SHELLMOUNDS SHOW HABITS OF INDIANS
Important discoveries as to the prehistoric inhabitants of the region of San Francisco bay have been made by a party of university students, under the direction of N. C. Nelson of the anthropological museum of the University of California, who has returned from a month's excavations in the shell mounds of Marin county.
Three mounds, at Sausalito, Greenbrae and San Rafael, specially selected after a thorough survey of the hundreds that line the shores of the bay, were explored. Between 500 and 1000 cubic yards of the combination of shell, ash and refuse of which the mounds are composed were turned over and carefully examined. The results are a collection of several hundred specimens illustrating the life of the aboriginal population, and a mass of information as to the approximate age of the mounds, their stratification and history.
All the mounds examined show a high antiquity, though none of those yet excavated in Marin county go back to quite as remote an origin as certain of the larger mounds in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The more recent of the structures examined in Marin county are probably fifteen hundred years old; the more ancient go back in their beginnings perhaps three thousand years or more.
The ancient dwellers on the north shores of the bay were found to have practiced essentially the same industries and customs, and to have been in the same low stage of development of civilization, as those on the eastern side. Certain differences have nevertheless been discovered. The complete absence of stone sinkers and other implements which might have been used for fishing, and the scarcity of animal bones, indicate that the former race in Marin county more nearly resembled the recent Indians in California, in finding its principal subsistence in wild plant foods, while the prehistoric people of Alameda, Berkeley and Richmond were a more successful race of fishermen and hunters.
A certain gradual development towards a higher form of civilization has been traced in each of the mounds examined, the upper strata containing more elaborate implements than those at the base. The advancement is slight, however, and indicates that the race was unprogressive and changed very little in thousands of years,
The collections have been sent to the museum of anthropology at the Affiliated colleges in San Francisco, where they are now being prepared for permanent preservation by the university and ultimate exhibition to the public.
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