The “Lone Woman” Pipe – A Rare Artifact of the Nicoleños People	Steven R. Cooper
Central States Archaeological Societies 2025 April Journal	Cary, North Carolina

igure 1. Colorized 1861 photo of Rancho San Antonio Mound in the San Francisco Bay area. The immense mound is center right. Nearly all of the over 450 shell mounds that were once noted in the bay area have been destroyed by development over the last 150 years.

I grew up in the Los Angeles area as a young boy. In elementary school, there were lessons surrounding the history of California. I do recall the teacher mentioning the Indians and that quickly evolved into the California Gold Rush, where a student brought in an actual gold mining pan from that era. When I was seven, my family camped at Yosemite, and the park had a village set-up that included recreations of the dwellings the Indians who once inhabited the area.

Fast forward many years. Now I collect artifacts, although mostly of the Midwest. I have observed California artifacts on and off, and over the years acquired a few interesting arrowheads, mostly from the northern part of the state.

The prehistoric Chumash peoples occupied Southern California for thousands of years. While they were centered around Santa Barbara, they also occupied many areas around Los Angeles. They encountered the Spanish beginning in 1542, when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who had sailed north from Mexico, landed in San Diego and then explored a short distance up the coast. They didn’t find gold, their primary goal, and with the exception of one expedition in 1602 by Sebastian Vicaino that explored the entire coast, the region was mostly left alone. In Spain’s effort to Christianize the world, Friar Junipero Sierra arrived in 1769, 227 years after the initial discovery, and built a series of missions from San Deigo to San Francisco. These missions are celebrated in California today, but they resulted in the steep decline of Native cultures throughout the state. The California Gold Rush in 1848 brought the final end to Natives as the area swarmed with people hoping to strike it rich. Native Americans didn’t stand a chance against such an onslaught of progress, and slowly disappeared, until “Ishi” (see John Selmer’s article in the previous issue) was proclaimed the last “wild” Indian in the state in 1908. In 1492, California was thought to have over 300,000 aboriginal inhabitants, mostly living off of acorns and seafood. They were not farmers. By 1900, the population had been reduced drastically by illness, starvation and other causes. However, today California has over 900,000 Native peoples, the largest of any state, with many recognized tribes, many who run casinos.

Like the rest of our country, mounds dominated the original landscape. Nearly all have been eradicated over the years by development. San Francisco Bay had over 450 shell mounds (Figs 1, 2). One of the largest was in Emeryville, standing 60’ tall and stretching 350’ in length. It was nearly totally demolished in 1924. There is little evidence of the other shell mounds. The Indians buried their dead in them, but also lived and feasted on top of them. The tribal group in the area were the Ohlone, who had inhabited the region for over 2,800 years. Shell mounds started as refuse pits after feasting on large amounts of shellfish. Over hundreds of years, the piles turned into significant hills, that came to be utilized for tribal identity and functions. But shell mounds ...

 

Read the complete "The “Lone Woman” Pipe – A Rare Artifact of the Nicoleños People" column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2025 April Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2026