THE PALEO-INDIAN PERIOD
Many archaeologists refer to the oldest period in California's
history as the Paleo-Indian Period, referring to the people who first entered
the Americas, and subsequently California, before the end of the Ice Age
some 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. There is no unquestionable evidence for
humans in California before about 12,000 - 13,000 years ago.
Evidence of people in California during the Paleo-Indian period is extremely rare; consequently much of what is said about their lifeways is speculative. We know some of the earliest immigrants into California hunted mammoth, sloth, and other large herbivores that browsed beside the huge freshwater lakes then covering much of interior California, including the great Central Valley as well as the drier southeastern parts of the state. Other people, living along the southern California coast by at least 10,000 years ago exploited fish, shellfish and maritime mammals.
By looking at the places where people of the Paleo-Indian period lived and worked, as well as the artifacts and ecofacts found at those places, we can get a general idea about their lives. Most Paleo-Indian sites are found in the deserts of southern California (there are a few in the Central Valley), with almost all of their occupation sites located near the shorelines of what were then large lakes (such as the now dry lake beds of China Lake, Lake Mohave, Borax Lake, and Tulare Lake). Such locations were selected not only for their proximity to reliable water supplies, but also because lakes attracted game animals as well as providing sources for many useful plants. A few Paleo-Indian sites also have been found at various places along the southern California coast.
Because of the large amount of fire-cracked rocks found at occupation sites we know that the people tended to remain at such sites for considerable periods of time. Usually when people remain in one place for any extended length of time, they build fairly substantial houses. However, there are no recognizable house remains at Paleo-Indian occupation sites, suggesting that they may have built only temporary shelters, sufficient to last a season or two, similar to peoples living in the interior southern California desert region during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. And in a similar vein, most Paleo-Indian occupation sites are relatively small in areal extent, which is interpreted by archaeologists as reflecting the small size of the group responsible for the occupation.
As noted in the section Indians of California-Before Contact, there are two major thypothesis concerning the original peopling of California:
Both hypothesis have their adherents and detractors. At present, there is insufficient evidence to positively rule out one or the other. There are some very early sites in southern California that seem to support the coastal migration hypothesis, and it is known that by at least 10,000 years ago people along the southern California coast were exploiting fish, shellfish, maritime mammals, along with easily acquired and processed plant foods. There are other sites in interior southern California, and in the interior of central California, which point to a gatherer-hunter culture dating to perhaps as early as 11,000 -12,000 years ago and flourishing until shortly after 10,000 years ago.
A Pioneer Settlement
Pattern - refers to the knowledge, skills, and technology that
the First Californians brought with them, and their ability or inability
to use them in their new surroundings
A Nomadic Gathering and Hunting Subsistence Pattern
- emphasized a few basic food resources
A Universal Technology - few tools,
each of which served several functions
Micro-Band Level of Social
Organization - the largest social and economic units were single
extended families (perhaps totally 8 to 15 people)
The first humans to enter California are called pioneers not only because they were the first people here, but also because they had no information about what they would find in terms of plant, animal, and mineral resources. Unlike their descendants, who would invent a multitude of tools (and the accompanying technology) which would allow them to tap virtually the entire wealth of food, medicine, and industrial plant and animal resources, the Paleo-Californians could only have made their lving by using plants and animals already familiar to them. For those first immigrants who came from the Great Basin or southwestern Plateau regions, they would have concentrated on a moderate variety of widely distributed game animals (ranging in size from mammoths, horse, american camels to deer to rabbits, lizards, perhaps even insects). They also would have made use of widespread plant species with which they were already familiar and which required little specialized knowledge for acquiring and processing. Somewhat similarly, immigrants coming into California by watercraft along the Pacific coast would have made use of widespread shellfish species, perhaps kelp and other seaweed, as well as widespread coastal plant species.
Like all peoples everywhere in the world at the end of the Ice Age, the First Californians made their living as nomadic gatherers and hunters, taking advantage of various food resources WHEN and WHERE nature provided them, and in amounts as provided by nature. In keeping with their status as "pioneers," the lives of the Paleo-Californians revolved around a relatively few key resources, with several of those resources being major staples throughout the year. People moving into California from adjacent parts of the continent tended to rely on certain game resources, supplemented with a few broadly distributed plant species. Along the coast, certain species of shellfish that were common along the North American coast, along with plants that were easily gathered and prepared, were the key staples.
