![]() ![]() ![]() “It was the end of the Indian world,” he said.ĭuring the thousands of years the area was home to Native Americans, the land was not exploited but used in ecologically sound ways so that it remained healthy and verdant, Schwartz said. Cattle, horses and sheep introduced onto their land wiped out native plants and crops. The Spanish forced many Native Americans into Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where they could not leave, and many died because they had no resistance to European diseases. Within a few decades of the Spanish arriving in the late 1700s, the local Native American way of life was all but gone and few villages remained, Schwartz said. ![]() More recently, a Thousand Oaks resident showed Schwartz an iron ball likely from a Spanish rifle that was found on his property, a possible site of an Indian battle with the Spanish, he said.Īs late as the 1920s, hikers and others were finding Indian trade beads left over from the time of Spanish settlements, Schwartz said. To protect the sites and out of respect for the Ohlone people, Schwartz said he does not publicly state locations of artifacts and shellmounds in Berkeley. “The Thousand Oaks area is phenomenally rich” in that regard, Schwartz said. Of particular fascination for many is that while the Huchiun Ohlone villages are long gone, Indian artifacts are still being unearthed under houses and among trees and rocks, Schwartz said.Īrrowheads, ceremonial rocks, shellmounds and mortar in the bedrock are commonly found, he said. ![]()
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