Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Local Response to International Change

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This archaeological research examines the decisions and strategies employed by Native individuals and communities in the context of changing colonial relations during the early 19th century in California. Archaeology is well positioned to evaluate this issue because its emphasis on space, time, and objects allows for the reconstruction of how past social agents navigated significant shifts in colonial strategies over time. This is particularly important considering the broadscale social and economic shifts that occurred during the Mission period. While the initial goal of the mission system was to convert local peoples into loyal Spanish subjects, new policies helped free mission laborers from Franciscan rule. The assessment of materials deposited within earlier and later Mission contexts can thus not only provide new insights into the operation of colonialism but can also be used to ascertain the political strategies and daily practices employed by Native groups during these distinct periods in time. These data can be used as a comparative to other regions throughout California, and even across the globe, to understand the differing impacts of colonial policies on indigenous populations and the way that local groups navigated colonialism using their own system of meanings and values. The research will be conducted with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and California State Parks. Given this broader context, this project undertakes research to study the social organization of one Native community within a mission setting and evaluate how they responded to the retreat of the Spanish frontier inside the mission space. The study of indigenous experiences at Mission La Purísima Concepcíon offers an ideal lens through which to investigate these issues because two distinct stratigraphic/ chronological groups have been previously identified. By exploring labor practices, foodways, craft industries, and trade and exchange from these two distinct contexts, this project sheds light on how the Chumash community at the Mission navigated new colonial policies and relations over time. These results are used to understand evolving indigenous social identities at the community level and regional scale given the broader historical background of sea change happening in Alta California under colonialism.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.