Great Shellmound Of Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area

Everybody I have a video here for you today, and this is what I thought I'd finish off I have this about half done, and we are gonna go look at some more ancient America this time on the left coast And we are flying in to San Francisco more specifically Emeryville Right on the bay here, and this is Shell Mound Street appropriately named and every day quarter of a million people drive this route right here and I'm just wondering do they really know what they are driving over and the importance of this spot Now I have made videos other large cities st. Louis Detroit Pittsburgh a few others that had large mounds that were totally destroyed and those were fairly disturbing videos to do well buckle up This one is no different now today down by Ohlone Street And that was the name of the Indian tribe that held this ground sacred But right down here there are just a few little reconstructed Mounds, but today there are a few Reconstructed tiny mounds that kind of mark this spot but this is just kind of a poor attempt to Mass some disgraceful history and over here in the courtyard of this hotel There is a tiny little mound here, and there is a few other tiny little mounds around this area But what was here originally well a great big huge mound they called the shell mound These are some pics taken of it in its destruction this was a huge massive mound made out of a lot of material and Was this original a burial mound well It seems to be a burial mound, but it also seems to be kind of like a tepee coming from Areas of the world like Turkey that I have talked about where just occupation of a mound in the sacred site Over a few thousand years leads to the development of a large mound. It is called a tepee in Areas like around Tehran in Turkey, but here they just call it a large burial mound In San Francisco and this mound was here. It was the most sacred thing in San Francisco For probably ten times longer than San Francisco has been a city now Here is a pic from 1907 and you can see what remained of the shell mound here And how close it was to the water and the size of it. What is this on top of it? This is a dance hall pavilion. They built an amusement park in and around the great shell mound and they were literally dancing on the graves of Ancient buried people the Ohlone Indians are the tribe associated with this place dating Stuff found here goes back 5,000 years So just as other sites the current tribe of the area is associated with the site But to me, they obviously held the site sacred and the history went back 5,000 years same time as the first dynasty of Egypt. That's when people originally settled here Did they build the structure and then that was held sacred? For thousands of years after and this mound just got built up Well, here is a map of San Francisco from a little over a hundred years ago with just a sparse population that was in this area 400 burial mounds detected and marked on this map 400 of them and I'm sure the shell mound was the centerpiece of all this activity And here is an old pic of one of the hundreds of mounds that dotted the San Francisco Bay at one time Now let's just read a little bit about the history here and what this mound is made out of So the Emeryville shell mound was a highly remarkable historic cultural and sacred site established by the Ohlone Indians over centuries of use from 500 BC to approximately 1700 AD when the Spanish missionaries Imprisoned the Ohlone as the Ohlone built their villages on the mound and buried their dead Creating over the centuries a 60-foot high mound with a diameter of about 350 feet It was the largest of nearly 400 mounds bringing what is now called the San Francisco Bay in addition to its large central cone the mound had several smaller cones these mounds referred to as shell mounds or shell middens were comprised of abalone mussels and clamshell staples of the Ohlone diet along with sediment ash and rocks Over time the mounds grew larger and taller from successive use with an accumulation of shells animal and human remains ceremonial burial objects and artifacts from everyday use and architectural remains The Emeryville shell mound like others in the Bay region was a significant cultural site infused with sacred as well as secular meaning The mound functioned as a mortuary for long-term burials excavations by archaeologists in 1924 reported over 700 burials which were subsequently removed from the site Most of these remain have been housed at the University of California Berkeley and have not been Reparated for reburial in addition physical remains of past people who were probably revered as Ancestors by the living were found the repeated construction and use of the mounds forged a direct link between the living and the dead Bay Area peoples dwelled on top of the mounds whose cores encapsulated the sacred remains of their ancestors Going back many generations the cultural significance of the shell mound was also very important Burials functioned in a cultural way to establish genealogies and therefore territorial rights Another cultural function of the mounds was as cultural markers Villages situated on top of the mounds were highly visible and therefore distinguished the different Ohlone communities throughout the bay The mound significance to the Ohlone descendants remains a central importance Even if the site has been altered over time Very few sacred and cultural sites remain especially one as great as the Emeryville shell mound Condition the mounds were partially destroyed in the 1800s to make way for an amusement park a dance pavilion and a racetrack Archaeological excavations at the turn of the 20th century also degraded the site the development of the Emeryville as an industrial site occasioned the near complete raising of the area From the late 18th century to the first quarter of the 20th century the Emeryville shell mound was in private hands The city of Emeryville had begun to grow and industry began to take over the landscape The shell mound was leveled in 1924 when an amusement park and dance platform on top of the mound was closed Steel mills paint factories canneries and insecticide plants occupied the site for 70 years Here is a website. I will leave below the area's first residents and this is about the Ohlone Indians who obviously held this area sacred and lived and dwelt in this area for a lot longer than San Francisco has been a city How do the people today whose ancestors were buried here feel about? companies like this turning this place literally into a