Excerpt of article By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 28, 2008
"Archaeologists [grave robbers] have removed 174 sets of human remains from a controversial housing development under construction in Huntington Beach, bolstering claims that it was a significant prehistoric Native American settlement.
Dave Singleton, program analyst for the California Native American Heritage Commission, said 87 sets of remains were removed before Hearthside Homes broke ground on its Brightwater development near the Bolsa Chica wetlands in June 2006 and 87 more since then...
The finds also support the belief of community activists who sought to derail the housing project because of its closeness to the wetlands and because they said the area was once part of an 8,500-year-old Native American settlement...
Flossie Horgan, executive director of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, a group opposing development at Bolsa Chica, said Hearthside has tried to cover up the finds by not disclosing them to the public...
A business manager at Scientific Resource Surveys, the archaeological firm excavating at the site, would not comment on the remains...
A handful of prehistoric human remains were found at Bolsa Chica mesa starting in the early ’90s, according to the Orange County coroner’s office, but the total was not made public until this week.
The site is claimed by two Native American groups: the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians and the Gabrieleno-Tongva tribe...
Joyce Perry, cultural resource director of one Juaneño group, said that she has monitored the Bolsa Chica site since the early ’90s, and that although she was aware of the number of human remains found for several years, it is the tribe’s policy not to make the location of burial sites public out of fear they will be looted...
Also found at the site were at least 400 cogged stones, artifacts that resemble gears and are believed to have been ceremonial objects. The stones are similar to those found in coastal prehistoric sites in Chile, Singleton said. More than 5,000 other artifacts, including scraping tools and mortars and pestles, have been removed from the site, filling 2,000 boxes, he said.
“This is an important archaeological site and one of the state’s densest concentrations of Native American remains,” Singleton said."
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For More Information on Bolsa Chica please visit the following link:
www.bolsachicalandtrust.org
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