Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

This study describes a ceremonial cache containing miniature pestle-like artifacts, a "spike " fragment, an obsidian biface, and a steatite birdstone recovered at Huntington Beach Mesa, Orange County. The phallic naturalism of one "pestle" suggests that more stylized specimens likewise denoted phallic symbols. The direct association of small "pestles" with birdstones, in this and other caches, supports the proposition that birdstones communicated fertility/fecundity symbolism.