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The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting Among Complex Hunter-Gatherers
When Spanish explorers and missionaries came onto Southern California's shores in 1769, they encountered the large towns and villages of the Chumash, a people who at that time were among the most advanced hunter-gatherer societies in the world. The Spanish were entertained and fed at lavish feasts hosted by chiefs who ruled over the settlements and who participated in extensive social and economic networks. In this first modern synthesis of data from the Chumash heartland, Lynn H. Gamble weaves together multiple sources of evidence to re-create the rich tapestry of Chumash society. Drawing from archaeology, historical documents, ethnography, and ecology, she describes daily life in the large mainland towns, focusing on Chumash culture, household organization, politics, economy, warfare, and more.
376 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 5, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 12, 2025
The book is something of an encyclopedia of previous recordings and research, from Spanish observations at first contact to recent anthropologists and archeologists. A discussion of how the findings have been interpreted is then summarized in a very organized manner, with the author’s own conclusions. Topics are discussed by chapters such as the environment that includes an overview of food items, the overall village map and macro political structure, households, etc. It is an academic book, not a riveting read.
As is the way of sociologists, wild conjecture is made from slight archeological evidence. The author both pans this tendency in previous researchers and then participates in it, which I am told is also the way of sociologists.
This is not a topic of the book, but one thing that interested me was how the political structure the Chumash faced caused their largest villages to differ in location from the largest Spanish settlements and the largest settlements of the current State of California. We face a different mix of environmental risks (not because the environment was so different, but because the structure of our built environment and our society redefines risk levels) and interpersonal risk (poverty, crime, war).
Also, as today we face changes to our environment, reading the discussion of the environmental changes the Chumash dealt with prior to 1769 was also interesting. Of particular note, the Chumash had a tightly controlled system of capitalism that went back perhaps as far as 8,000 years- the shell beads used as money more recently go back that far anyway. Researchers consider this system an important part of responding to environmental variances and maintaining a steady supply of food to meet local needs across the regions where the Chumash lived.
As is the way of sociologists, wild conjecture is made from slight archeological evidence. The author both pans this tendency in previous researchers and then participates in it, which I am told is also the way of sociologists.
This is not a topic of the book, but one thing that interested me was how the political structure the Chumash faced caused their largest villages to differ in location from the largest Spanish settlements and the largest settlements of the current State of California. We face a different mix of environmental risks (not because the environment was so different, but because the structure of our built environment and our society redefines risk levels) and interpersonal risk (poverty, crime, war).
Also, as today we face changes to our environment, reading the discussion of the environmental changes the Chumash dealt with prior to 1769 was also interesting. Of particular note, the Chumash had a tightly controlled system of capitalism that went back perhaps as far as 8,000 years- the shell beads used as money more recently go back that far anyway. Researchers consider this system an important part of responding to environmental variances and maintaining a steady supply of food to meet local needs across the regions where the Chumash lived.
January 11, 2022
Published in 2008, Gamble (Phd) gives as holistic an overview of our current research and understanding of Chumash life at the time of European contact. Beginning with the broad strokes of laying out the historic timeline of the Chumash, their environment and adaptations to changing climates and resource access, and then dialing in to more specific details like diet, cultural setting, settled areas throughout SB and Ventura, village and household organization, gender roles, power and economic advantage, etc...
This is a fascinating summary of research conducted over decades and spanning the contributions of many fields of science and the humanities. Being physically in Santa Barbara while reading this book emphasized to me the scope of the diversity of the Chumash among settlements and chiefdoms, and the map of settlements and recorded baptisms from each area (hinting at population sizes), blew my mind! In talking about this book with others the map has been really helpful as a visual to indicate the breadth and density of these settlements in our local areas. It is a shame to have lost so many significant sites, I hope that the Chumash descendants have access to the remaining undeveloped areas, and that there is hopefully still interest and funding for researchers to continue their work documenting and preserving the history of the people of Santa Barbara.
Overall great book, will definitely recommend to those who are interested in local and/or indigenous history, and to those who enjoy a more academic narrative.
