Description
First identified as being centered in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park of San Diego County, California, are a number of prehistoric bedrock milling sites with unique, ovalshaped basin milling surfaces. Many of these sites lack the rounded mortars typically associated with acorn processing during the Late Prehistoric Period. Due to a number of factors, archaeologists working in the region have speculated that these sites represent a more archaic occupation of the mountains than has been previously recorded. Ethnographic information concerning the function of Cuyamaca Oval basins is also lacking. This thesis will present the results of a number of research methods utilized in an attempt to not only describe these basins in more detail, but, also to provide statistical data on where additional unrecorded sites may be located, describe the function of these unusually-shaped basins, and offer some preliminary occupation dates for a significant Cuyamaca Ovals site. Keywords: Cuyamaca Ovals, Kumeyaay, bedrock milling
