The Topanga Culture: Final Report on Excavations, 1948Treganza, Adan E. (Adan Eduardo)
History
The Topanga Culture: Final Report on Excavations, 1948
Treganza, Adan E. (Adan Eduardo)
California -- Antiquities; Topanga Canyon (Calif.)
This site has much in common with LAn-9 and LAn-10. The sloping knoll on
which the site is situated is part of the ridge that forms the north bank
of the intermittent creek. The leeched, indurated soil is hardly
recognizable as occupational deposit, but the fact that it forms a site is
obvious from its slightly darker coloring and the scattered surface
artifacts and reject material. These are thinly strewn over an area of 200
feet by 100 feet, and are found to a depth of 2 feet in the bank resulting
from a road cut at the base of the site.
The 10 single-edged planes that come from the surface range from large to
small, 9 of which are basalt and 1 a pink mudstone. A single massive
double-ended plane of basalt is much battered on its worked edges, which
are flaked back on their upper side. Battering is also in evidence along
the flaked edge of 4 bifacial choppers, 3 of which are basalt and 1
quartzite. Out of 4 basalt flake scrapers, one has been much used; and of
4 core hammerstones, 2 are basalt, 1 is quartzite, and 1 is mudstone.
Manos were represented by 3 bifacial types, the grinding surfaces of 2
being parallel, and 1 meeting at an angle to effect a wedge-shaped cross
section. All are well-shouldered, 1 displaying a pecked depression on a
single wear surface; 2 are of sandstone, 1 of which is carbonized; and the
third is of an igneous rock. Again, on all the basalt specimens the
patination is very marked.
_LAn-12._--The largest site yet found in the canyon is on the property of
Mr. Miller on the road to the Trippet Ranch, .25 of a mile southeast of
the Tank Site across an intermittent creek. It was noted that in the creek
bed, just downstream from the Miller residence, pools of water, which,
according to Mr. Trujillo were spring fed, an exceptionally dry summer
season.
The site extends from the ridge where the house is located into the knoll
west of the orchard, covering an area of 400 by 300 feet to a depth of at
least 30 inches. Artifacts are plentiful on the ploughed and cultivated
surface, and the highly indurated mound soil is dark and clayey. Where the
deposit has been cut by recent developments, little worked stone is found
in the banks; and a 5-foot square pit netted only one fragment of a ground
slate pendant, though the deposit extended below the 30 inches to which
the excavation proceeded. From the walls of the pit it could be noted that
some soil profile had already developed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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