Paleocoastal Deposits Discovered on Santa Rosa Island

SANTA ROSA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA—The Ventura County Star reports that artifacts estimated to be between 8,000 and 13,000 years old have been uncovered in Channel Islands National Park. The site, found under a 150-year-old ranch house that has been lifted up off the ground in order to install a new foundation, has yielded a Channel Islands barbed point and a crescent, both of which are thought to have been used by ancestors of the Chumash people to hunt and fish. “Usually, when we find the two of them together, the site is at least 10,000 years old and could be 12,000 years old or older,” said Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon. For more on early occupants of the West Coast, go to “Coast over Corridor.”