Ohlone Indians, California
ttor@fununiv.com
Sun, 26 Jun 1994 05:49:32 EST
- the following is an article by Dennis Rockstroh, Writer, San Jose
- Mercury Newspaper -
-
- Imagine the scene: suburbanites barbecuing in the back yard, catching
a ballgame on the radio and dipping into the sparkling blue waters of a
backyard pool just feet above the graves of an ancient civilization.
- This kind of historic layering is happening in Pleasanton, where new
homes, some costing in the $500,000 range, will be built later this year
on top of an Ohlone village that dates back to 1000 B.C.
- It isn't the first time a California development has been built over
ancient villages and graveyards, other Ohlone villages and burial
grounds sit under the downtown San Jose Holiday Inn, the Tamien
light-rail station in San Jose, the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco,
the main post office in Union City and office buildings in central
Fremont.
- But this is the first time in recent memory that a large housing
tract is going up directly over so many Ohlone graves.
- Would you buy a house there? "You wouldn't and I wouldn't. So that
two people who wouldn't by buyers,' said real estate agent Julie
Meredith of Newark.
- Fremont real estate agent John Dutra said construction over graves
will drive away some buyers and should be disclosed, although such
notification is not required by law.
- Some construction over prehistoric villages is likely to continue as
development intensifies in Alameda County along interstates 580 and 680,
said Andrew Galvan, the Ohlone consultant on the Pleasanton project.
'Anywhere you dig there are bodies. People have lived in California for
more than 13,000 years," Galvan said.
- By the same measure, the Pleasanton Ohlone were relatively
youngsters, historically speaking. Yet when the Ohlone arrived in the
Pleasanton area, Greek culture was in its infancy, as was the Mexican
Olmec civilization. The Shang dynasty introduced a character writing
system in China and King David ruled Israel.
- Over the weekend, the people of Pleasanton celebrated the city's
100th birthday with a rip-roaring birthday bash on Main Street, while
less than two miles away on the western edge of the city a 15-member
archaeological team was quietly wrapping up its work on the Ohlone
village so that construction of the homes can begin later this month.
- Nothing is left of the Pleasanton village whose name is lost to
history except for artifacts and the skeletons of thousands of its
people. Since the first Ohlone bodies were unearthed from the site in
1987 when geologists were looking for a branch of the Calaveras Fault,
212 bodies have been removed for study and eventually reburial in
Fremonts's Ohlone
- Cemetary. The Ohlone remains, along with artifacts-two large quartz
crystals, bird-bone flutes, arrowheads, shells, pipes, mortars &
pestles- were uncovered as bulldozers carved out streets.
- Many of those remains have been removed, but others were reburied
where they were found, as is the preference of today's Ohlone. "We're
leaving thousands behind," said Galvan. "The people who buried them here
wanted them buried here."
- Bulldozers are grading the 80 acre site, west of Interstate 680 and
Arroyo de la Laguna, for construction of 161 homes. The developer,
Davidon Homes, is hauling in fill to build the house pads at least 10
feet above the buried remains so that future suburban excavations -
swimming pools for example - will not disturb the dead. During the past
seven years, excavations at the site, which is closed to the public,
have revealed few surprises.
- "These folks all died pretty much for the same reasons people die
today," said Galvan. "Old age, disease and murder. One had an arrowhead
embedded in his bone." Six mothers and their babies were found among the
remains. "Think of the people who buried them," said Galvan. "Someone
stood here and cried."
- Galvan, who has spent most of his adult life teaching people about
his Ohlone ancestors, said that each time he sees the ancient skeletons,
he wonders what their lives were like. "I look at the bones and say, 'I
wish you could talk to me. What was it like?'"
- The Ohlone, whose homeland stretched from the Carquinez Straights
south to the Carmel, Sur and Salinas rivers, lived on what became known
as Willow Marsh. Randy Wiberg, field director for the excavation, said
the marsh was drained around the turn of the century to make way for
crops. In 1919, the Meadowlark Dairy was built on the property. It
closed in 1969. The land eventually will become a Pleasanton suburb
known as Laguna Oaks. Galvan said Dennis Razzari, the project manager,
has talked to him about putting up a display of the area's history,
including the village, in a recreation center planned for the
development. Razzari couldn't be reached for comment.
- Meanwhile, the Ohlone remains removed from the site will be studied
by a San Francisco archaelogical firm, Holman&Associates, to learn more
about their ages at death, their diet and when they died. Some may have
been buried just 200 years ago, while the oldest are probably about 3000
years old, Wiberg and Galvan said. Galvan said the Ohlone lived in the
area until 1911, well after Pleasanton became a city, yet some
newspapers, which dedicated many pages to the birthday celebration, make
no or only passing mention of the long Ohlone history. That riles Galvan
normally a quiet, soft-spoken man.
- "It's arrogant, white-people stuff,' he said. "Its like nothing
happened here until white folks showed up."