SPEAKER EVENT: Dr. Kent Lightfoot: “Recent Collaborative Eco-Archaeological Investigations on the Central California Coast.”

Join SCAS for a presentation by Dr. Kent Lightfoot on: “Recent Collaborative Eco-Archaeological Investigations on the Central California Coast.”

DATE: Thursday, November 14, 2024

TIME: 7:30 – 8:30 PM (Pacific)

This is a hybrid event! We invite you to join us in-person at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz, CA  95060, or via Zoom (see below for Zoom registration form)!

ZOOM REGISTRATION FORM: SCAS Zoom Registration Form

***RSVP for Zoom by 6:30 PM on Thursday, November 14, 2024   *** Or show up to the Resource Center for Nonviolence by 7:30 to join us in-person!

This talk summarizes the results of a collaborative eco-archaeological project that examines evidence for Indigenous landscape and seascape stewardship practices over 7000 years on the Central California coast. The goal of this work is to develop a better understanding of practices employed by local Indigenous People to enhance the diversity, productivity, and sustainability of culturally important plants and animals in tribal lands and waters, and was completed by a team of scholars from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, California State Parks, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Santa Cruz. The team employed a low-impact, fine-grained methodology to accentuate the recovery of important information from archaeological sites while minimizing impacts to ancestral places. The talk outlines the major findings and outcomes of the project as detailed in a forthcoming UC Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility monograph that should be available this December. 

Kent G. Lightfoot is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.  He has been a member of the Berkeley faculty since 1987.  He has undertaken archaeological work in New England, the American Southwest, Alaska, Hawaii, and California.  His recent investigations have focused on the archaeology of colonialism, the shell mounds of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and Indigenous landscape and seascape stewardship practices along the Central Coast of California. His publications include Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers (University of California Press), California Indians and Their Environment: An Introduction with Otis Parrish (University of California Press), Metini Village: An Archaeological Study of Sustained Colonialism in Northern California, with Sara Gonzalez (Contributions of UC Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility No 69), and forthcoming The Study of Indigenous Landscape and Seascape Stewardship on the Central California Coast: The Findings of a Collaborative Eco-Archaeological Investigation, edited with Michael Grone and Gabriel Sanchez (Contributions of UC Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility No 71).

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