Background
Arnold was born in northern Ohio and had an early start on her decision to pursue a career in archaeology and anthropology when she attended a National Science Foundation field school in western Pennsylvania during high school. Her B.A. in anthropology came from the University of Michigan in 1976. From there she attended graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara to receive her M.A. in 1979 and Ph.D. in 1983.
In the 1970s, she assisted on a University of Michigan project in the Netherlands investigating Neolithic and Mesolithic cultures and served as a field co-director in Michigan surveying the Raisin River region, but once attending graduate school in California, her work turned to the Pacific Coast. In 1980, she began her research in the Channel Islands of California, followed in the late 1980s and 1990s by several major National Science Foundation projects under her direction, analyzing the development of complex hunter-gatherer-fisher groups. [2] Her excavations and research on the Chumash people of the Channel Islands have been continuous since then. Most recently, the Channel Islands Household Archaeology Project aims to understand household and community organization of maritime complex hunter-gatherers located along the Pacific Coast. [3] Arnold has worked with students and colleagues to better understand these complex groups and their political economies. Many articles also detail maritime resources, the origins of ocean-going canoes, and their relation to emerging sociopolitical complexity. Arnold's work on the Fraser River Valley Project in British Columbia (2002–2006) has explored late pre- and post-contact village sites along one of the world's richest salmon rivers and enhanced knowledge about local Sto:lo First Nations culture.
Since 2001, Arnold has been a member of the UCLA Center on Everyday Lives of Families, directed by Elinor Ochs, participating in a long-term, systematic study of modern-day middle-class families and their built spaces in the Los Angeles area. Arnold designed the ethnoarchaeology part of the research. Using “systematic recording of each family member’s uses of home spaces at closely timed intervals, a digital archive of photographs of each home’s indoor and outdoor spaces, detailed floor plans of homes and yards, and self-narrated video home tours by parents and older children explaining their perceptions of their homes,” an analysis of modern American homes and their changes emerges. [4]
Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, is a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites.
The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south to Mt Pinos in the east. Their territory includes three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel; the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source.
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived way of life in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, honey, bird eggs, or anything safe to eat, and/or by hunting game. This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores. Hunter-gatherer societies stand in contrast to the more sedentary agricultural societies, which rely mainly on cultivating crops and raising domesticated animals for food production, although the boundaries between the two ways of living are not completely distinct.
Shell money is a medium of exchange similar to coin money and other forms of commodity money, and was once commonly used in many parts of the world. Shell money usually consisted of whole or partial sea shells, often worked into beads or otherwise shaped. The use of shells in trade began as direct commodity exchange, the shells having use-value as body ornamentation. The distinction between beads as commodities and beads as money has been the subject of debate among economic anthropologists.
Microblade technology is a period of technological microlith development marked by the creation and use of small stone blades, which are produced by chipping silica-rich stones like chert, quartz, or obsidian. Blades are a specialized type of lithic flake that are at least twice as long as they are wide. An alternate method of defining blades focuses on production features, including parallel lateral edges and dorsal scars, a lack of cortex, a prepared platform with a broad angle, and a proximal bulb of percussion. Microblades are generally less than 50 mm long in their finished state.
The Maritime Archaic is a North American cultural complex of the Late Archaic along the coast of Newfoundland, the Canadian Maritimes and northern New England. The Maritime Archaic began in approximately 7000 BC and lasted until approximately 3500 BC, corresponding with the arrival of the Paleo-Eskimo groups who may have outcompeted the Maritime Archaic for resources. The culture consisted of sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic who used wooden boats. Maritime Archaic sites have been found as far south as Maine and as far north as Labrador. Their settlements included longhouses, and boat-topped temporary or seasonal houses. They engaged in long-distance trade, as shown by white chert from northern Labrador being found as far south as Maine.
Juana Maria, better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, was a Native Californian woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island off the coast of Alta California from 1835 until her removal from the island in 1853. Scott O'Dell's award-winning children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) was inspired by her story. She was the last native speaker of the Nicoleño language.