toxic waste dump an Area that was once the most sacred area in all the Bay Area. I'm sure how do they feel about people? dancing on the graves of their ancestors and turning this place into an amusement park and Isn't this like the fourth or fifth? Ancient mound site that had an amusement park or racetrack built right around it What is going on there? But how did the Ohlone of today? Feel about the treatment of this very sacred spot where ancestors were buried. Well, that is very predictable But I just wanted to play a clip from a documentary here And this really explains the feelings of some people and how this area was turned literally into a toxic waste dump And that is so disgusting to me Some people feel it Some people don't I think I feel it. I Feel very uncomfortable when I get near it I've shopped there. I did my Christmas shopping there this season because they have all the stores I like there So apparently I don't feel like I'm gonna get struck down by lightning if I walk out there Was bubbling with acid and it had white streaks through it from where the arsenic was So it was definitely a stigmata there that created an issue that needed to be addressed So we were just sort of walking around and one of my people said look at this There was a burial and then there was another one five feet away and another and another it was a huge site He put the backhoe bucket in and immediately exposed several Skeletons they were buried so closely together We found burials of adult women with fetuses or with infants Two adults buried together side by side and their limbs were intermingled I'm actually pretty proud with how We as a company dealt with this. So is my conscious tormented by that? No like the opposite people need jobs people need places to eat places to live, but People also need to respect the burials It's a place I don't want to ever set foot on again Not because my people are there But because of what has transpired Well that short clip Told a lot I think and I have mentioned this in a video before I Am about 5% Native-american from my grandmother's side on my dad's side of the family And after just watching that I think I realized there is something else Driving me in this series Now I have mentioned this before also in videos When these places were leveled in the 1800s or the early 1900s Well, there are still portions of these burial mounds that were covered by sedimentation and time Eight feet of this burial mound still remained under the earth when the industries came in here and That is still the situation in other parts of the country that I have talked about No excavation. The ground was just flattened Leveled raised but under the ground here the important burials Were literally turned into Toxic waste they couldn't even be reburied They had to be sent to Texas and burned as toxic waste Along with the soil and other things that were found here. Good grief Now I'm just gonna read a little bit here the mall that was put in here. I think about 18 years ago It's called the Bay Street mall I think that is the name of it But it says a retail project came under the consideration for the land where the shell mound one stood When grading the site for a shopping center burials were discovered amid the toxic soup left over from earlier industrial use It appeared that nearly eight feet of the mound still existed filled with hundreds of Ohlone burials despite the fact that the mound was thought to have been destroyed in 1924 The city of Emeryville was mandated by state law to call Ohlone descendants to monitor the site and determine what to do about the burials leave them in in-situ or remove them for reburial many of the burials unfortunately had to be sent for incineration at a toxic waste cleanup facility because they were declared toxic from previous industrial use Parts of the site are considered so toxic that the soil must be shipped to Texas and burned Along with the Ohlone burials still extant now. I will try to leave a bunch of links below But here's what I found Emeryville celebrates first Indigenous People's Day and this is from three years ago So maybe they're thinking this will make everything all better or at least make amends for the disgusting treatment of this sacred site But this has a few videos attached to City Council meeting Some history of the place and that video I linked now. Here is a video I will leave the link to the shell mound story part one and I Was really taken watching this. I now know the history of the ranch and that land in Wyoming, but what went down here in Oakland who lived on this land what happened to them? I lived here my entire life gone through 16 years of formal education and still don't know Jack about the indigenous people of this land like What's up with a lonely Park or? Shell Mound Street There's all these references to Native Americans, but they're so easy to not pay attention to just fading into the background, but something changed back there in Wyoming a door was open that I can't close I Can't pretend I don't know what I know now and I need to find out what happened here in my hometown I walk four blocks from my house to the border of Emeryville through the brand-new gentrification condominiums past the train tracks over to the Bay Street Mall at the intersection of Shell Mound Street and a lonely way I Stop and look around 360 degrees of development all built in the last 10 years It all has that new plasticky kind of feel like it's a Disneyland set or something 250,000 cars drive by this spot on I-80 every single day I've driven through here thousands of times, but I've never stopped to really look to really see the land Below the city what's down there down there? You put you put down you put down down you put down down you put down to down to down you put down down like A DJ scratching archival record. I dig in crates of the past searching for the perfect beat Like archaeologists read rocks to tell time in reverse. This land holds history carved in its flesh stories submerged in its structure Starting at the surface and digging down into the unknown history of my homeland digging down Digging down you would do it to do with the digging down Who I will leave the link to that video and a bunch of other stuff below as I have said I have been on a break and I have also said that I get most vocal When I get offended at the history Usually it's a history that I think is wrong or incomplete But today it's some actual history that actually happened and I am way Beyond offended. I hope you are too. Hope you thought this was interesting and you all have a very nice day