Indian Remains at New Good Earth Site
Opening will be delayed until January 2012.
Residents who know the area may not be shocked to find out Native American remains are buried right under our feet. But, those remains came as a surprise to construction crews working on the new Good Earth building at Fair-Anselm Plaza.
In mid-June, the town of Fairfax was notified that the construction work was taking place on what might be an archeologically-sensitive site. Work was halted and an archeologist was brought in, said Larry Kennings, a planner with the town, to see if there was really anything there.
“We had a look and said ‘oh man, there is something there,’” said John Holson, an archeologist with Pacific Legacy, who was hired first by the town and then by Good Earth to monitor the site.
What was there was midden and shell mounds and four small fragments of bone.
Midden is a dark soil, commonly associated with long-ago waste products. “Imagine you threw everything out your window for 60 years,” said Holson.
The midden at the construction site was very shallow and mixed throughout the area with dirt. It had likely been disturbed, said Holson, when the original store was built in 1959.
In fact, said Al Baylacq, one of the owners of Good Earth, a neighbor said he remembered playing in the dirt piles as a kid when the original construction took place 50 years ago and finding pottery pieces, tools and shells.
All those archeological remains remained underground at the store, with no one the wiser, for decades until construction work began on the new Good Earth store earlier this year.
“It’s not common, but it happens,” said Holson, who worked before as an archeologist for CalTrans.
Once the Good Earth partners, LRG Capital – who owns Fair-Anselm, and the town were aware of the archeological sensitivity of the site, it was a relatively straight-forward process to take the necessary steps.
Pacific Legacy studied the site and recommended monitoring, less invasive technology and controlled sampling. The Federated Indians of Graton Racheria were consulted as representatives of the most likely living descendants of the Native Americans who lived in this area and requested that everything found simply be treated with respect, not photographed, and put back in the ground. Even the Marin County Coroner’s Officer got involved in mid-July to verify that the four bone fragments (a small piece of cranium, small fragments of shaft and a long bone fragment) were not from any recent deaths.
Coming up with that plan, though, took 24 days before it was finalized and approved by the council, during which no construction was done. The stop work order was lifted on July 6 and work restarted on July 7, said Kennings
That 24-day delay, in what was initially a 180-day work schedule, has pushed back the opening of the new store.
See the renderings of what the new Good Earth store will look like here.
The earliest the contractors said they would be done was the first week of December, said Baylacq, but the owners didn’t want to open the new store during the holidays and so will most likely wait until Jan. 10.
The delay, said Baylacq, has had large financial implications for LRG Capital and for Good Earth.
“But, once you kind of get over that, it’s a pretty cool thing,” said Baylacq of the archeological findings. “I’ve had a chance to reflect back on the history of the area, reflect back and imagine what was here before.”
Pam Hartwell-Herrero
9:35 am on Wednesday, August 3, 2011
This is a great reminder of those early residents of this beautiful region-let's plan a way to honor the find.
A
12:32 pm on Thursday, August 4, 2011
Hi Pam, if you want to plan a way to honor this, I highly recommend going down to the site today and speaking with the Miwok representative who is there working with the crew and asking her what (if anything) would be appropriate. I am Native American myself (but not Miwok tribe) and I went down there today to speak with her. I was relieved that the site does have someone from the tribe(s) down there caring for this issue but I got the impression they want to honor this in private. I think someone like you from the town going down there and speaking with the Miwok representative in person about what (if anything) the town of Fairfax can do is a respectful gesture but I would NOT have the town plan something on its own that's open to the public without the permission of the representatives of these local tribes. Even if it's meant respectfully, it might not come across that way...kind of like the town deciding to throw a public party on your great grandparent's grave without even asking you first...if you know what I mean...if they do give the town approval for neighbors to offer a respectful ceremony at some point, I would be happy to help you.
sanford miles
9:07 am on Thursday, August 4, 2011
WOW, DEAD PEOPLE BONES IN GROUND.IM AMAZED. NEXT FISH FOSILS ON MNT TAM
Al Baylacq
10:43 am on Thursday, August 4, 2011
Kelly, thanks for your story here. Pretty right on except for the part with "little Baylacq played on dirt pile as a kid- 50 years ago". My quote to you was suppose to indicate that we had a gentleman stop by project and share with us that he lived in the neighborhood when Lucky's was first built and HE remembers finding all kinds of things after the original grading was performed as a youngster. Small correction yes, but important really cuz I'm not quite 50 yet- ha.
