PRE-HISTORIC USE OF BITUMEN IN SOUTHERN 

 CALIFORNIA 



By He;ctor Alliott. 



SOME ten miles off the coast of California, between Redondo 

 Beach and Santa Catalina Island, there issues from the 

 bed of the Pacific Ocean a fountain of bitumen. 



For centuries past this spring has sent forth small masses 

 of asphaltum, which, being" lighter than the water, have floated 

 landward, been divided by the action of wind and wave into nu- 

 merous globules, and finally found lodgment along the shore. 

 These balls — varying in size from that of a filbert to as large 

 as an orange — are often, after a storm, a source of considerable 

 annoyance to bathers, who unawares step upon the sticky parti- 

 cles and anathematize a near-by oil refinery, crediting its man- 

 agement with inexcusable negligence in thus permitting oil 

 waste to pollute the beaches. 



Ages before companies for the exploitation of petroleum 

 deposits had been thought of, the Californian aborigine doubt- 

 less trod with his bare feet upon similar viscous particles. While 

 he must at first have looked upon the soft, black beach pebbles 

 with annoyed curiosity, the practical native soon discovered a 

 means of applying the sticky substance to his own good use. 



Recent expeditions of the Southwest Museum to the Santa 

 Barbara Channel Islands have established conclusively the anti- 

 quity of man's knowledge and use of asphaltum in Califoinia, 

 long before Cabrillo explored the Pacific. The specimens now 

 in the possession of the Museum demonstrate a remarkably 

 wide employment of the material by the Pacific Coast natives. 

 Since it was only by laborious and slow stages that the stone 

 age man accomplished progression in the use of any material, 

 these articles represent a long period of evolution in manufac- 

 ture. 



Exploration of burial sites on the Channel Islands has dis- 

 closed evidence that establishes the fact that primitive man of 

 that region made a very general application of bitumen to the 

 manufacture of his weapons, utensils and ornaments. In fact 

 it was so commonly employed, and in such a great number and 

 variety of artifects, that together with the steatite peculiar to 

 the quarries of Santa Catalina Island and generally used, it may 

 be said to indicate a distinct local phase of advanced culture of 

 the neolithic age in Southern California. 



Bitumen, no doubt, played an important part in the very 

 settlement of the Channel Islands by adventurous spirits from 

 the mainland. In the early days of the stone age, the aboriginal 



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