Native Persistence at a California Mission Outpost: The Bioarchaeology and History of the Asistencia

Collaborative research revealing the lives of Ohlone
individuals buried at an eighteenth-century Spanish mission outpost

Construction work in 2016 at
Sanchez Adobe Park, the site of a historic Spanish mission outpost in the San
Francisco Bay Area, led to the surprising discovery of human skeletal remains. This
book presents a series of bioarchaeological studies done in collaboration with
the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Mission San Juan Bautista, the state-appointed Most
Likely Descendants of the Ohlone people buried in this cemetery, to explore
persistence and change in the lives of Native Californians recruited into the
Spanish missions during the late 1700s.

This volume
presents cutting-edge research techniques used to study the health, diet,
social connections, and medicinal practices of these Ohlone individuals. Studies
include obsidian and glass bead sourcing, osteological and paleopathological
analysis, stable isotope analysis, and proteomic studies of dental calculus. By
comparing these findings with historical records, researchers are even able to identify
several of the individuals by name and reconstruct their life histories.

This volume
reveals continuity in some traditional Ohlone behaviors as well as new
practices influenced by the Spanish. It offers unique insights into the experiences
of Native communities during early colonization on California's Pacific coast.
It also serves as a key example of collaborative bioarchaeological research carried
out by a tribal community, a local parks department, and both professional and
academic archaeologists.