Villages in Prehistoric Southern California: Communities or Locations?

ABSTRACT

The term “village” has been variously applied either to specific geographical locations or to the social units that inhabited such locations. In the late prehistoric territories of the Kumeyaay groups in San Diego and Imperial counties and in northwestern Baja California, the ambiguity of the term may lead to significant misreadings of the region’s ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological records, including underestimating the groups’ mobility and overestimating their population size.

RESUMEN

Se ha aplicado de forma diversa el término “village” a ubicaciones geográficas específicas o a las unidades sociales que habitaban tales ubicaciones. En los territorios prehistóricos tardíos de los grupos kumiai en los condados de San Diego e Imperial y en la parte noroeste de Baja California, la ambigüedad del término puede dar lugar a importantes malas interpretaciones de los registros etnohistóricos, etnográficos y arqueológicos de la región, incluida la subestimación de la movilidad de los grupos y la sobreestimación del tamaño de su población.

KEYWORDS:

• San Diego County
• Imperial County
• Baja California
• Kumeyaay
• village
• settlement system
• mobility
• population

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Jerry Schaefer, who was co-director of the original McCain Valley-Jacumba and Ocotillo projects; Nick Doose, who set up the GIS; Jessica Hennessey, who input data into the GIS; and Ian Scharlotta. Credit is also due to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, San Diego Gas & Electric Company, and Ocotillo Express LLC, who sponsored the original GIS projects. Thanks are due as well to two reviewers and to the editor of California Archaeology for helpful suggestions on improving this discussion.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.