An Archaeological Perspective on the Historic Settlement Pattern on Santa Cruz Island

This paper introduces new data pertaining to historic village locations and analyzes the quality of data we currently have regarding the distribution of the island's historic population. Use of the terms "Middle," "Late," and "historic" correspond generally with the chronology established by King (1981) for southern California. However, recent analysis of bead and microlith production data, representing two of the specialist products of the Channel Islanders, and a series of 25 new radiocarbon dates from several sites on Santa Cruz Island, together suggest that the onset of the Late Period occurred somewhat later than King had suggested, perhaps by about a century, or at ca. A.D. 1250-1300. That, nonetheless, is a topic explored in depth elsewhere (Arnold 1990a)