Value of Artifacts From Lost Village Debated

Archeologist Nancy A. Whitney-Desautels hasn’t a battered fedora to her name, and the corner of Balboa and Ventura boulevards doesn’t look much like the Temple of Doom.

Otherwise, the saga of the Lost Village of Encino might suggest a script for Indiana Jones, the peril-a-minute archeologist of the movies.

It has millions of ancient artifacts held hostage, a besieged archeologist, Indians both friendly and angry, and secret sunrise burial rites. There are political maneuvers in Sacramento, millions of dollars at stake, and feuds over arcane points of San Fernando Valley archeology.

The lost village controversy began last year with the discovery of the remains of a long-sought Indian settlement on the southeast corner of Balboa and Ventura boulevards, under the site of a razed restaurant. The excavation yielded 2 million artifacts, which may shed light on how Southern California Indians lived 30 centuries ago.

Controversy Shifts

Now the archeological digging is over; an office building is rising on the site, and the centers of the controversy have shifted to Sacramento and Orange County.

In Sacramento, the state government is in a quandary over the expense of dealing with the troublesome trove of stones, bones and beads. California law requires real estate developers to pay for archeological surveys on potentially significant sites and for the excavation of important finds. That’s the source of the lost village project. But the law makes no provision for preserving, analyzing and storing artifacts once they are out of the ground.

In Orange County, Desautels, the Huntington Beach archeologist who headed the excavation, is holding on to a warehouse stacked with bags of artifacts. She says she will not release them until somebody pays her bill for labor, artifact analysis and other expenses.

It is around Desautels, an outspoken 36-year-old woman who moves confidently among power brokers in real estate, politics and archeology, that much of the controversy revolves.

$1.7-Million Excavation

Desautels, who has a 1979 doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, is the president of an archeological firm named Scientific Resource Surveys Inc. She persuaded the developers of the Encino building site, First Financial Group Inc., to pay many times what they were obliged by law to pay at the site. It turned out to be one of the largest private excavations ever tackled in California, costing $1.7 million, and it solved an old puzzle.

Since the 1950s, archeologists had searched the area around the intersection for a village described in the writings of Father Juan Crespi, a missionary who accompanied Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola.

On Aug. 5, 1769, the members of De Portola’s expedition crossed Sepulveda Pass and became the first white men to enter the San Fernando Valley. Descending into the area that is now Encino, the expedition halted near a spring-fed pool, where, Father Crespi wrote, they found “a large village of heathen, very friendly and docile. . . . We counted more than 200 men, women and children.”

Historical Park

The spring and pool still exist, in Los Encinos State Historical Park north of Ventura Boulevard, about half a block east of Balboa Boulevard.

Desautels announced in October that her crew had found the remains of the Indian community, which is believed to have been inhabited for 3,000 years, from prehistoric times through the 18th Century.

Desautels described the find as a “unique discovery” that provided “the largest archeological collection from a single site in the state of California.”

Within a few months a bill was making its way through the state Legislature to appropriate $975,000 to preserve and analyze the artifacts. The money probably would go mostly to her firm, since she is already doing the work.

Introduced by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), the bill passed the Senate 29 to 2 in June. It stalled in an Assembly subcommittee last week when the state Department of Parks and Recreation requested a moratorium until January. The department wants time for state archeologists to determine the significance and public usefulness of the artifacts, which First Financial has offered to donate to the state.

Museum Question

“We’re trying to determine if this is something that’s worthy of a museum,” said Barbara Rathbun, assistant deputy director of the department. The study is to explore the feasibility of building or refurbishing a museum, at a cost estimated at up to $11 million, in or near Los Encinos park.

Among the problems to be addressed: how to display 15,000 beads, 800 stone tools and 4,000 arrowheads in a museum that would interest the public.

Robbins has argued that the museum would give visitors a chance “to see how people lived in the San Fernando Valley for thousands of years in the past.”

However, his bill is opposed by the state Native American Heritage Commission, an advisory panel on Indian affairs, on the grounds that it would encourage further digging of Indian remains.

Indians have been closely associated with the project, but not always enthusiastically.

As the law requires, Desautels employed an Indian monitor at the dig to guard traditional Indian cultural interests. Chosen was a representative of the Gabrielino Indians, who were officially designated by the Native American Heritage Commission as the likeliest descendants of the village’s inhabitants.

Representatives from the Fernandino and Chumash tribes also claimed their ancestors had lived in the village, with some of the Chumash complaining angrily about their exclusion. That led to a conference in the historical park earlier this year, to which leaders of all three tribes were invited. The Gabrielinos, already installed on the site and offended by the public bickering, boycotted the meeting and remained in charge.

