Prehistoric Agriculture - Baja and California

The aboriginal peoples of San Diego County have generally been characterized as hunter-gatherers whose subsistence was based upon harvesting the wild plant and animal resources of the region. However, several investigators have suggested an alternative view: that the Late Prehistoric peoples may have relied, to a significant degree, on cultivated plant foods.

To date, discussion of the question has focused primarily on evidence from the ethnohistoric and ethnographic records:

Jack D. Forbes (1963) discussed various lines of ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence for aboriginal agricultural activity that was independent of Hispanic control, but not necessarily independent of Hispanic influences. Warner’s Hot Springs, Santa Ysabel, Vallecitos, San Felipe, and Jacumba in San Diego County, as well as Nejí and San Vicente in northern Baja California, were among the locations mentioned in this context. Most of Forbes’ examples of aboriginal agriculture, dating from the nineteenth century, might be attributed to post-contact conditions. Apparent references to very early agriculture reported by Alarcón in 1540 and at San Vicente in 1788 are more relevant to the question of prehistoric practices, but arguments have been made that Forbes’ interpretations of these two instances were probably in error (Laylander 1995).
Lowell John Bean and Harry W. Lawton (1973; Lawton 1974) reiterated Forbes’ case, asserting that the case for “pre-contact” and “aboriginal” agriculture had been firmly established, at least for northwestern Baja California. Several additional pieces of evidence were also contributed by Bean and Lawton. One related to observations by José Velásquez in 1785 during a journey in northern Baja California; however, the geographical relevance of this testimony has been questioned (Ives 1984; Laylander 1995). A 1772 report of Indian bundling of grain into sheaves near Mission San Diego was argued to indicate a “semi-domesticated” character for the crop. The presence of agricultural motifs in Cahuilla and Kumeyaay myths was suggested as indicating pre-contact agriculture, although the myths also included other motifs that were clearly post-contact.
Florence C. Shipek (1982, 1986, 1987, 1993) strongly asserted the widespread and important practice of agriculture in late prehistoric San Diego County. In Shipek’s view, mountain and desert groups planted maize, beans, and squash, but this escaped the notice of the early Spanish explorers in the region. On the other hand, coastal groups were argued to have planted and managed fields and orchards of native species, which were not recognized by the Spanish as being domesticated. The evidence upon which Shipek’s claims were based was not made clear, but it appears to consist, at least primarily, of late-twentieth-century ethnographic testimony.

There is as yet little archaeological evidence bearing on the question of prehistoric agriculture in the region:

Adan E. Treganza (1947a) found two caches of maize cobs in the Jacumba area in 1939. In 1943 he found another cache of several ceramic vessels containing seeds of nine domesticated plant species. The seeds included species that had been introduced during the historic period, and the cache also contained a piece of post-1850s textile. However, Treganza felt that the types of seeds that were present showed closer similarities to the agricultural complex in use on the lower Colorado River than to the mission agricultural complex to the west, and therefore that the find at least raised the question of a long-established aboriginal agriculture in the region.
In the Coachella Valley, Philip J. Wilke, Thomas W. Whitaker, and Eugene Hattori (1977) reported the presence of squash (Cucurbita pepo) seeds in a deposit that was thought to date from the final stand of Lake Cahuilla. They also noted the absence of any pollen from cultigens in the deposit, leading them to conclude that the seeds represent trade items, presumably brought from the lower Colorado River, and that crops were not grown in the Salton Basin in the fifteenth century.
No cultigens seem to have been reported from precontact archaeological contexts in San Diego County (e.g., Bull 1978, Christenson 1987a, 1987b; Gish 1987; Kaldenberg 1982; Smith 1980). However, paleoethnobotanical work, including macrobotanical, pollen, and phytolith studies, has been rather limited in the region to date, and this negative evidence may be fairly inconclusive.

PROSPECTS

Future archaeological studies may be able to establish the presence of substantial prehistoric agriculture in San Diego County, or to confirm its probable absence. Relevant evidence may come from paleoethnobotanical studies to document the presence or absence of nonnative cultigens, investigations of possible water control features, and studies of the presence of native species at locations that lie outside their natural ranges.