First Coastal Californians

by Lynn H. Gamble (Editor)

About 13,000 years ago a man died on the steep banks of Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island, one of California's Channel Islands. The early dates for Arlington Springs Man, as he came to be known, and archaeological sites in the Northern Channel Islands, overturn the once widely held belief that the first humans to enter the Americas came by foot over the Bering Land bridge--perhaps, instead, they found their way to the Americas by boat. During the thousands of years between the arrival of those first seafarers on the Channel Islands and the arrival of the British, Spanish, and Russians, diverse waves of indigenous groups swelled coastal California's population. This book chronicles how indigenous peoples of the past survived and thrived in the shifting environment of coastal California. One can't help but wonder what life would be like today for the California Indians if the Europeans and Russians had never stepped ashore. What we do know is that after hundreds of years of exploration, the Spanish and Russians colonized coastal California, establishing powerful institutions that changed the lives of the California Indians forever. During this stunning era of change, rebellion, resistance, cooperation, and persistence, the first coastal Californians wove a complex tangle of cultures.

144 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2015

Reviews

[Holden W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as a textbook for a Chumash History class

The chapters were decent to read, but the main criticism I had is it lacked details about the day-to-day lives of the Chumash and other people. This coupled with a lack of modern day relevance made it a typical text book. I would have wished to learn about the specific foods and processes the coastal people ate, and other cool things like that.
The same nature surrounds us all, and I wish I could understand it like the Chumash did.
I certainly liked the part about the people of the ballona, as that was a current project that was underway, and the bits about the shell middens. It's quite a shame what happened to them. Overall, though, it was a great book, and it did the job required.

[Lolo S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as text book for California Indian Ecology course.

Short chapters covering a range of social, historical, ecological issues. None of the chapters does a deep enough dive. I wanted more details, more references, footnotes, etc. I thought it could also do with a bit more editing, as some of the material overlapped chapter-to-chapter. But as an introductory text to the subject matter, it was good: accessible, quick to read.