Rite of Passage: Presenting at an Academic Meeting

On Saturday I gave my first professional academic presentation at the annual Society for California Archaeology meeting in Burbank, California. It was a synopsis and visual presentation of research I have been doing on the relationship between an archaeological site in coastal San Diego and the interregional exchange system of southern California. It is rooted in my previous research on shell beads in the inter-village exchange system of the Chumash economy in Santa Barbara. This research made up the bulk of my thesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Basically, there was a complex economy in prehistoric California that functioned to articulate different environments and regions into a system of constant flows of raw materials, food, crafted goods, and last but not least... money. This money was produced mostly on the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. It was manufactured from gathered shells of the species Olivella biplicata, haliotis rufescens (red abalone), and mytilus (mussel).  Shell beads were not, however, solely used as money. They could also be used for decorative purposes, burials, and other rituals and rites of passage. The power of this Chumash shell bead industry became dominant in the interregional exchange system of southern California around 1100 C.E (Common Era) and continued to dominate until the arrival of the Spanish in the 18th century. 

We found a lot of these beads at a site in San Diego and the research we did into these beads is what made up the substance of a paper we published and which I presented on at the Society for California Archaeology meeting.