The Topanga Culture: Final Report on Excavations, 1948 — John Shaqi
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.)
The general conclusions reached in 1947 were not substantially altered by
the additional excavation. Nor did it help to solve all the dubious
aspects of the Topanga Culture. As might be expected, it led, rather, to
the formulation of further questions. However, new specimens and more
complete data add fullness to this report, and it is hoped these will
increase its utility for comparative studies.
With respect to physiographic location and archaeological assemblage, the
Tank Site does not conform to other sites previously known for the general
environs. Comparisons with the earliest horizon yet recognized to the
north, the Oak Grove of the Santa Barbara region (Rogers, D. B., 1929),
seem to offer the most satisfactory parallels as related to mortuary
practices and milling activities; however, inasmuch as the Oak Grove
Culture is not characterized as having a well-defined flake and core
industry we are forced through necessity to seek further comparative data
as expressed in the cultural inventory of the San Dieguito complex in the
extreme southern coastal area of southern California and among the remains
from the region of ancient Lake Mohave in the eastern desert. It is both
interesting and a problematical that here at Topanga we find in a single
cultural complex an almost complete record of all the recognized cultural
elements typifying early man in southern California. In addition to this
early-man complex there remains a residue of material which appears to be
best associated with cultural traits characteristic of a "middle" time
position. Such middle cultures can be tentatively identified with Point
Dume, the lower levels of Malaga Cove, the Little Sycamore, the Hunting
Culture of Santa Barbara, the Pinto-gypsum of the desert, and the La Jolla
phases of San Diego although the latter are at present poorly defined. At
the Tank Site (LAn-1) these traits, which are of "middle" position, have
been named Topanga Phase II, and significantly enough they are confined to
the upper 18 inches of the deposit. Site LAn-2, excavated this season,
proved to be almost exclusively Phase II from top to bottom. Since these
two sites occupy almost contiguous positions and with the distribution of
cultural elements being such as it is, the suggested cultural stratigraphy
observed in 1947 seems to be fairly well confirmed.
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