Speakers of Ohlone dialects occupied the lands encompassed by Alameda, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and San Francisco Counties. One Ohlone triblet, the Carquin, occupied lands on the north shore of the Carquinez Strait in Solano County and probably in the southern part of Napa County.
Agua Caliente EastThree bedrock mortars and one anvilElevation 475 ft.Joel discovered this mortar rock up the creek from the Agua Caliente site.It’s unusual to see mortars in such poorly cemented sandstore. Note the small stones in the rock matrix.Photographs by Bob Bardell
Canyon Middle School8 bedrock mortars on two rocksElevation 302 ft.Thanks to Joel for discovering this charming site.One of the mortar rocks here sits near the edge of a steep cliff above Crow Canyon Road and the buried Crow Creek.There are beautifully proportioned mortars on this rock.Another beautiful mortar rock sits in a little meadow not […]
Frick Lake16 bedrock mortars and anvils.This site hugs the southwestern boundary of Brushy Peak Regional Preserve. Thanks to Joel for discovering it.Looking down at the site and at Frick Lake.Photograph by Bob Bardell.The mortar rocks.A closeup of one of the mortar rocks.Another mortar rock. Note the range of mortar sizes–from the cupule/anvil through the shallow […]
Lake Del Valle, Campsite 402 bedrock mortars on a rock in the creek bedElevation 717 ft.Thanks to Joel and Alex for discovering this rock.
North Vargas Plateau1 bedrock mortar and 1 portable mortarPossible adjoining prayer seat.Elevation 1150 ft.A reader of Native American Indian Sites in the East Bay Hills turned us on to this site. Keep those emails coming folks.In the distance: Alameda Creek catchment basin, Coyote Hills, the Peninsula.A closeup of the pestle. The discoloration probably isn’t paint, […]
Second Terrace20 bedrock mortars; housepits.Elevation 880 ft.That’s another multiple mortar rock at the center of the photo.A closer view. Note the bell-shaped vegetation plug.A view over some of the mortar rocks here.Previous two photographs by Bob Bardell.
Swett Ranch16 bedrock mortarsElevation 372 ft.Looking toward the site.At least one mortar rock has tumbled into the nearby creek.A partially buried mortar rock.The same mortar rock after daylighting.More mortar rocks at this site. It’s easy to make out the single mortar rock, but the multi-mortar rock surface is nearly obscured by shrub branches.We were conducted […]
West Ohlone Rocky Ridge17 bedrock mortars and 20 cupulesElevation 1958 ft.Thank you Jeff! Another great discovery. We passed within 50 yards of this site at least three times without noticing it.Bob heads toward the site. There are mortars in that pile of rocks straight ahead of him down the hill.A fine example of a rock […]
ALA-6044 bedrock mortars and 182 cupules near the intersection of Crow Canyon Road and Castro Valley Boulevard.The official trinomial for this site is CA-ALA-60. E. Breck Parkman, Senior State Archaeologist for California State Parks, suggests this may be one of the oldest acorn processing sites in the Bay Area. Cultural material excavated here has been […]
Canyon Trail Park Petroglyph Boulder20+ bedrock mortars and 175+ cupules on one chlorite blueschist boulder.Elevation 141 ft.CA-CCO-152This rock is in Canyon Trail Park on a branch of Baxter Creek. Baxter Creek flows into the Bay near Stege, a long-vanished neighborhood on the old shoreline of San Francisco Bay, northwest of Albany hill. Some of the […]
