The picture on the banner at the top of this page shows part of the wall surrounding the gardens at Mission San Buenaventure in Ventura, California. First built in 1782, San Buenaventura was the last of the missions founded by Fra. JunÃpero Serra. Only a small part of the mission complex remains today.
During excavation we uncovered a wealth of information about how people lived during the mission period, including bones from butchered animals, the remains of iron tools, and a large number of beads, both the shell beads of the native Chumash, and glass trade beads brought by the Spanish.
In the latter part of the 19th century, Ventura was also home to a significant Chinese population. A pair of Chinese coins found at the excavation site date from that time. And to top it all off, just a few meters from the old garden wall sat the foundation of the town’s original city hall and jail.
It’s all gone now, removed to make way for an underground parking garage. Future scientists with new methods and technologies might be able to tease a little more data out of the artifacts we recovered. But no one will ever be able to go back to the site with those new technologies and find the things that we missed. This is the sad reality of CRM (Cultural Resource Management, or contract archaeology). CRM excavations are mostly salvage; an attempt to recover whatever data we can before the site is destroyed. Sometimes all that’s wiped out are a few flakes, and maybe a hearth from an ancient campfire. Sometimes, though, you get something like this. It’s more than a little depressing.
