This oak and these boulders were slated to be the backyard of a few people, but activist efforts by Save the San Marcos Foothills coalition rescued the area for the many people of the public at large; surely of much greater utility.
[Update: See comments section below; looks like the mystery has been solved quickly by a reader.]
We saw this artifact at San Marcos Foothills Preserve while on a walk; the leashed dog and two of us.
I’ve never seen anything like it in form anywhere in the world, be it in a store locally or abroad, on the internet or in the undeveloped wildlands.
The most remarkable, clever design characteristic is that it’s the same tear drop shape on all four sides.
This is a highly disturbed and altered area in general where we saw this tiny stone artifact, like most everywhere else along the Santa Barbara littoral.
A lot of modern day disturbance has occurred here, activities of various sorts carried out and litter left in its wake.
This includes plastic trash left behind by purported environmental habitat restorationists, which we’ll address at length in a later post.
Perhaps the most egregious actions have been the dumping of microtrash plastic debris, apparently brought in and deposited in the mulch obtained from the County of Santa Barbara.
The wide-spread dumping of this sort of plastic litter has been mentioned before:
Letter to the Editor Regarding Plastic Pollution (2019)
The Twelve-Inch Experience, Baron Ranch Corridor (2023)
However, our neighborhood has a number of old Chumash cultural sites, such as mortar stones.
A large sunken boulder holds several mortars and is located not much more than a stone’s throw from where I sit writing this now, adjacent San Marcos Foothills Preserve.
I’ve found chipped stone tools in the neighborhood. One of the most finely crafted, exquisite pestles I’ve ever seen was found in somebody’s yard here. I’ve heard tell of much else, too.
Trace bits of midden can be seen in San Marcos Foothills preserve.
And so, while certainly possible, if not likely, that this strange artifact is of modern creation, and although it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen and so outside the Chumash oeuvre as I understand it, it also seems plausible that it’s of old-school California Indian provenance.
The particular place in the preserve where we saw it suggests this is possible and certainly within reason, but, at the same time, the location also suggests that it’s of modern creation.
By whose hands was the artifact crafted and when?
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