The California Native American Emeryville Shellmound

The Emeryville Shellmound was located in the town of Emeryville, which is in the Bay Area of the state of California, of the United States of America. The Emeryville Shellmound was, and still in many ways is, one of the most important archeological sites in the state of California. It was made literally out of a mound of shells, human food wastes, human burials, ceremonial burial objects, animal remains, building materials and much more. The Emeryville Shellmound is thought to have been a garbage dump but also a burial site. Native American Ohlone Indians, who lived in the region which is now the San Francisco Bay Area, constructed the shellmound.

This area was inhabited by many Native American groups as well as the Ohlone from around 500 B.C. to about 1700 A.D. There are as many as 425 shellmound structures encircling the Bay Area, but the Emeryville Shellmound is by far the largest that has been found. Over the centuries the mound grew to be sixty feet high and nearly three hundred and fifty feet in diameter. There is evidence that the Emeryville Shellmound was located in a large village of the Ohlone. It was used by mainly the Ohlone but also by other Native American groups throughout the years.

To get a better idea of just how big the Emeryville Shellmound was, take a look the picture at this link: http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/cent/1_6_2.html. The link leads to a picture, taken in 1924, of the southern wall of the shellmound being leveled to build a paint factory. You can see how big and tall just one side of it is compared to the people walking around it. The picture to the right is taken some years later when a dance hall was put on top of this important Californian Indian burial site.

It is thought that the shellmounds may not have just been garbage piles but sacred burial grounds as well. There have been over seven hundred burials that have been found at the site along with sacred burial artifacts. However, not surprisingly, little is known about the burial beliefs and rituals of peoples at this time. There is evidence the people built parts of their villages on these shellmounds, which would have kept them out of the bays high tide water. There must have been some beautiful views of the bay and surrounding area atop some of these mounds, especially the Emeryville Shellmound because of how tall it was.

Native Americans mysteriously stopped using the shellmounds, we have found through carbon dating, around 700 A.D. The mounds were reused at some point around 1100 A.D. but the way they were used was different, suggesting that they were being used by different groups of people. All were abandoned by the 1700’s when the Spanish occupied the area and eventually built a slaughterhouse near the Emeryville Shellmound.

After 1848 and the Gold Rush the shellmound and surrounding land became private property and the owner let people come and excavate the mounds. The Emeryville Shellmound and surrounding others were subject to some of the earliest archeological excavations in the United States.

In the early 1900’s an amusement park and rifle range was built by the Emeryville Shellmound, with a dance floor built right on top of it. With prohibition came the fall of the park and the business went under.

In 1924 the Emeryville Shellmound was demolished to the ground to give way for steel mills, paint factories, insecticide plants and other industrial businesses for the next 70 years.

In 1939, the Emeryville Shellmound was made a California State Historic Landmark but was never treated this way. The plant site at the shellmound was abandoned for some time, and then in 1999 with the sites demolition, it was found that the bottom portion of the Emeryville Shellmound was still intact. It was, and still is, contaminated by the toxic chemicals leaked into the land over the years of industrial usage in the area.

Native Americans and archeologists desperately tried to save the mound for spiritual, sacred and scientific purposes.

Unfortunately, the Bay Street Shopping Center mall was built on part of the Emeryville Shellmound. There is a small park with a hill and some dedcoration as a memorial. Even though the Emeryville Shellmound has been deemed as one of the most important archeological sites in the state of California.

Remaining Native American Ohlone and other supporters of all types of heritage that are dedicated to preserving whatever is left of the shellmounds and Native Americans cultural rights as Americans and human beings, have gathered every year since to peacefully protest the desecration of their ancestral heritage.

You don’t hear much about the history of Native Americans that lived around your town thousands of years ago. Hopefully, sobering stories like that of the Emeryville Shellmound are a significant contributing factor in this lack of respect for human rights, American Indian cultural rights, and historical archeological discovery.

We all must hope that someday soon people will come to appreciate things of such importance, like the Emeryville Shellmound, more than they do economic growth and gain.

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