VENTURA : Workers Uncover Indian Aqueduct

Workers at a road-widening project in east Ventura have uncovered what an archeologist believes is part of a 200-year-old aqueduct built by Chumash Indians.

The rock-and-mortar structure under Telephone Road near Saticoy Avenue may have carried water from a subterranean spring to a large settlement of American Indians within a quarter of a mile of the site.

“It’s quite a significant find,” said archeologist Jim Miller, an environmental consultant to the city project. “It’s what people used before pipes were invented.”

The stones of the aqueduct were found beneath the asphalt road, which was laid in 1917, Miller said. But arrowheads, bowls and grindstones have been found nearby--all of them important artifacts of Ventura County history, he said.

The aqueduct itself has been crushed, and water no longer flows through it, but it will be mapped and preserved for future generations, Miller said.

“The median of the road will be directly on top of it,” Miller said.

A local Chumash representative, Qun’Tan Garcia of Ventura, said he initially thought that the aqueduct was a building foundation. But when he compared the mortar to an aqueduct found in the Santa Ynez Valley, he knew that it was much more. “I’m treating this like an Indian burial ground,” said Garcia, who expects to find more artifacts in the area. “Some neighboring ranchers found an aqueduct in their orchard, and there were people buried under it.”

Garcia said the aqueducts are part of one large aqueduct originating somewhere near Saticoy. It may have been built by Chumash Indians working as indentured servants for missionaries in the late 1700s. City crews are expected to complete the road project in two weeks, officials said.