Overlooking the Wetlands: Archaeological Investigations at the West Bluffs Project, CA-LAN-63, CA-LAN-64, and CA-LAN-206A, Playa del Rey, California

Edited by John G. Douglass, Jeffrey H. Altschul, and Richard Ciolek-Torrello

Technical Report 05-93

723 pp. / 2005

This report details the archaeological monitoring and data recovery efforts undertaken by Statistical Research, Inc. (SRI), at CA-LAN-63, CA-LAN-64 and CA-LAN-206A (hereinafter the prefix CA- will be omitted), archaeological sites located at the West Bluffs property in Playa del Rey, California. LAN-64 and LAN-206A were solely prehistoric, whereas LAN-63 contained both prehistoric and historical-period components. The archaeological monitoring and data recovery, scheduled in advance of residential construction on the property, was conducted in three phases: remote sensing work in September of 2000, data recovery in September of 2000, and subsequent data recovery and monitoring from May to September of 2003. Additional archaeological monitoring was conducted between September 2003 and October 2004. This report offers important insight into the early occupation of the southern California Coast, with radiocarbon dates as early as approximately 8,200 years ago. In addition, the data recovery analysis provides information on the use and structure of domestic activities and ritual performance during the main occupation of the sites approximately 2,000 years ago. This work reported here has led to a number of additional publications on aspects of this research in peer-reviewed journals like American Antiquity and scholarly publishers like the University of Arizona Press.