasis on anadromous fish, acorns, seeds, while the hunting of large animals declined. Population densities grew, a greater degree of social complexity emerged, trade increased, and there was a greater degree of sedentism. One of the archaeologically better known traditions is the Chowchilla in the southern Sierra, which emerged around 2,200 and lasted until about 1200 years ago. Subsistence was focused on hard seeds, salmon fishing, and deer hunting.
This is the period when the historically known California Indian cultures took their final form. Riverine &ocean fishing reached their greatest productivity, population levels rose markedly, societies became increasingly complex, warfare was common, a shell-bead money system became widespread, and regional differences became more marked. Three well documented traditions are the Canaliño - Chumash along the Santa Barbara coast &offshore islands, the Hotchkiss of the Delta region in central California, and the Northwestern Tradition.
Canaliño - Chumash
The Canaliño - Chumash people living along the Santa Barbara coast
developed an extremely focal economy, based on two technologies: offshore
fishing and sea-mammal hunting using seagoing boats of planks fastened together
with cordage and sealed with asphaltum; and the seasonal collecting of acorns,
hard seeds, and shellfish. Communites were large and socially complex, with
up to 1,500 people living in a single settlement, and served as trade centers,
dominating the surrounding areas.
The Canaliño - Chumash probably reached the highest point of achievement in bone, shell, and stone technology in California and were responsible for some of North America's most noteworthy cave paintings. Done in polychrome, black, red, and white, with an occasional yellow most of these paintings are abstract representations of the sun, stars, human beings, birds, fish, and reptiles. The meaning of the art is unknown, but some of it is connected with astronomical observances, and to a calendrical system.
Hotchkiss
This tradition represents the protohistoric cultures of the Delta region
in central California. Although hard seeds, waterfowl and other resources
were part of the economic base, acorns and salmon achieved paramount importance
as foods along with deer hunting. Villages were sited in ecotones along
the lower San Joaquin &Sacramento rivers, in the valleys of these rivers'
westward flowing tributaries, and in the Delta itself. People lived in large,
sedentary communities composed of many semi-subterranean houses. One Hotchkiss
village in the Sacramento valley covered 11 acres, may have included up
to 90 houses, and had a year-round population of 500-700 people.
Lifeways similar to Hotchkiss can be seen throughout the San Joaquin &Sacramento valleys, the foothills of the Sierra, the southern Cascades, the Coast Ranges, and the San Francisco Bay area, although the specific constellation of traits varied. For example, the Bay area had access to less salmon than the Central Valley but more saltwater fish and shellfish, while the people living in the North Coast Ranges made greater use of acorns, but had much less access to anadromous fish.
Northwestern Tradition
Compared to the rest of California, a distinctive cultural pattern did not
arise in the northwestern regions of California until relatively recently,
around 2,000 - 1,500 years ago. In the Humboldt Bay area &along the
lower reaches of the Eel &Mad rivers a specialized riverside and coastal
adaptation developed, perhaps brought into the region by ancestors of the
historically known Yurok and Wiyot peoples. People relied heavily on seasonal
slamon runs and other predictable marine resources, such as offshore schooling
fish and sea mammals, using the interior mountainous areas for hunting and
seasonal acorn harvesting. Communities along the coast were large, complex,
sedentary, and maintained trading ties with groups as far way as 400 miles.
A money system, based on strings of dentalium shells imported from Puget
Sound, Washington, arose as did social ranking, validated in wealth-display
ceremonies.
When the Formative came to an end, more than 300,000 people called California home. Political organization ran the gamut from completely independent communities to several neighboring settlements led by the leader of the most important community. No one knows just how many such communities,or "tribelets", as the early 20th century anthropologist Alfred Kroeber labelled them, existed, but there may have been as many as 500+. Relationships between tribelets were organized &controlled by trade, ritual, &military alliances. There were ritual congregations, such as the jimsonweed cult and the World Renewal and Kuksu cults, that linked one tribelet with other tribelets. Trade feasts sometimes brought several hundred to several thousand people together, while in the San Joaquin Valley, three thousand people might attend an annual mourning ceremony held at the political center of a tribelet. Such centers served as nodes for intense socio-political interaction while simultaneously serving to maintain economic equilibrium between as many as a dozen or more tribelets, and several ecozones.
Just how much more complex &sophisticated Native Californian cultures might have become will never be known. With the arrival of the Europeans came an end to the autonomous Native California way of life. The foreigners brought with them new technologies, new diseases, new religions, new economies, and the physical destruction of the old order.
Any understanding of the pre-contact history of California
must take into account the linguistic history of the area, a not easy task
given that in California 20% of the nearly 500 separate languages spoken
in North America were represented here. There were 6
distinct language stocks, 23 language families and isolated languages,
making a total of some 90 languages, plus innumerable dialects.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber recognized 104 separate language groups in California, derived from six distinct language stocks. The names given today to these stocks are: Hokan, Penutian, Algic, Na Dené, Uto-Aztecan, and Yukian. Many anthropologists believe that the state's languages were origianlly introduced by waves of immigrants who entered California, became established in an area, then expanded into other areas. The Hokan-speaking groups are commonly thought to be among the first settlers, partly because their languages show the greatest diversity and possible time depth. Before 6,000 years ago, the population of the state may have been almost entirely Hokan-speaking, except for the North Coast Ranges, where Yukian speakers lived.
Between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, there were considerable language shifts, especially among Uto-Aztecan groups in eastern California. In northern California, Penutian speakers may have moved into the marshy lower Sacramento Valley around 4,500 years ago, a movement often associated with the Windmiller Tradition. Over the next few centuries, they spread and diversified, forcing the earlier Hokan-speaking groups to the periphery. In time Penutian-speaking populations would come to fully occupy the great central valley, as well as expanding westward into the Bay area and southward as far as the Monterey Peninsula.
Somewhat later, Uto-Aztecan speakers moved into southern California, pushing the earlier Hokan-speaking populations north- and southward along the coast, while the Algic-speaking ancestors of the Yurok and Wiyot were moving into northwestern California. The last arrivals were the Na Dené speakers who may have drifted down the rivers and coast from Oregon and settled both north and south of the Algic-speakers.
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