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| Pacific Coast Archaeological Society | |
|---|---|
| Name | Pacific Coast Archaeological Society |
| Formation | 1960s |
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Purpose | Archaeology, Preservation |
| Headquarters | Southern California |
| Region served | Pacific Coast of North America |
Pacific Coast Archaeological Society is a regional nonprofit organization focused on the study, preservation, and public interpretation of archaeological resources along the Pacific Coast of North America. Founded by avocational and professional archaeology enthusiasts, the Society collaborates with universities, museums, tribes, and cultural resource management firms to document sites, publish research, and provide outreach. Its work intersects with institutions such as University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, California State University, Long Beach, National Park Service, and Smithsonian Institution.
The Society emerged in the 1960s amid broader preservation movements aligned with events like the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act and the activism of figures associated with National Trust for Historic Preservation, Phoebe Hearst, and local chapters of the Archaeological Institute of America. Early collaborations involved archaeological surveys near Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Ventura County and partnerships with museums such as the Autry Museum of the American West and the Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles County. Key early leaders included professionals from institutions like California State University, Fullerton, University of California, Berkeley, and heritage officers linked to Bureau of Land Management and California Department of Parks and Recreation.
The Society's mission emphasizes site recording, artifact curation, heritage advocacy, and public education, working alongside tribal governments such as the Chumash, Tongva, Luiseño, Cahuilla, and Kumeyaay. Programs range from monitoring coastal shell middens to advising on mitigation under regulations like the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act. Partnerships extend to colleges like San Diego State University, UC Santa Barbara, and professional bodies including the Society for American Archaeology, California Archaeological Site Stewardship Program, and the Register of Professional Archaeologists.
The Society publishes newsletters and monographs documenting surveys, site reports, and synthetic studies of regional prehistory, contributing to literature alongside journals such as American Antiquity, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, and the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly. Authors have included faculty from University of Oregon, University of Washington, University of California, Davis, and independent researchers associated with museums like the San Diego Museum of Man and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Its bibliographies reference classic works by scholars like Alfred Kroeber, Richard Carrico, J. Alden Mason, and publications tied to Society for California Archaeology conferences.
Fieldwork overseen by the Society spans coastal shell midden excavation, inland terrace stratigraphy, and rock art recording, informed by methods from proponents such as Lewis Binford, Gordon Willey, and Kathleen Kenyon. Projects have taken place in contexts ranging from Channel Islands National Park to the Santa Monica Mountains, and have employed technologies developed by institutions like Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the US Geological Survey, including radiocarbon dating coordinated through labs at University of Arizona and UC Irvine. Collaborative studies with tribal partners have integrated oral histories from groups including the Coast Miwok and Yurok and contributed to debates influenced by theoretical frameworks from Processual archaeology and Postprocessual archaeology proponents.
The Society runs public lectures, field trips, and school programs in partnership with venues such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Point Reyes National Seashore, and community colleges like Santa Monica College. Outreach includes exhibits that complement displays curated by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Academy of Sciences, and traveling programs coordinated with National Park Service interpretive staff. Educational collaborations have involved grant-funded initiatives linked to agencies like the National Endowment for the Humanities and foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Membership includes amateur archaeologists, professional practitioners, students from University of California, Riverside, Cal Poly Pomona, Stanford University, and representatives from firms like Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation-supported projects and cultural resource management firms active in Southern California. Governance follows a board structure with committees for fieldwork, publications, and outreach, and coordinates with tribal cultural resource managers from tribes such as the Barona Band of Mission Indians and Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel.
Notable contributions include documentation and advocacy for coastal shell middens threatened by development in Orange County, recovery of faunal assemblages informing paleoenvironmental reconstructions comparable to studies at Pleistocene-Holocene transition sites, and the recording of petroglyphs and pictographs linked to research traditions exemplified by A. L. Kroeber and Julian Steward. The Society’s reports have supported cultural resource management decisions under guidance from National Park Service archaeologists and have influenced scholarly syntheses alongside work published by University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, and regional monographs associated with the Society for California Archaeology.
Category:Archaeological organizations in the United States