Archaeological Research Facility

At Berkeley in the Anthropology files are lists of Chumash place names assembled by C. Hart Merriam and A.L. Kroeber. While there is little, if anything, new in these -- i.e., original information elicited from native Chumash in the present century -- it is possible that these lists may be of some utility to persons concerned with Chumash place names, particularly if they are at all concerned with these names which have earlier appeared in print.

The Merriam list is an abstract of his California place-tribal name card file which numbers some 18,000 entries. The Kroeber list is on cards bearing the title "Chumashan Villages. Arranged geographically from Handbook of American Indians, 1911." Kroeber located on then available USGS quadrangles the position of as many of these sites as he could, marking sites with approximate locations with an X and those of definitely determined locations with a dot. These quadrangle maps, now in the files, are too large to publish but they bear numerous notations by Kroeber on local geography and characterizations of the archaeological remains visible. It would appear that Kroeber went over much of the ground himself and that these annotations are based on field observations made by him. It is clear that the card file of village names and the quadrangle maps were the basis for the map appearing as Plate 48 in his Handbook of the Indians of California (1925) and titled "Part of the Habitat of the Chumash and Alliklik."