Presidio of San Francisco Archaeological Research Project University of California, Berkeley. project by Barb Voss (under advisor Kent G. Lightfoot), webpages by Scott T.S. Trimble.

"The Presidio de San Francisco is a Spanish-colonial / Mexican-era military settlement that was founded in 1776. Four years ago, Vance BENTE, Leo BARKER, and I discovered archaeological remains of the main Spanish-colonial fortification. Research that we've conducted there since the site's discovery has resulted in an architectural plan of the fortification, along with a tenative chronological account of the fort's construction sequence.

"For my dissertation research, I am examining the ways in which presidios served as loci of culture contact between colonizers and native peoples incolonial California. This summer's field project is an exploratory shovel-probe pedestrian survey to try to identify archaeological remains of native laboring communities that may have lived outside the main fortification. We may also end up locating quarries, aqueducts, reservoirs, and colonial-era craft production sites as well as features related to later U.S. Army occupation of the site."

Barb VOSS (shown at right), a graduate student under Professor Kent LIGHTFOOT at U.C. Berkeley, is currently working on her disseration project at the Presidio of San Francisco, just north of the city's Richmond District. In Summer 1997, the research mostly entailed shovel test surveys to try to find probable locations of archaeological sites. Her work, covering two weeks in July, was located mostly in the areas of Tennessee Hollow and El Polin. As an Anthropology major at Cal, I first got involved in this project in Spring 1997 when I heard about it through Tania STELLINI. I later met Barb and worked with her at Steve SILLIMAN's Petaluma Adobe project. During July 1997 I worked on the project for two Fridays in a row, and later did labwork at U.C. Berkeley in Fall 1997 and Spring 1998.

07 / 11 / 1997 — Barb VOSS, Emily DEAN, Rob SCHMIDT, Scott TRIMBLE. Working in pairs, we worked at different parts of the field by the old footbridge in Tennessee Hollow, digging shovel test survey units. The STSs, 16" wide and 3' deep, yielded a Dr. Pepper bottle from about 40-50 years ago, Spanish colonial era ceramics, and other miscellaneous pieces of glass, shell, etc.

07 / 18 / 1997 — Barb VOSS, James BARNES, Emily DEAN, Laura PRIVETT, Rob SCHMIDT, Tania STELLINI, Scott TRIMBLE. Working at El Polin, we dug some test units to try to find the outer boundaries of what is suspected to be an archaeological site.

James BARNES, Emily DEAN, Laura PRIVETT, Rob Schmidt, Tania STELLINI, Scott TRIMBLE (webpage), Barb VOSS.

San Francisco Bay Area Archaeology ststproductions.com/Archives/Archaeology/ Scott T.S. Trimble   © 1997-1999 STST PRODUCTIONS