Villages and Camps

Prehistoric habitation sites are distinguished archaeologically from limited-function sites, such as milling stations, lithic workshops, and shellfish processing stations, primarily by the greater diversity of remains to be found at living areas. However, within the general category of habitation sites, great variability is observable in the sites’ sizes and in the richness and diversity of their contents. Such variability is presumably attributable to differences in the sizes of the occupying groups, the length of their stays, the number of times the sites were reoccupied, and the range of activities that were carried out at the sites. Recog­nizing patterning in such differences may have important implications for reconstructing prehistoric social organiza­tion and economic adapta­tions.

Interpretations of the region’s ethnographic record with respect to systems of settlement have varied. Leslie Spier (1923) portrayed the Kumeyaay groups of eastern San Diego County as shifting seasonally through a range of habitats, with communities fusing and dividing along the way. Lowell John Bean (1972) saw the Cahuilla as occupying permanent, year-round, kin-based settlements. According to Philip Stedman Sparkman (1908), each Luiseño community on the upper San Luis Rey River shifted seasonally in a bipolar mode between a settlement on Palomar Mountain and another in the river valley. Florence C. Shipek (1982) reported that Kumeyaay communities were distributed between permanent central villages and outlying “homesteads.”

Archaeological models, often based in part on ethnographic analogy, have attempted to classify and interpret the observed Late Prehistoric habitation sites. D. L. True (1970; True et al. 1974, 1991) characterized some, but not all, Luiseño and Kumeyaay habitation sites in terms of a bipolar system of permanent seasonal settlements, based in the uplands in summer and at lower elevations in winter. For the upper San Luis Rey River area, True and Georgie Waugh (1981, 1982) discerned a chronological shift from numerous nonpermanent camps during the San Luis Rey I period to centralized, permanent winter villages and more dispersed but also permanent summer camps in San Luis Rey II. Leslie Quintero (1987) used faunal evidence for seasonality to propose a different Luiseño bipolar settlement model, with permanent but non-sedentary villages occupied on the coast from late fall to early spring and in interior valleys from early spring to late fall.

A binary contrast has often been suggested between residen­tial bases or villages on the one hand and short-term field camps on the other (e.g., Robbins-Wade 1990, 1992), based in part on Lewis Binford’s (1980) logistical model of hunter-gatherer settlement. Still others have argued that the distribution of Late Prehistoric sites and the range of site characteris­tics in Kumeyaay territory indicate a relatively flexible system of nonpermanent settlements (e.g., Laylander and Christenson 1988; Laylander 1989, 1992a).

Fewer attempts have been made to discern the nature of earlier settlement systems from the archaeological record. However, the issue has at least been raised as to whether coastal Archaic (La Jollan) habitation sites represent permanent settlements or short-term, seasonal camps (e.g., Davis 1976).

A variety of archaeological signatures have been proposed to distinguish between particular habitation site types or settlement systems. Key criteria may include:

Site size. Lynne E. Christenson (1990, 1992), working with site inventory records to evaluate settlement patterns statistically, differentiated large habitation sites and small habitation sites, primarily on the basis of site surface areas of greater or less than 5,000 m2. Anna Noah (2012) offered a site typology for southeastern San Diego that distinguished habitation bases from temporary camps, using site size as one of the criteria. This typology was applied by Jerry Schaefer and Don Laylander (2014; Laylander et al. 2015) to existing site records for 44 habitation bases and 294 temporary camps in the Jacumba/McCain Valley region. Sites classified as habitation bases were, on average, larger than sites classified as temporary camps, but there was substantial overlap in this trait.

  • Midden. The presence or absence of midden has often been suggested as a criterion for distinguishing major from minor habitation sites (e.g., Christenson 1990, 1992; Noah 2012; Robbins-Wade 1990, 1992). In the Jacumba/McCain Valley study, midden was found to be more frequently reported at habitation bases but also not uncommon at temporary camps (Laylander et al. 2015; Schaefer and Laylander 2014). The rationale for considering this characteristic as a key one has not been specified, nor have empirical criteria been clearly defined for deciding whether a midden is present or not.
  • Specific Functional Elements. Some activities may have occurred exclusively at major settlements, or only very rarely at secondary settlements. Christenson (1990, 1992) noted the presence of evidence for food storage or ceremonial elements as perhaps sufficient to override the size criterion in assigning sites to the large habitation site category.
  • Exotic Materials. Mary Robbins-Wade (1990:121) suggested that the presence of exotic materials might be one criterion distinguishing base camps from field camps.
  • Assemblage Diversity. Presumably the more diverse an assemblage is, in terms of the range of activities that are represented, the longer would have been the seasonal span involved in any single occupation, the more complete would have been the community that was in residence, and the more likely the location would have served as a base to which resources were being brought from subsidiary locations. David Hurst Thomas (1989) noted the intuitive attractiveness of using assemblage diversity as an index of habitation site types. However, he also observed that, in archaeological assemblages from the Monitor Valley area of Nevada, most of the variation in diversity (or “class richness,” the number of artifact classes that were represented in an assemblage) was directly attributable to sample size.
  • Proportions of Specific Functional Elements. D. Sean Cardenas and Stephen R. Van Wormer (1984) proposed that, in the lithic tool assemblages of base camps, as distinguished from temporary camps, “medium processing” tools (i.e., perforators, drills, and scrapers, but not milling tools, choppers, points, bifaces, scraper planes, or hammerstones) would constitute 20% or more of the assemblage. The rationale for this view has not been extensively explored.
  • Seasonal Range. Proposed archaeological seasonality indicators have included the presence or absence of remains from faunal or floral species that were available only during particular seasons, the presence or absence of faunal remains of immature individuals from species with strong seasonal birth patterns, seasonal growth increments on bone and shell, and the seasonal unattractiveness of some site locations due to variability in weather, water, or other seasonal resources. Reports of seasonality indicators from San Diego sites are not uncommon, but rarely has enough evidence been available either to establish or to rule out year-round occupation.
  • Natural Setting. Robbins-Wade (1990, 1992) argued that field camps would tend to be situated near “specialized resource locations,” whereas residential bases would be chosen for their access to a range of different resources. Christenson (1990, 1992) found that large and small habitation sites differed significantly with regard to some environmental variables. Schaefer and Laylander (2014) also found some differences between the settings of habitation bases and temporary camps.
  • Site Spacing. The density with which apparently contemporaneous villages or base camps are found to cluster has been compared with models of community size and regional population density, in order to evaluate whether the settlements could plausibly have been permanent (e.g., Laylander 1989; Laylander et al. 2015). A comparison of the results from seven settlement studies in San Diego County found that habitation sites consistently occurred in densities too great to be compatible with long-term permanency (Laylander et al. 2015). The plausibility of a settlement hierarchy involving distinct villages and field camps could also be evaluated on the basis of the proximity of the secondary sites to major settlements.

PROSPECTS

Future archaeological investigations may be able to clarify the characteristics of settlement systems during various periods of prehistory and in different portions of the region. More rigorous criteria may be developed for differentiating functional site types and distinguishing seasons of occupation. Evidence relevant to these issues may include such observations as site size, soil characteristics, exotic materials, storage and ceremonial features, the richness and evenness of artifact classes in the assemblage, the preponderance of casual or curated tools, seasons of occupation, site spacing, and site location with respect to resources and travel routes.