Iris H.W. Engstrand Rancho Los Cerritos: A Southern California Legacy Preserved, Southern California Quarterly Spring 2000, 82, no. 1, pp. 1-42.
Introduction: . . . lying within the city limits of Long Beach, its 4.7 acres . . . in an otherwise closed residential area.
Rancho Los Cerritos . . . possesses outstanding potential for interpretation of historical themes beginning with the period of Native American occupation and continuing through the romanticized Spanish Colonial Revival period of the 1920s and 1930s. The story of Native American occupation, Manuel Nieto's great land holdings, John Temple's initial efforts at cattle ranching, and the Bixby family's sheep-ranching enterprises coupled with other business ventures parallels the development of southern California into the economic center it is today. It clearly illustrates how "the pastoral ranch system of Hispanic culture retreated before large scale crop production, small farm subdivision, and urbanization brought about by Anglo-American settlers after California became a state . . .
The Native American Period: Pre-1784
Archaeologists generally agree that pro to-Asiatic-types first migrated into the Western Hemisphere across the Bering Straits from Siberia to Alaska sometime between 50,000 and 20,000 B.C. They continued southward from the Arctic Ocean through Canada, some branching off eastward of the Rocky Mountains and others, between 12,000 and 9,000 B.C. continuing to California along the Pacific Coast. These Indians were probably organized into small bands of a few extended families that numbered fewer than fifty people. In the earlier period, they relied heavily on large game for food, but by 3,000 B.C., Indians had diversified and were utilizing a variety of plant and marine life. This led to a population increase and settlement in permanent villages.
After 3,000 B.C., other economic changes took place and the archaeological remains of mortars, pestles, grinding stones and mullers indicates that Indians then relied more heavily on plant sources. By the time of European settlements in 1769, the population of upper California is estimated to have reached somewhere between 135,000 and 350,000. They spoke some 135 different dialects that have been organized into six major linguistic groups: Algonkian, Athabascan, Penutian, Hokan, Uto-Aztekan, and Yukian.
The lifestyle of the California Indians directly reflected the potential food supply, climate, terrain, and availability of water. Primarily hunters and gatherers, they subsisted on acorns, seeds, roots, fish, shellfish, insects, grasshoppers, deer and small game including rabbits, squirrels, and birds. Some practiced a form of proto-agriculture, which included environmental manipulation to the extent of scattering wild seeds, flooding certain areas, pruning or breaking branches, or burning native vegetation to encourage growth of wild grasses. They excelled in basket weaving, soapstone carving, plank canoe construction, the making of sandals, preparation of animal skins for blankets and winter wear, and production of vegetable fibers for garments and other uses. The rendering of acorns as a healthful food supply was also a highly developed skill involving the removal of the poisonous tannic acid. Acorn eating was probably the most characteristic feature of the domestic economy in the pre-contact period.
[p. 4] At the time of Spanish contact, the culture of Southern California included the Hokan-speaking Chumash of Santa Barbara and Kumeyaay of San Diego who lived north and south of the Uto-Aztekan (Shoshone) linguistic groups later designated by such mission names as Gabrielino, Fernandino, Juaneno, and Luiseno, and occupying the coastal plain of southern California. The Gabrielino (or Tongva) were those living in the area of Rancho Los Cerritos . . .
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