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This study integrates several lines of evidence to assess temporal trends in the persistence of indigenous village communities in the San Francisco Bay-Delta area after the arrival of the Spanish in 1776 C.E. Baptismal records indicate that more than halj of the Native American village communities in the region persisted as independent entities for at least another 25 years or longer. Archaeological evidence and radiocarbon and obsidian hydration results from post-contact native settlements are spatially patterned in a manner consistent with the archival record. Materia! indicators of the Mission Period (such as European material culture and non-native plant and animal resources) are also present at many radiocarbon-dated post-contact native settlements, indicating at least a limited movement ofgoods but also highlighting how these data sets are poor indicators of indigenous persistence during the early colonial era. The results provide a foundation for future research into initial reactions to the colonial intrusion from the perspective of traditional native communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a geoarchaeological contextual approach in arguing that pavement quarries--those assay and reduction events directed at cobbles that often litter expansive desert alluvial landforms--can provide a powerful index of changing trans-Holocene settlement organization. Focusing on multiple lines of evidence--age estimates of alluvial fan surfaces, quarry technology, patination profiles, and regional toolstone consumption trends at residential sites--we explore the temporal and technological development of quarry pavement use at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Mojave Desert. The analysis reveals that chert pavement quarrying was in ascendance during the early portion of the Late Holocene and had a strong biface production component. This landform-based model of Holocene pavement quarry development provides support for reconstructions that envision Gypsum period hunter-gatherers as residentially stable, and as undertaking increased logistical forays during which pavement quarry procurement took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]