This is a fascinating summary of research conducted over decades and spanning the contributions of many fields of science and the humanities. Being physically in Santa Barbara while reading this book emphasized to me the scope of the diversity of the Chumash among settlements and chiefdoms, and the map of settlements and recorded baptisms from each area (hinting at population sizes), blew my mind! In talking about this book with others the map has been really helpful as a visual to indicate the breadth and density of these settlements in our local areas. It is a shame to have lost so many significant sites, I hope that the Chumash descendants have access to the remaining undeveloped areas, and that there is hopefully still interest and funding for researchers to continue their work documenting and preserving the history of the people of Santa Barbara.
Overall great book, will definitely recommend to those who are interested in local and/or indigenous history, and to those who enjoy a more academic narrative.
July 21, 2015
This is such an important book. Lynn Gamble is one of California’s foremost archaeologists and anthropologists. She graduated in anthropology from UC Berkeley in 1979, Phi Beta Kappa. Ten years later she was a practicing archaeologist and was featured in the L.A. Times for her work addressing the threat that land development posed to California’s heritage. She was then two years away from her doctorate and had researched a very significant site at Goleta Slough. The population had been exploding in the Sunbelt all through the 1970s, and bulldozers were roaming the landscape of Southern California threatening archaeological sites, some of which dated back at least 8,000 years.
Gamble’s book goes a long way toward giving us a feel for what life was like in the Chumashian cultural sphere of southern California in 1769, when King Charles III became concerned about Russian fur trading based on the Sonoma Coast north of San Francisco Bay and commenced Spanish colonization of the area. She lays out some of the important contours of societies of the time, addressing daily and household life in the towns, politics and social organization, and the nature of the economy. She discusses leadership structures, social class distinctions between elites and commoners, questions of gender, and warfare.
Gamble explains how Channel Islanders minted millions of units of currency in the form of shell disks, i.e, coinage, which were employed in transactions between the islands and the mainland. The mainlanders traded commodities for high value materials available only on the islands, and for finished goods. She mentions numerous communities of the time, such as Noqto , Shilimaqshtush, Kashtayit, Humaliwo (from which the name Malibu derives), and many others.
As people consumed shellfish, they discarded the shells in mounds which grew over time. Gamble is now working on a Southern California island site where people lived for about 2,700 years, and where the shell mound is so large that it can be seen from over eight kilometers away, thus indicating the significance of the human presence there through time and the importance of paying attention to it. Her work to recover and interpret evidence of California’s heritage is more than just fascinating. A retrospective inclination helped usher in the European Renaissance, and I believe that careful attention to the human experience wherever we live has the same sort of power to enlighten, stir up stagnant cultural pools, and broaden our minds and perspectives in the present day.
Gamble’s book goes a long way toward giving us a feel for what life was like in the Chumashian cultural sphere of southern California in 1769, when King Charles III became concerned about Russian fur trading based on the Sonoma Coast north of San Francisco Bay and commenced Spanish colonization of the area. She lays out some of the important contours of societies of the time, addressing daily and household life in the towns, politics and social organization, and the nature of the economy. She discusses leadership structures, social class distinctions between elites and commoners, questions of gender, and warfare.
Gamble explains how Channel Islanders minted millions of units of currency in the form of shell disks, i.e, coinage, which were employed in transactions between the islands and the mainland. The mainlanders traded commodities for high value materials available only on the islands, and for finished goods. She mentions numerous communities of the time, such as Noqto , Shilimaqshtush, Kashtayit, Humaliwo (from which the name Malibu derives), and many others.
As people consumed shellfish, they discarded the shells in mounds which grew over time. Gamble is now working on a Southern California island site where people lived for about 2,700 years, and where the shell mound is so large that it can be seen from over eight kilometers away, thus indicating the significance of the human presence there through time and the importance of paying attention to it. Her work to recover and interpret evidence of California’s heritage is more than just fascinating. A retrospective inclination helped usher in the European Renaissance, and I believe that careful attention to the human experience wherever we live has the same sort of power to enlighten, stir up stagnant cultural pools, and broaden our minds and perspectives in the present day.
August 9, 2016
It's really hard to come by scholarly sources specifically about the Chumash. Unfortunately, many books that are tribe-based tend to books for children. It's as though Native American history is only for fourth grade. What a shame! Anyway, Gamble has done extensive research for this text and its a rich source for a historical examination of the Chumash.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews