Primary Investigators: Colin Jaramillo and Alan Leventhal.

 Faculty Sponsors: Dr. Marco Meniketti and Mr. Alan Leventhal

Background: In the year 2000, construction for a Public Storage facility near downtown San Jose uncovered Native American remains beneath the planned foundation and parking area. Once the skeletons were uncovered during construction, Public Storage contracted with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s Ohlone Families Consulting Services to develop a mitigation program that included a burial and archaeological data recovery program.  A total of 10 ancestral Ohlone skeletons were recovered from site CA-SCL-851, also renamed by the Muwekma Tribe as the ’Utthin širkeewis Tcitca ’Irekmatka [Two Black Obsidian Rocks Site].  Following the burial recovery, there was no funding provided by Public Storage for any of the osteological or archaeological analyses and as a result these individuals have since been curated at San Jose State University, and have been periodically reviewed by faculty and students as part of Leventhal’s Anthropology 195 class.  Recently there have been collaborative studies conducted on this population by Dr. Eric Bartelink (CSU, Chico) on Stable Isotope, and Ancient DNA by Drs. Brian Kemp and Cara Monroe from Washington State University.  A co-authored final report will present information on the field work, excavation methods, paleo-environmental conditions, skeletal analysis/inventory, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, artifact analysis, C-14 (AMS) dating, obsidian hydration and an ethnohistory of written by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.

 College of Social Sciences Foundation Research Grant: 
In order to accomplish some dating goals stated above Colin applied for a grant from the College of Social Sciences Research Foundation this past Fall 2012 semester.  Colin was awarded $2000.00 for his research proposal and the resulting AMS dates from Beta Analytic will be updated here. Colin will be presenting information on this collaborative study at the 41st Annual Western Departments of Anthropology and Sociology Undergraduate Research Conference, Santa Clara University on Saturday, April 12, 2014.