Road Work Halts : Indian Objects Uncovered at State Park

Los Angeles County officials Friday halted road-widening work next to Malibu Creek State Park after artifacts from a former Chumash Indian village were uncovered by initial grading.

Frank Schroeder, chief of contract construction inspection for the county Department of Public Works, said the county will consult the state Office of Historic Preservation before resuming the work, which involves widening a quarter-mile stretch of Las Virgenes Road between Mulholland Highway and the state park entrance.

The construction permit issued by the state Coastal Commission requires the county to consult with the preservation agency if artifacts are discovered during work.

The artifacts--including shells, bone fragments and flakes from stone tools--were uncovered as a backhoe pulled down a wire fence on the park boundary in preparation for earth moving. The county could be required to do extensive excavation or redesign the project before going ahead with it.

“We’re hoping we can continue,” Schroeder said. “We think we’re performing a valuable service in making this entrance to the park there safe,” he said.

Chester King, an archeologist who has studied the Chumash site and was at the scene Friday, said county officials have attempted “to ignore that there’s any issue of their damaging an archeological site.”

King described the Chumash settlement, known as Telepop, as “the best preserved historic village in the interior of the Santa Monica Mountains.”