The split between the tribes remained. Gabrielino leaders favor construction of a museum for the artifacts from the lost village. The Fernandino and Chumash joined with other tribes to get the Native American Heritage Commission to oppose it.

“To archeologists, preservation means to dig things up, analyze and study them,” said commission Chairman Paul Gary Beck. “To Indians, preservation means putting it back in the ground where it belongs.”

Under a state law that Indians pushed for precisely to keep the bones of their ancestors out of the hands of archeologists, the Gabrielinos took charge of the human remains found at the village. Shortly after dawn on April 15, they reburied them at an undisclosed site in Los Encinos State Historical Park, in a ceremony from which non-Indians were barred.

The significance of the lost village site is a subject of debate among archeologists.

‘Not Largest Site’

“It’s not the largest site by any means,” said Clay Singer, an archeological consultant in Santa Monica who has long studied Southern California archeology. “So far, the most unique thing about this site is that it’s the subject of the largest and most expensive excavation in the history of Los Angeles.”

Clement Meighan, a professor of anthropology at UCLA who heads the American Committee for Preservation of Archeological Collections, said he questions the importance of the site, especially since Desautels did not object when foundation work for the office building obliterated it forever, and because she has not published her findings in a professional archeology journal, where they would be reviewed and judged by her peers.

“If this site is of worldwide significance, how is it that it was bulldozed and still there’s no report?” he asked.

Some of Desautels’ most outspoken critics are present and former California State University, Northridge, archeologists whose professional disagreements with Desautels over the lost village stretch back 10 years.

Waste Products

Mark Raab, director of the CSUN Center for Public Archeology and president of the Society for California Archeology, said most of the 2 million artifacts recovered by Desautels are waste products--in effect, prehistoric garbage--such as small stone flakes produced during the making of arrowheads and tiny fragments of the bones of animals eaten by ancient Indians.

Waste does have archeological value and is a common object of study. Bone fragments can show what type of animals the Indians hunted. Stone chips can demonstrate tool-making techniques. But Singer maintains that 99.9% of Desautels’ finds are waste that would be of no interest to museum visitors.

Desautels, however, maintains that 12.5% of the objects, still a hefty 250,000 artifacts, are displayable.

Of her critics, especially those from CSUN, she said, “They’re mad because I found the village and they didn’t.” She also attributes criticism to professional rivalry and competition for what can be lucrative excavation contracts.

Squabble Over Shipwreck

One of the most sensational confrontations in Desautels’ past was an international squabble that arose when three archeological groups claimed the right to excavate a sunken ship in the British West Indies that was rumored--but never proved--to be the Pinta, part of the three-ship flotilla with which Columbus first sailed to the New World in 1492.

In 1981, Desautels said, she was invited by a treasure hunter, Robert Miklos, to survey the wreck, in the territorial waters of the British Crown Colony of Turks and Caicos Islands. However, another treasure-hunting firm and the Institute of Nautical Archeology, a nonprofit group affiliated with Texas A & M University, also laid claim to the wreckage.

Don Keith, who directed the Turks and Caicos project for the institute, said members of the Miklos expedition retrieved artifacts from the sunken ship without getting the required permits and dumped them overboard and fled after they were stopped by island police.

“I caught them out there and took pictures of them” working at the wreck site, Keith said.

Accusation Made

He said he filed an accusation with island authorities, who authorized the police to search their boats for antiquities.

Police “found them in abundance,” Keith said. “They tried to throw them overboard but the artifacts were recovered,” he said.

Desautels agreed that she, her late husband and Miklos traveled to the Turks and Caicos late in 1981 to examine the shipwreck and that she made several dives to view the wreck. She said she did not take any artifacts or treasure.

Their party left because of confusion over excavation rights in the islands’ volatile political climate, she said. “It really became a mess there for a while, and we decided our company didn’t want to get involved,” Desautels said. “We did leave very suddenly, as you would if there was a revolt.”

Spokesmen for the government of the Turks and Caicos were unable to confirm whether charges were filed against Miklos and his company but said no charges were ever filed against Desautels.

Credit for Find Questioned

A major dispute between Desautels and her critics is just how much credit she should get for locating the lost village, which other archeologists say was not so “lost” to begin with.

Years before Desautels appeared, in 1975, CSUN archeologists surveyed an adjoining piece of property for First Financial and concluded that it was the site of a “major prehistoric village” of considerable size.

John Romani, now a Caltrans archeologist, headed the Northridge survey team, which he said “found a lot of artifacts, and we told First Financial, ‘You’ve got a village here.’ ” Romani said First Financial was not pleased with their findings because it wanted to move ahead with a condominium and office complex.

