Plinking Gives Way to Prehistory : Protected Status Sought for Indian Sites in Angeles Forest

Texas Canyon is an unlikely place to discover something worthy of inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

The canyon, tucked deep in the heart of Angeles National Forest about 11 miles northeast of Saugus, for years resembled a war zone. Thousands of gun enthusiasts had sprayed the hillsides, cottonwoods and desert plants with bullets and had illegally hauled in rusting cars, refrigerators and buckets of paint to use as better targets.

Only when forest rangers closed the area to shooters last year did the forest’s two archeologists feel safe enough to approach the canyon, which was littered with a carpet of spent shells and shotgun casings.

But there was a payoff when they finally got a good look at the area--they discovered ancient rock art painted by Indians about 1,000 BC.

“How this managed to be saved is a wonder among wonders,” said Rick Wessel, the forest’s assistant archeologist, standing under a canopy of 20-million-year-old boulders where the faded red drawings were found.

Artifacts Found

This is one of 22 sites the forest’s antiquity detectives have uncovered in the past four years that the state deemed eligible for acceptance into the National Register of Historic Places--the first and most critical step in the process. Decorated rocks used for Indian rites and the remnants of Indian mortuaries, earth ovens, sweat lodges (where men retreated for saunas) and tribal ceremonies also have been exhaustively documented.

In addition, the archeologists have opened a window on what life was like in the parched mountains in the early 20th Century by documenting Depression mining activities and the feuding between forest rangers and those who had gold fever.

The money for all the work has come from an unlikely source. State off-highway vehicle fees have paid for the survey of 2,000 acres. The project, which could cost up to $100,000 by the time it is completed, has kept the two archeologists and many summer interns busy for four years.

The unusual alliance has not been totally smooth. The archeology work caused a two-year delay in the creation of formal off-road vehicle paths in the Rowher Flats portion of the forest’s Saugus district.

Archeologists have attempted to ensure that none of the proposed trails in Rowher Flats will destroy prehistoric or historic sites. Some routes have been redrawn after the archeological team determined that land was historically significant.

“You can’t move archeological sites; you can close . . . OHV sites,” said Mike McIntyre, the forest’s archeologist.

Cam Lockwood, the forest’s off-highway vehicle program coordinator, said he can understand the frustrations of off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

“The archeologists are constantly finding more and more; every time they go to a new site they find something new,” Lockwood said. The off-road enthusiasts “are concerned that eventually the whole area will be blocked or closed except for a very, very narrow band.”

What the archeologists are doing could be compared to police lifting fingerprints from a crime scene.

There are no prehistoric structures standing in the forest, nor any foundations remaining. Many of the artifacts, now stored at UCLA, are rocks shaped into hammer stones or grinding tools. They also have collected beads and arrowheads, some dating back 3,000 years. And they have squirreled away for future analysis hundreds of small bags of dirt that contains tiny particles of food waste and plant materials.

“When you look at these sites, it doesn’t look like much is out there,” McIntyre said.

Studying Life Style

It is not the archeologists’ intent, however, to collect a museum full of impressive relics. They typically only excavate tiny sections of a site to get a sampling of what might be hiding below. What they hope to take away is a better understanding of what life was like for the Indians who lived in these rugged hills and canyons.

They discovered that the prehistoric inhabitants, classified as hunters and gatherers, were much more sophisticated than anyone had thought, Wessel said. The archeologists concluded that the Indians were less concerned about living near food and water. Rather, they seemed to locate their campgrounds on what they considered sacred ground.

The discoveries could have ramifications in other national forests. For instance, when federal archeologists survey timberland before the chain saws are allowed in, they may now consider exploring the hilliest, most remote areas instead of presuming Indians didn’t live there.

“We treat prehistoric cultures . . . very simplistically,” Wessel said. “We treat them as foragers of food in California. There is a lot more to prehistoric culture than just caching food.”

Tataviam Indians

Many of the prehistoric artifacts belonged to the Tataviam Indians, who maintained an economy based on shells and beads, practiced astronomy and observed a complex social system headed by religious leaders, McIntyre said.

The most unusual possessions the Indians left behind, the experts said, are hundreds of pitted rocks, called “cupules,” found scattered across the mountains. Women who wanted to bear children would tap out shallow holes in the large rocks and pray, the archeologists said. The Indians also would fill the holes in ceremonies meant to bring rain.

Some of the cupules are just a stone’s throw from a modern snippet of history in the oldest national forest in California. Hoping to make the semiarid Angeles productive like the cool green forests of the Northwest, forestry employees sprayed a section of the forest with defoliants in the 1960s, Wessel said. The intent was to clear out the brambles of desert foliage and plant trees that could one day be chopped down for timber.

The tree plantation was a failure. Today, little grows there and the experimental trees remain miniatures.

Diet of Yucca

The Indians also left behind clues to their diet. For them, the heart of the yucca plant was as popular as today’s hamburger, the archeologists said.

The Indians would wait patiently for seven years to harvest the mature Yucca plant until it was just about to flower. They’d cook the heart, which tastes like soap when improperly prepared, until it carmelized and tasted like yams. It could be diced and stored for a year.

The archeologists haven’t been able to save all the artifacts ravaged by man and nature. Last summer, for instance, an excavation team descended upon a large rock shelter that they suspected contained the hidden remains of a prehistoric oven. But carbon testing of the earth showed that the site had been “turned topsy-turvy” by motor bikes, Wessel said.

Dirt bikers and gun lovers are not the only natural predators of archeological artifacts. Scavengers have disturbed grave sites looking for spear points, pottery, abalone pendants, beads and effigies.

Vandals have almost obliterated a second example of rock art discovered in Texas Canyon. The archeologists suspect New Agers, who believe in the curative power of crystals, might have crudely drawn some Indian symbols over the real thing, the archeologists said. Soot from campfires has further damaged some pale zigzag drawings.

As a defense against vandals, the archeologists have borrowed hidden motion detectors once used by rangers in national forests in northern California to spot marijuana growers. Placed at two prehistoric mortuaries, all they have spotted so far are animals.