Activist urges exploring burial site

Paul Clinton

A 150-unit senior housing complex the Newport Beach City Council

approved Tuesday raises concerns about what should be considered

sacred Native American sites.

The project attracted little controversy Tuesday, though a local

activist said the city wasn’t doing enough to determine whether the

16.1-acre Bayview Landing site contains important artifacts

documenting the history of prehistoric Indian civilizations.

Jan Vandersloot, who supported the project, urged city officials

to perform more research to discover what’s at the site near the

corner of Jamboree Road and Coast Highway.

Whether the Bayview site is significant is still unknown, but

little archeological investigation has taken place, officials

acknowledge.

The site’s significance “is still unknown,” Vandersloot said.

“Otherwise, their solution is, ‘Let’s have a monitor along when we

start up the bulldozer.”

On Tuesday, the council adopted a handful of measures that city

leaders say will ensure the safety of any artifacts that may be

uncovered during construction.

The council hired an architect to analyze the site, the third such

analysis since 1992. That architect will take “test hole” samplings

at the two sites, which have both been cataloged with the state’s

Indian heritage office.

“We are extremely sensitive to all issues, including the

archeological issue,” said Mayor Steve Bromberg, whose district

includes the project. “With respect to the safeguards we have in

place, I am very comfortable with the project.”

The site is one of more than 30 in the city and in neighboring

Costa Mesa that could offer insight into the people who lived in the

area before Europeans set foot here in the mid-18th century.

Archeologists and some Indian groups are renewing the call to

protect these sites from what they say is desecration by developers.

Two surveys, in 1992 and 2001, identified 36 sites in Newport

Beach that could be significant in some way.

In 1995, Irvine Co. workers discovered a mass grave near the Back

Bay as they began constructing the Harbor Cove development. Workers

removed remains of an estimated 600 humans, reburying them in a

nearby trench.

The move riled up the local Native American community at the time.

The site was named ORA-64 because it was the 64th site in Orange

County on a national list of archeological finds.

Upper Newport Bay is considered, in many ways, the area’s cradle

of life since prehistoric Indian tribes, such as the Gabrielinos,

Dieguenos and Juanenos, tended to establish their villages near

streams and other waterways.

Irvine archeologist Pat Martz supported Vandersloot’s assertion

that the sites need further study.

“The estuary near the bay would have provided a good source of

food,” Martz said. “The villages would tend to be clustered around

these areas. ... It’s a part of our heritage, a part of our history.”

Costa Mesa has at least one site already known to have

archeological significance. The so-called Fairview site, known as

ORA-58, was a prehistoric Gabrielino village known as Genga from 1500

B.C. to 500 A.D., state records show. The site was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places in 1972, after Cal State Long

Beach anthropology professor Keith Dixon submitted an application.

The third major site, known as the Coggedstone site, is on the

Bolsa Chica Mesa in Huntington Beach. Cataloged as ORA-83, the site

is 8,500 years old, Martz said, and could be the earliest recorded

civilization in the area.

More than 500 stone sculptures were found at the site when it was

excavated.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].