Under orders from the city, First Financial in 1978 commissioned the Desautels firm to do a test excavation. The firm uncovered the remains of a turn-of-the-century tavern but reported that “nothing was discovered to point to the presence of a large Indian settlement.”

Findings Contested

The CSUN archeologists bitterly contested these findings. Michael McIntyre, now an archeologist for the U.S. Forest Service and former president of the Northridge research center, said the archeological community questioned the adequacy of Desautels’ report.

On the other hand, Charles Rozaire, curator of archeology for the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, said he was satisfied that Desautels had provided a “proper and adequate assessment” of the site. Rozaire is one of three research associates hired by Desautels to analyze village artifacts.

Several archeologists who were not involved in the original debate said both sides had legitimate grounds for conflicting interpretations of the evidence. They pointed out that, ironically, Desautels’ discovery of the village proved that her critics were correct.

Anger Over Claim

Romani was less detached. “We’re on record as calling it a village, and six years later they discover it,” he said angrily.

Desautels’ findings allowed First Financial to build on that property, which her critics charge may have destroyed part of the village. Romani recalled visiting the site in 1978 to watch the grading. “I stood there and watched them destroy that village with bulldozers,” he said. “They just graded it away.”

In the early 1980s, First Financial began construction plans for the adjoining property. Again they hired Scientific Research Surveys to do a test excavation. Desautels recalled the cost was originally estimated at $12,000.

According to state law, developers whose sites may yield archeological artifacts are liable for excavation costs up to a certain percentage of the planned construction costs, figured under a complex formula. First Financial, planning to build an estimated $50-million structure, was required to spend about $76,000, a spokesman said.

Fear of Vandals Cited

Work began in June, 1984. By the end of the month Desautels and her crew had unearthed Indian remains and knew they had stumbled upon a major find, Desautels said. The discovery was not announced until Oct. 8, she said, because she feared vandals and curiosity seekers.

Crew members and visiting archeologists said they were asked to sign “gag orders” not to talk about the discovery outside the professional community. Two full-time security guards were hired and an eight-foot fence was built.

In January, as the excavation was drawing to an end, Desautels laid off 12 employees, including Jeanne Binning, the assistant field director, and three of five section chiefs.

Desautels said employees who did not work hard were let go first. Binning said the dismissed employees were laid off two months early because they had talked about their doubts about the way work was being done.

Binning, who is completing her doctoral program at University of California, Riverside, and graduate students Leta Franklin and James Hall said they were disturbed because:

Indian graves were scattered by bulldozers instead of being carefully excavated, because of the need to hurry so construction work could begin.

Despite repeated requests, the crew was denied access to a research design, a scientific outline in archeological excavations stating the goals and methods of the project.

Uncovered artifacts were left in the ground for months before being removed.

The crew was not treated in a professional manner and Desautels did not communicate with the crew.

“You cannot imagine the disorganization that went on in the field,” Binning said. She said crew members believed that they were being pressed by Desautels to “hurry up and finish” and that they feared that they would be unable to complete the excavation in time to salvage all the artifacts.

Desautels denied that Indian burials were bulldozed and that artifacts were left in the ground for months. She said she had a research design and that Binning, who was in daily contact with the site director, Paul Langenwalter, should have disseminated information to the rest of the crew.

She acknowledged that she did not want her workers talking to outsiders about the project.

“Well-meaning people can open a can of worms because they don’t understand the political situation,” she said. “My job is the politics. Their job is excavating properly. Obviously, I was not pleased when some of them took it into their heads to get involved in my area.”

Artifacts in Warehouse

When the excavation ended in February, Desautels moved the artifacts to her Huntington Beach warehouse so she could begin preservation and analysis. Among the more important artifacts recovered were shell beads, glass beads thought to have been left by Spanish explorers who visited the village, arrowheads, stone bowls, mortars, pestles and other implements used to prepare food.

Because the artifacts were permeated with water after centuries underground, they crumble to dust if allowed to dry, she said, risking the existence of the items--retrieved with so much time, trouble and expense--unless preservation work is done immediately.

As of this month, 500,000 of the artifacts have been analyzed, Desautels said. Five to 10 people work each day to sort, sift and examine the artifacts under microscopes, she said.

Desautels said she has spent $350,000 of her own money in labor and lab costs. She estimated that it will cost $500,000 more to finish preserving and analyzing the collection.

She expects to be reimbursed, she said, and will not give up a single bead until she receives the money that is owed her. Joel M. Shine, a vice president of First Financial, said the company has paid far more than its share and will pay no more.

If Robbins does not get the money from the state, it is not clear where it could come from.