Again thanks for the coverage and update to our project.
Kelly Dunleavy O'Mara
2:40 pm on Monday, August 8, 2011
Yeah, maybe my sentence was confusing, but it was supposed to say you said a man stopped by the site and said HE remembered playing in the dirt piles as a kid.
Cyndi Cady
1:13 pm on Thursday, August 4, 2011
What next! I'm pretty sure they are about to find a red-legged frog somewhere... :)
A
2:51 pm on Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Marin IJ had an article yesterday on this story as well and it's the #6 most viewed story right now at their site, however, the story makes it sound like there were just a few indian artifacts found around there and no biggie. I'm not so sure...
IJ Story:
http://www.marinij.com/business/ci_18611895?source=most_viewed
Also neither the article here nor in the IJ actually interviewed anyone from the Graton Rancheria tribal council. The only people interviewed are owners of the property or businesses. I think that is a huge oversight. The tribal council information is easily found online: http://gratonrancheria.com/tribalcouncil.htm - it sure would be nice to hear their side of the story. So, please interview them!
Pam Hartwell-Herrero
5:51 pm on Thursday, August 4, 2011
My intent as a town representative would not be to do anything at that particular site but instead find a way to acknowledge the history of our region.
A
6:55 am on Sunday, August 7, 2011
This is a video of another site, just to give people an idea. It's interesting how at one point, the construction worker says "if there were anything of significance out here, the site would get shut down.":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oNY6yHcEM0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
A
7:35 am on Sunday, August 7, 2011
One more video from a Vallejo site that references an important shell mound map created by a uc Berkeley archeologist. "shellmounds are always the cemetery":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mZnssi406c&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I've been told there is already one under the fair anselm plaza and that when the albertsons building was built, they just knocked one over or dug it out and built on top of it. I suspect the bottom of it is the Good Earth site. So far, I haven't seen anyone calling for stopping the Good Earth (we all love the GE) but it sure would be nice if the news stories didn't seem to be downplaying the importance of this to the tone of "oh, just a few pieces of bone and Indian artifacts were found" and not interviewing one person from the affected tribes. If you want to do something to talk about the history of the area, great but the first thing people have to do is not white wash the situation we find ourselves in now.
Kelly Dunleavy O'Mara
2:44 pm on Monday, August 8, 2011
I don't think anyone is whitewashing the situation, but there is little to do about what was destroyed when the plaza was originally built. That's why there are procedures to make sure that doesn't happen and those procedures are being followed -- Granton Rancheria simply asked that the bones be put back in the ground, not removed from the site and not photographed or videotaped out of respect. I don't think anyone has asked for Good Earth to do anything other than follow those standard requests.
A
5:14 pm on Monday, August 8, 2011
Hi Kelly, regarding "I don't think anyone has asked for Good Earth to do anything other than follow those standard requests." I guess my question is...do you know that because someone on the tribal council at Granton Ranceheria was actually interviewed for this story or is that is just what was reported by the business or property owners who were interviewed in the story? I'm just surprised that in both articles (here and in the IJ), no one from Granton Rancheria Tribal Council appeared to be interviewed. If I had just read the news stories that were available on this subject (yours is actually better than the IJs) and not talked to any local native people about this I wouldn't have even know these were full shell mound burial sites and exactly what that means and what is going to be done (from the perspective of the relatives of the people who were buried there).