As summer returns to San Francisco, so too we are returning to El Polín Springs to resume excavating this important archaeological site. We have spent the last week preparing the site area and our field laboratory for our research. It’s been a busy time, and an exciting one, full of meetings with Presidio Trust and National Park Service staff and of hard work to assemble all our equipment and ready ourselves for excavation. On Wednesday, June 16, the student participants in the project arrived. We spent the next three days in an intensive orientation that included lectures in the prehistoric and historic archaeology of the Presidio; tours of the Main Post and the Tennessee Hollow Watershed; and instruction in field and laboratory methods.

This summer, our excavations will focus on a smaller area than last year. Most of our excavations will be inside and near Building 1, the stone foundation that we found last year. We are going to excavate the interior of the building in hopes that floor surfaces and other deposits might still be preserved. We’re also going to excavate in the yards around the building and in the trash deposits just south of the structure.

One of the most common questions I am asked is whether we have discovered any prehistoric (pre-colonial) archaeological deposits at the site. The answer? Not yet. So far, the oldest artifacts we have found date to the 1810s. But we have recovered evidence, in the form of flaked lithic and glass debitage, that Native Californians were living or working at El Polín Springs during the Spanish-colonial and Mexican historic periods. Because of this, I hope our research will provide new insights into how Native Californians and colonists interacted with each other at this important site.