Local News in Brief : Indian Remains Found at Malibu State Park

Remains of an American Indian woman and child have been unearthed in Malibu Creek State Park. A construction worker digging a trench for a sewer line, made the find, a California State University, Northridge archeologist who examined the remains said Monday.

The excavation scattered the bones in the trench, but evidence showed that the two bodies were cremated in a pit where they were buried with manzanita berries, apparently as a food offering, said Mark Raab, director of the Northridge Center for Public Archeology.

The burial site, discovered Thursday, is near a former Chumash Indian village called Talepop, although the woman and child more likely were Gabrielino Indians, Raab said.

Chumash burials customarily contained many uncremated bodies close together, whereas the Gabrielino burial rituals involved cremation and isolated graves, Raab said.

Talepop, which existed roughly from the year 1,000 to the early 1800s, is on the border between the territories thought to have been inhabited by the two tribes, the archeologist said. Although members of the tribes often intermarried and lived in each other’s villages, the dead usually were buried according to their own tribal customs, Raab said.

Archeologists have not determined exactly how old the remains are, he said.