A Burial Cave in Baja California / The Palmer Collection, 1887

BY WILLIAM C. MASSEY and CAROLYN M. OSBORNE
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Vol. 16, No. 8
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS
Editors (Berkeley): J. H. Rowe, R. F. Millon, D. M. Schneider Volume 16, No. 8, pp. 339-364, plates 12-17, 7 figures in text, 2 maps
Submitted by editors May 16, 1960 Issued May 12, 1961 Price, $1.00
University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California
Cambridge University Press London, England
Manufactured in the United States of America
In 1888 an archaeological collection of material from Bahía de Los Angeles in Baja California was deposited in the United States National Museum by Dr. Edward Palmer. Although the material was duly catalogued, together with Dr. Palmer’s notes, it has gone undescribed until the present.
Dr. Robert F. Heizer called this collection to the attention of the senior author in 1948. At that time the archaeology of Baja California was receiving emphasis at the University of California because of the interest of the Associates in Tropical Biogeography, under the chairmanship of Dr. C. O. Sauer. The late Professor E. W. Gifford, then Curator of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, arranged with Dr. T. Dale Stewart of the United States National Museum for a temporary study loan of the collection.
From the beginning, the division of labor between the authors has been primarily in terms of “hard” and “soft” artifacts. Massey has handled the analyses of the imperishable artifacts, their ethnographic and archaeological distributions, and the distributions of all artifacts for Baja California. Mrs. Osborne has dealt with the netting, textiles, and cordage, and the distribution of their techniques outside Baja California. Dr. Lila M. O’Neale began the analysis of the textiles and netting and directed it until her untimely death. Professor E. W. Gifford advised on the initial description of the imperishable artifacts.