Unlike the Native Californians of later time periods, who had a separate tool for each specific task, the Paleo-Californians had relatively few tool types, each of which was designed for many tasks. The designs of their multi-functional tools were simple, but well suited to their purposes: chopping, slicing, piercing, sawing, pounding, shredding, driling, shaving, and making other tools. Among the most common tools forms of the Paleo-Californians are choppers, bifaces, knives, flake scrapers, hammerstones, and serrate flakes. Towards the end of the Paleo-Indian time period, the Paleo-Californians added to their tool kits several distinctive types of scapers and planes. Some of these tools resemble those known from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which were used by the native Californians in acquiring and processing plant materials and/or processing wood and leather. Perhaps the similar tools of the Paleo-Californians also were used for such purposes.
The archaeological record is almost devoid of the kinds of information needed for reconstruction the social organization of the Paleo-Californians. However, because they are so few sites in California which date from the end of the Ice Age, and because those that do exist are relatively small in both areal extent and depth of cultural materials, it is hypothesized that Paleo-Californian society was organized around the micro-band. That is, one or two extended families (each composed of a married couple and their children, along with additional relatives, such as an aged parent, perhaps a parents' sibling, or a widowed sister) lived, travelled, worked and played together, and for most of the year they encountered no other people. But at least once a year, when game and other food resources were particularly abundant at specific locations, several micro-bands would come together. Such gatherings provided both social and economic opportunities: micro-bands would exchange marriage-age individuals, news, ideas, information, raw materials, perhaps even some finished goods. Initiation ceremonies for pubescent girls and boys were probably held as well. Such inter-band exchange, especially of marriageable individuals, created ties of kinship which improved the survival chances of all those involved by providing a wider network of mutual assitance and aid than could be generated by a single micro-band.
Except for the structure of the extended family itself, there was no formal social or political organization, no formalized leadership roles or formal bodies of law.
There were relatively few economic role distinctions, beyond those assigned by sex and age. In general, every adult woman knew and did what every other adult woman knew and did; likewise with every adult male. Adult females were most likely responsible for collecting plant foods, foraging for insects, capturing turtles and other easily taken small game, preparing both plant and animal foods, collecting the raw materials from which women's tools (such as digging sticks, carrying devices) were made, and taking care of infants and small children. Adult males were responsible for, among other things, the hunting of large and medium sized game animals, collecting the raw materials from which their tools were fashioned, and perhaps bringing in firewood when returning from a hunt empty-handed.
For reasons not yet clear, the last eight thousand years of the Ice Age was a time of mass extinctions of hundreds of species of animals around the world. In North America, these extinctions involved the large herbivorous mammals, such as the mammoth (an American form of elephant; one is picture at the top of this page), mastodon (a relative of the American elephant), North American camelids, giant ground sloths, and horses, as well as the various carnivores (such as the numerous forms of saber-toothed cats and the dire wolves) who preyed upon the herbivores. Other mammal species underwent selection for smaller forms. For example, the giant bison was replaced (evolved into?) by 11,000 - 12,000 years ago by bison similar in size to those known today.
Along with the changes in animal forms and numbers came changes in climate. Inland areas became drier and warmer, and the great lakes which once filled the valleys of the Great Basin and southern interior California began to shrink in size and eventually disappear.
Climatic changes, in turn, stimulated changes in the plant communities which in their turn affected animal distributions. The locations, abundance, and reliability of plants and animals that the Paleo-Californians had depended upon for so many generations were changing, and in some cases disappearing completely. In areas away from the immediate coastal regions, the environment was rapidly losing its ability to support the age-old Paleo-Indian lifestyle. The Paleo-Californians were left were only three responses: die out, move out, or adapt. While it's likely that some groups died out, and others moved away in search of the old life, some micro-bands responded by developing new adaptations. Gradually, the Paleo-lifeways gave way to those called the ARCHAIC.
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Last updated: 17 August 1999