Diggin’ It : 2 Topanga Canyon Archeologists Struggle to Save Artifacts

Chester King and Lynn Gamble hate the sound of bulldozers.

As practicing archeologists, the Topanga Canyon couple knows that where bulldozers go, Indian artifacts disappear.

“We’re talking about something that can never be regrown, that can never be brought back once it’s gone,” King said. Like Gamble, King would like to save all of California’s archeological sites. “We want that data to be preserved,” Gamble said, “or at least excavated in such a way that archeologists can use the data in the future.” But, for the present, the couple is fighting to save the 100 or so endangered archeological sites in their own back yard.

King, 46, said he first became interested in archeology almost 30 years ago when he saw an exhibit at Santa Monica College of choppers, scrapers and other stone tools that had been found in Topanga. King began looking for, and finding, similar reminders of the past whenever he visited his grandparents in the Topanga Canyon home that King and Gamble now share with their 6-year-old daughter, Naomi.

King and Gamble, who met on an archeological dig in San Jose, are experts on the Chumash Indians of the Southern California coast. King has a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California, Davis, and is especially interested in the beads the Indians made, sometimes using sea lion’s whiskers to drill the holes. Gamble, 40, has a special interest in stone tools. As a doctoral candidate at UC Santa Barbara, she excavated a large Chumash village at a site known as Mescalitan Island, in Goleta Slough near the campus, and is now analyzing the material obtained in the dig.

Major Threat

Development is the major threat to local caches of Indian artifacts and remains, King said. In recent years, he and his wife have fought along with concerned neighbors to prevent the bulldozing of Indian sites throughout the canyon, including those on two large tracts in the northern end of the canyon slated for development, known as Montevideo and Oakmont. Unlike archeology itself, archeological activism is frustrating work, King said. “You lose more battles than you win.”

Ironically, the couple say, state laws that require potential developers to have land holdings evaluated by an archeologist are no guarantee that sites will be preserved, or even recognized. Several years ago, King, Gamble and fellow Topanga archeologist Dan Larson visited the Montevideo tract after an archeologist retained by the developer said there were no Indian sites on the property. “As soon as we opened the car doors, we began seeing artifacts,” recalled Gamble, who said the grinding stones and scraping tools they found in the canyon may have been 8,000 years old.

Earlier this year, the three archeologists visited the Oakmont tract at the request of the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community (TASC). Once again, they found archeological sites where an archeologist retained by the developer said there were none.

King, Gamble and Larson recorded their finds on both tracts with the state-funded California Archeological Inventory Information Center at UCLA, hoping to improve the sites’ chances of surviving. In part because of what the archeologists found, the Topanga association filed a suit against Groupe Corp., the Oakmont developer, arguing that the entire subdivision should not be developed in light of unresolved environmental issues. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled against TASC in May, but work will not resume at Oakmont at least until the association is able to appeal.

L.A. County Less Rigorous

Both King and Gamble, who also are involved in archeological projects at Vandenberg Air Force Base, believe that Los Angeles County is far less rigorous than Santa Barbara in protecting its archeological resources. As they point out, Santa Barbara County, which has its own archeologist, requires that developers hire experts chosen by the county to evaluate their projects. In contrast, Los Angeles County has no archeologist and allows developers to hire their own consultants. In effect, King said, Los Angeles County tells developers: “You can do anything you want.”

King said that some archeological consultants hired to evaluate local sites do not recognize the importance of local finds. The Chumash and Gabrielino Indians of Southern California did not build pyramids or other imposing monuments. King said the attitude of some hired experts seems to be “Let’s make our money in California and then do a real dig in Mexico.”

With their trained eyes, King and Gamble look at Topanga and see an irreplaceable archive of information about the past. Chumash, Gabrielinos and their ancestors lived in the canyon for thousands of years until the Spanish removed the Indians from their traditional lands and brought them into the missions at the beginning of the 19th Century.

Fire-baked rocks mark places where the Indians built ovens in which they baked yucca buds, their primary food in the late winter. “They were eaten almost like artichokes,” King explained. “When you get to the center it’s like a big sweet potato.”

Depressions in other rocks reveal places where acorns and other seeds were ground for food. Rock shelters may have been hunting camps or residences. Open areas by streams and on knoll tops may have sheltered as many as 40 people in homes constructed of willow poles bent into a dome shape and thatched with grasses. There are ancient cemeteries near some of the vanished villages.

More Than 30 Sites

More than 30 sites in the canyon have already been recorded. The archeologists think excavation and study of the rest would reveal more about how the Topanga people used the resources of the canyon and what their annual calendar of activities was like. It might also provide insights into how the people of the canyon related to those who left their mark on the beach.

King and Gamble often advise California Indians on archeological matters. They also teach archeology to Native American groups. “Archeology is one of the ways they can regain their past,” said King. Gamble recalled with pleasure the ability of one former student to rattle off the Latin names of shells found at a dig, to the obvious surprise of some of the non-Indian scientists in the group.

Gamble is coordinating a 15-week archeology course at the Santa Ynez Indian reservation, near Solvang. In addition to teaching students how to recognize different artifacts and to chip stone tools, the couple teaches laboratory techniques. A few former students now work in archeological laboratories.

No one has a greater interest in the fate of Indian archeological sites than Native Americans, and knowing the techniques and language of archeology allows them to evaluate better what is being done at places that have unique meaning for them. King can’t imagine a better line of defense against the developer’s bulldozer than the well-informed opposition of Native Americans.

“Even they could sell out,” he said, “but they will be the last ones who do.”