During the 1971 test excavations of CA-SDI-777 at Cottonwood Creek (Laguna
Mountain, San Diego County, California), one of my field crew exposed a circular
feature approximately 10-inches in diameter. Treating it as a feature, we
scraped and whisk broomed out the dirt, leaving a tighly packed concentration of
radially split cattle bone. After photography and sketches, we removed the
bones, only to find more bones. This process continued down to about 24-inches. A
few sherds of native un-glazed pottery in the feature linked it to the
otherwise prehistoric site. A faceted cobalt Russian trade bead and a
percusson-flaked Canton Trade porcelain Desert Side-notched arrowpoint found in the midden
not too far away suggested the cow bone feature dated to the early 19th
century. A dirt road passed over the cow bone feature and machine-cut square nails
popped up each time we surveyed the road, suggesting a wooden building once
covere the cow bone feature site. Although I will never be able to prove the cow
bone feature was under a wooden floor, the narrow (almost a post hole) and deep
hole jammed with splintered food bone suggested it was created to hide the
bone. Why would anyone wish to hide a splintered pile of cow bone? One theory,
also unprovable, was that the bone was residue from a stolen cow buried in the
floor of the wooden house.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.