. Bulletin. Ethnology. 922 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78 eral thousand and from three to four thousand years. The latter fio:ure is arrived at l)y an inoenious computation. The Ellis Landing mound contains a million and a quarter cubic feet of material. About 15 house pits were recently still visible on it. If contemporaneously occupied, these would indicate a population of about a hundred. The Indians ate fish, game, acorns, seeds, and roots. A per capita allowance of fifty mussels a day, or an e({uivalent in other moUuskan species, for adults and children, therefore seems liberal. F
. Bulletin. Ethnology. 922 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78 eral thousand and from three to four thousand years. The latter fio:ure is arrived at l)y an inoenious computation. The Ellis Landing mound contains a million and a quarter cubic feet of material. About 15 house pits were recently still visible on it. If contemporaneously occupied, these would indicate a population of about a hundred. The Indians ate fish, game, acorns, seeds, and roots. A per capita allowance of fifty mussels a day, or an e({uivalent in other moUuskan species, for adults and children, therefore seems liberal. Five thou- sand mussel shells crush down, per experiment, to a quarter as many cubic inches. Ash, rock, and other debris would bring the daily accumulation to about a cubic foot for the entire settlement. At a rate of dei)Osition amounting to 800 to 400 cubic feet annually, 8,500 years would be required to build up 1,260,000 feet. There are too many indeterminate factors in such a calculation to allow its results. Fig. sites on Santa Cruz Island. The largest middens are crossed. (Data of L. Outhwaite.) to be pressed rigidly; but it seems reasonable. The bottom of the mound now l)eing 18 feet below sea level, a subsidence of half a foot per century is indicated. The population may have averaged more than 100; but this would be rather a high figure for a native Cali- fornian village. It may have been augmented seasonally by visitors from the interior, but to compensate, its own inhabitants are likely to have spent five or six months of each year in the hills away from their mussels. However the question is approached, 3,500 years seems a conservative deduction. A check has been attempted by another investigator. Fourteen per cent of Ellis Landing mound, according to a numbei of ana- lyzed samples, is ash—a weight of over 7,000 tons. Assumii g 3,500 years, we have a production of 11 pounds daily. The avail- able in the vicinity yield less than 1 per cent
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