Joyce Marcus is a Latin American archaeologist and professor in the Department of Anthropology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also holds the position of Curator of Latin American Archaeology, University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. Marcus has published extensively in the field of Latin American archaeological research. Her focus has been primarily on the Zapotec, Maya, and coastal Andean civilizations of Central and South America. Much of her fieldwork has been concentrated in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. She is known for her "Dynamic model", four-tiered hierarchy, and her use of interdisciplinary study.
A tomol or tomolo (Chumash) or te'aat or ti'at (Tongva/Kizh) are plank-built boats, historically and currently in the Santa Barbara, California and Los Angeles area. They replaced or supplemented tule reed boats. The boats were between 10–30 feet (3.0–9.1 m) in length and 3–4 feet (0.91–1.22 m) in width. The Chumash refer to the tomol as the "House of the Sea" for their reliability. Double-bladed kayak-like paddles are used to propel the boat through the ocean. Some sources suggest the boats may have origins at Catalina Island and have been in use for thousands of years. Others suggest an origin on the Northern Channel Islands during the first millennium CE.The tomol has been described as "the single most technologically complex watercraft built in North America" and as being unique to "the New World."
Roger Curtis Green was an American-born, New Zealand-based archaeologist, professor emeritus at The University of Auckland, and member of the National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of New Zealand. He was awarded the Hector and Marsden Medals and was an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his contributions to the study of Pacific culture history.
Callianax biplicata, common names the purple dwarf olive, purple olive shell, or purple olivella is a species of small predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Olividae, the olives.
Jon M. Erlandson is an archaeologist, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, and the former director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Erlandson’s research interests include coastal adaptations, the peopling of North America, maritime archaeology and historical ecology and human impacts in coastal ecosystems.
Herbert D. G. Maschner is an American anthropologist and academic administrator. His research interests include biocomplexity and sustainability in prehistoric human ecology, warfare and inequality in prehistory, the application of Darwinian theory and evolutionary psychology to archaeology, GIS in archaeology, isotope analysis and virtual museums and repositories.
Harumi Fujita is a Japanese researcher of Mexican archaeology, who has specialized in pre-classical period of the northern states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. Her research has shown that fishing cultures had arisen in the area at the end of the Pleistocene period, indicating an occupation from at least 11,000 years ago. In a cave shelf known as the Babisuri Shelter, radiocarbon dating indicated the area may have been occupied 40,000 years ago.
Humaliwo was a Chumash village located in present-day Malibu, California. “Humaliwo” meant "where the surf sounds loudly." The village occupied a hill across from the lagoon in Malibu Lagoon State Beach. The neighboring Tongva referred to the village as Ongobehangna. The Humaliwo village was recorded on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1976. Cultural remains are present at this site, consisting of numerous human burials, artifacts and other cultural materials. Sections of the site can be dated to 7,000 years old.
Christine Hastorf is an archaeologist and is currently Professor in the Anthropology department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on agriculture, political complexity, gender, archaeobotany, and the archaeology of the Andes.
Barbara Bender is an anthropologist and archaeologist. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Heritage Anthropology at University College London.
Hutuknga was a large Tongva village located in the foothills along the present channel of the Santa Ana River in what is now Yorba Linda, California. People from the village were recorded in mission records as Jutucabit. Hutuknga was part of a series of villages along the Santa Ana River, which included Lupukngna, Genga, Pajbenga, and Totpavit. The Turnball Canyon area is sometimes falsely associated with Hutuknga.
Pajbenga, alternative spelling Pagbigna and Pasbengna, was a Tongva village located at Santa Ana, California, near the El Refugio Adobe, which was the home of José Sepulveda. It was one of the main villages along the Santa Ana River, including Lupukngna, Genga, Totpavit, and Hutuknga. People from the village were recorded in mission records as Pajebet,Pajbet, Pajbebet, and Pajbepet.
Totpavit, alternative spellings Totabit and possibly Totavet, was a Tongva village located in what is now Olive, California. The village was located between the Santa Ana River and Santiago Creek. It was part of a series of villages along the Santa Ana River, including Genga, Pajbenga, and Hutuknga.
