Archeology talk an effort to preserve

Jenny Marder

“A country with no regard for its past will have little worth

remembering in the future.” So read a sign posted on a wall by the

podium at an archeological presentation Thursday hosted by the Bolsa

Chica Land Trust.

The environmental activist group is hoping that the state will

help Huntington Beach embrace its past by acquiring and preserving

the site where a prehistoric village and burial ground once stood on

the Bolsa Chica Mesa.

Patricia Martz, an archeologist at Cal State Los Angeles,

addressed an audience of nearly 200 people about the importance of

ancient artifacts found at the Bolsa Chica Mesa site. John Foster,

chief archeologist for the California Department of Parks and

Recreation, then spoke on the California state parks system as a

whole and its role in preserving California’s history.

Known as ORA-83, the four-acre site on the Bolsa Chica Mesa is

believed to have contained a substantial settlement, a ceremonial

center and a cemetery some 8,000 years ago, Martz said.

It’s also believed to have been the manufacturing site for

hand-carved objects called cog stones. Cog stones are doughnut-size

objects shaped like cogs and usually carved from basalt.

“No site in the world has produced as many cog stones [as Bolsa

Chica],” Martz said. “Over 500 have been produced from this site.

Other sites have only produced a few.”

The purpose of the artifacts is unknown, but they were believed to

have been ceremonial objects of some sort, Martz said. They also

could have been game pieces or astronomy tools used to map out the

sky.

Their relevance is a mystery, and so is a strange similarity

between the basalt cog stones unearthed at the mesa and similar

sandstone objects found in Chile. Archeologists are still studying

the remains to determine the relation.

The prehistoric site is being eyed for development. Local

environmentalists are pushing to have it bought and preserved by

California State Parks, which is dedicated to protecting cultural

resources.

The site is privately owned and flanks the Hearthside Homes

property. Hearthside Homes plans to build 388 single-family homes on

the 65-acre upper mesa.

Nearly half of the land has already been dug up and destroyed by

Hearthside Homes, which crossed onto the ORA-83 site while doing

grading work on its own property, said Evan Henry, president of the

Bolsa Chica Land Trust.

To protect the site from further misuse, the Land Trust hopes that

the state will take the property under its wing.

“Although we have a great many sites, we’re missing key sites that

represent diversity and antiquity,” Foster said. “We’re trying to

understand where the really valuable sites are.”

The attention from the state agency on Thursday has Henry hopeful

that the acquisition will go through.”We’re very pleased with the

enthusiasm that John Foster expressed for the role of state parks in

preserving things like the Bolsa Chica Mesa,” Henry said.

Martz and Land Trust officials both expressed a hope that the

ancient village site would one day be preserved as a state park with

a public exhibit and protected for access by Native Americans and

others.

“We could really see how our site would fit in with the scheme of

state parks and why they would be interested in it,” Henry said.