Controversy Unearthed Over Handling of Artifacts

As the argument continues over where to build Holy Cross School, many of the Chumash and mission artifacts recovered from the proposed site sit in Los Angeles and thousands of miles away in Syracuse, N.Y.

The chief archeologist for a 1997 excavation of the site of the original San Buenaventura Mission compound holds the more significant artifacts recovered from the dig.

Gary Stickel--who is still fighting church leaders over the construction plans there--has a cannonball, lead cross, smoking pipes and sacramental wine bottle, among other finds. He said he turned the rest of the artifacts over to the mission.

A Syracuse University graduate student, Thomas Tolloy, is cataloging much of the remaining material as part of his master’s thesis.

Syracuse associate professor of archeology Christopher DeCorse, who is supervising Tolloy, said the box of artifacts sent to him by the mission contains bags filled with bits of 19th century trade items from Europe, including ceramics, beads and glass.

Tolloy will compile a database describing each artifact, its age and possible purpose. DeCorse said someone else will have to synthesize the materials to compile an overall picture of how the early mission operated.

Little headway has been made on the project thus far, but a report on the artifacts should be ready by early December, DeCorse said. The mission will not be charged for the analysis, though it may have to pay for the artifacts to be shipped west.

When the artifacts return to the mission, they will be handed over to a museum, parish member Kevin McAtee said.

Ed Robings, director of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art, said the museum had been told it would receive artifacts from the mission site but, thus far, none has appeared.

Stickel, who left the excavation during a disagreement with the mission’s leaders, criticized the mission for not properly analyzing the artifacts and for sending them east when suitable analysis could have been done in California. He also said it was “unethical” that he, as the collector of the artifacts, has not been contacted by its analysts.

Stickel said he is reluctant to return the objects found at the excavation unless the mission can guarantee their proper care.

“That church is not properly set up for the [curatorship] of the material,” he said.