Primary Investigator: Lynn Ferris
Faculty Sponsor: Alan Leventhal
Background: On August 27, 2002 the California Fox Theatre located on First Street in downtown San Jose was undergoing massive renovations when a construction crew working on the trenching of a new water main pipe encountered human remains. The City of San Jose Redevelopment Agency contracted with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s cultural resource management firm Ohlone Families Consulting Services for the archaeological data and burial recovery program. SJSU Anthropology Department alumna Susan Morley (who has since been teaching at CSU Monterey Bay) served as co-principal archaeologist along with Alan Leventhal on this project for the Tribe. Susan Morley and Muwekma Tribal Chairwoman Rosemary Cambra wrote a preliminary report for the Redevelopment Agency on the skeletal biology and associated artifacts. Without benefit of sufficient funds for radiometric dating, the burial was considered an outlier and further assumed to be part of the nearby CA-SCL-128 (Holiday Inn Site) burial population which dated from ca. AD 700 to AD 1550.
From 2010 to 2011 Anthropology student Lynn Ferris enrolled in Leventhal’s Anthropology 195 classes. Lynn conducted the reanalysis of the burial and artifacts and she graduated in June 2011. Lynn co-authored sections of the 2012 archaeological report titled Report on the Reanalysis and AMS Dating of the Burial Recovered from the Tupiun Táareštak [Place of the Fox Man] Site (CA-SCL-894/Fox Theatre) Located in the City of San Jose, Santa Clara County, California. Other analyses that were conducted include results from the stable isotope study and chronological placement of the site through AMS dating. Permission was granted by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe for Lynn to conduct the radiocarbon (AMS) dating.
College of Social Sciences Foundation Research Grant: In order to date this site Lynn applied for a grant from the College of Social Sciences Research Foundation and was awarded $685.00 for AMS dating. On February 3, 2011 Beta labs issued a mid-range date of AD 320, thus demonstrating that this burial was indeed older than the Holiday Inn Site burial population. As a result a decision was made to record this location as a distinct archaeological site and Lynn coauthored the archaeological site record. Anthropology alumna Lynn Ferris is currently working as a Clinical Data Associate at Gilead Sciences, Inc. in Foster City.