Some Kjokkenmoddings and Ancient Graves of California [pp. 297-302]

THE
OVERLAND MONTHLY
DEVOTED TO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
VOL. I3.-OCTOBER, I874.-NO. 4.
SOME KJOKKENMODDINGS AND ANCIENT GRAVES OF
CALIFORNIA.
URING my last visit to that part
of the Californian coast between
Point San Luis and Point Sal, in the
months of April, May, and June of this
year, I had often occasion to observe
extensive kjdkkenmndddings, like those
I had found, about a year ago, so numerous along the shores of Oregon.
These deposits of shells and bones are
the kitchen refuse of the earlier inhabitants of the coast regions where they are
now found, and, though differing from
each other in their respective species of
shells and bones of vertebrates-according to the localities and the ages
to which they belong-they have yet, together with the stone implements found
in them, a remarkable similarity in all
parts of the North American Pacific
Coast that I have explored-a similarity that extends further to the kjlkkenobiddings of distant Denmark, as investigated and described by European
scientists.
In Oregon, from Chetco to Rogue
River,* I found that these deposits contained the following species of shells:
Mytilus Californianus, Tafges staminea, Cardium Nuttallii, Purfiura lactuca, etc.; eight-tenths of the whole being of the species first mentioned. In
California, on the extensive downs between the Arroyo Grande and the Rio
de la Santa Maria-the mouth of which
latter is a few miles north of Point SalI found that the shells, on what appear
to have been temporary camping-places,
consist nearly altogether of small specimens of the family Lucina; so much so,
that not only can hardly any other sort
be found, but hardly even any bones.
My reason for supposing these heaps
to be the remains of merely temporary
camps is the exceptional paucity of flint
knives, spear-heads, and other implements found therein, as also the ab
*Of the collections made by the writer at that
place, the complete and illustrated description will
be found in the Smithsonian Report for the present
year.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year x874, by JoHN H. CARMANY, in the Office of the
Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
VOL. I3. — 20.
It-,'