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/ ESA Land / l7 Management J Ray Weiss January 2009 Page 3 The Windmiller Pattern was the earliest comprehensive view of the region, at around the terminal-Paleo-Indian Period to Lower Archaic(-6,000 B.C. to—3,000 B.C.)(Beardsley, 1954; Heizer&Fenenga, 1939;Ragir, 1972). This cultural horizon reflected a people well adapted to riverine and marshland environments. Scholars have maintained that these Penutian speakers came from the Columbia Plateau or western Great Basin and settled in the bountiful Delta region where they gave rise to many of the Bay Area cultures that survived up to historic times, such as the Costanoan,Miwok, Yokut,and Wintun(Fagan, 1995). The Windmiller economy was diffuse in breadth,a common trait among peoples during this time,whereby the people would make use of a wide range of resources so as to reduce risk in times of resource shortfall, such as those caused by climatic shifts.The artifactual evidence of the Windmiller tradition suggests a wide range of specialized technology suited to the diffuse nature of their diet.These artifacts included large projectile points(spear or dart tips), baked- clay net sinkers,bone fish hooks,and spears.Mortars and milling slabs are predominant during this time period, as well as charmstones and abalone shell and olive snail ornaments and beads(Beardsley 1948; Heizer, 1949; Heizer and Fenenga 1939; Ragir, 1972). The subsequent Berkeley Pattern or Cosumnes culture(-2,000 B.C.to A.D. 300),comparable to the emerging Archaic Period in California prehistory(3,000 B.C.to A.D. 1000),reflected a change in socioeconomic complexity and settlement patterns. Many of the settlements of this period,given their size and intensity of use, demonstrated that the populations were denser and more sedentary,yet continued to exploit a diverse resource base—from woodland to grassland and marshland,to bayshore resources throughout the San Francisco Bay Area(Bickel, 1978;King, 1974). Moreover,the Archaic Period was indicative of increasing sociopolitical complexity and the radiation of peoples into new ecological niches (Chartkoff&Chartkoff, 1984). Out of the Cosumnes Tradition came the Hotchkiss Tradition(or"Late Horizon")by the Emergent Period,or about 500 A.D. The peoples of the Hotchkiss Tradition were likely flourishing in the Stockton and Delta region up to contact with Europeans. Indeed,the materials recovered related to the Hotchkiss Tradition—mortars and pestles, bone awls,bow and arrow—were in many ways similar to those identified at Buena Vista Lake—further indicating the trade relationships that were maintained between the Delta inhabitants and the southern San Joaquin Valley peoples. Ethnographic Setting At the time of European contact,the planning area was inhabited by the Northern Valley Yokuts.Because of the early decimation of the aboriginal populations in the San Joaquin Valley,most information regarding the Northern Valley Yokuts is gleaned from translated accounts by the Spanish military and missionaries. A summary of these sources has been compiled by W.J. Wallace(1978), and it is upon this work that this brief ethnographic setting is based. Northern Valley Yokuts territory is defined roughly by the crest of the Diablo Range on the west,and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada on the east.The southern boundary is located approximately where the San Joaquin River