February's Speaker, Jon Erlandson

Back in December Jon Erlandson made his most recent trip to San Miguel Island. He had a familiar feeling as he approached: coming home. This feeling arose for at least two reasons of interest to Eugene Natural History Society members.

First, San Miguel Island is one of the Channel Islands, and is easily accessible from Santa Barbara, California, where Professor Erlandson spent a good deal of his formative years. Getting to San Miguel Island required him to return home. Second, he has been conducting archaeological research on San Miguel Island since 1982, and has visited between 75 and 100 times (usually staying at least a week); so in a sense, it is his research home.

Archaeology has been Jon’s passion since grade school. His parents were supportive of his interest, as was his grandfather who taught engineering and surveying at Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls. One summer Jon found an arrowhead on the beach of Upper Klamath Lake in front of his grandparents’ house. He said he was “just amazed that my granddad could tell me how old it was. It was 8,000 years old!”

Jon’s family moved to Hawaii where he graduated from high school. So he lived next to the ocean pretty much the whole time he was growing up. Yes, he was a surfer, a diver and a sailor. With all that exposure to the sea, perhaps it isn’t surprising that his archaeological niche is ancient maritime societies.

Jon received his BA from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Santa Barbara, and even before finishing the degree, he established an archaeological consulting business. He did a lot of work with the Chumash Indians. Because of his strong connections to the area, it made no sense for Jon to go elsewhere for graduate work; he received both MA and PhD in archaeology from UCSB.

In 1983 he “followed his love” to Alaska. His wife, Madonna Moss, also a professor of archaeology here at the University of Oregon, specializes in Alaskan archaeology. They both taught for a year at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Jon said 50 below in the winter was tough on a southern-California guy.

Professor Erlandson came to the University of Oregon in 1990 and has made his mark in many aspects of university life. He recently was reappointed to another five-year term as Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, an endowed position. He has received several awards for excellence in teaching and mentoring. He delivered the keynote address at the University’s Spring Commencement in 2004. He has authored 15 books and over 200 scientific papers. Since 2005, he has also served as Director of the University’s Museum of Cultural and Natural History.

As an indication of his dedication to the true nature of professorship, this distinguished researcher loves to teach Introduction to Archaeology. He said the committee overseeing the Knight Professorship spoke apologetically when telling him that to hold this chair, he would have to teach an undergraduate course. He responded that nothing gives him more pleasure than exposing undergraduates to the wonders of his chosen field.

In his presentation Friday evening, “The Peopling of the Americas,” Jon Erlandson will tell us about one of the greatest migrations in human history. He will touch on the major theories (even after over a century of intense scrutiny there are still more than one), but will pay special attention to the by-sea approach. Within this paradigm he will describe a recent hypothesis: Kelp forests, which at one time could have ringed much of the Pacific Rim, may have been a critical enabling factor in the seaward access to the Americas. He has also promised to mention another fascinating hypothesis to which his findings on San Miguel Island provide credence: A comet impact about 13,000 years ago on the Laurentide Ice Sheet may have contributed to three previously unresolved issues—the extinction of North American megafauna, the millennium-long cold spell known as the Younger Dryas, and the breakdown of the Clovis culture. (This latter work on the comet hypothesis, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has earned a place on Discover magazine’s list of the 100 top science stories of 2007.)

The Eugene Natural History Society is honored to have Professor Jon Erlandson as its February 2008 speaker. Please return the honor with your presence, at 7:30 PM, on Friday the 15th. Encourage friends and acquaintances to come. I almost forgot to mention: Jon owns a fedora, but only his wife wears it. He doesn’t have a bullwhip.


-John Carter


The Chumash tomols (single plank canoes primarily used for fishing) were first made about 2,000 years ago. The Chumash themselves inhabited the southern California coastal region as early as 13,000 years ago according to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History website. In 1913, an elderly Chumash man, Fernando Librado, made a tomol for the late anthropologist John P. Harrington (preserver of west coast Indian languages, customs and oral histories). This boat is now on exhibit in the Museum’s Indian Hall.

San Miguel Island is the furthest west in the Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Santa Barbara. “To visit the pristine interior, a ranger or volunteer naturalist must accompany hikers.” San Miguel is well known for the strange formations of Caliche, sand casts of ancient tree trunks and roots. The island hosts one of the largest congregations of seals and sea lions found anywhere in the world.

Museum website: < www.sbnature.org >

-editor




this world in which we live, but there is also one above us and one below us. There are two serpents that hold our world up from below. When they are tired they move, and that causes earthquakes. The World above is sustained by the great eagle. He never moves, he is always in the same spot. When he gets tired of sustaining the upper world, he stretches his wings a little, and this causes the phases of the moon. When there is an eclipse of the moon it is because his wings cover it completely. And the water in the springs and streams of this earth is the urine of the many frogs who live in it.

eir mysterious cave is about 58 miles from Ventura Harbor and travel time including stops at Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Island to pick up or drop off passengers is about 3.5 - 4 hours. When traveling to San Miguel, Island Packers often travels along the south side of the scenic Santa Cruz Island coastline. When returning from San Miguel you will travel along the north side of Santa Cruz and view the Painted Cave, a large sea cave on the western end of the island. This provides those traveling to the outer islands of Santa Rosa and San Miguel an opportunity to circumnavigate Santa Cruz Island. Visitors going ashore on San Miguel should be prepared for a skiff ride from one the main boat to the shore of Cuyler Harbor. This landing can be an adventure in itself and at times you can get a little wet as the skiff may take spray from wind or a splash from a wave in the surf zone.

San Miguel Island is truly the backcountry; it is both remote and exposed to the ever-changing elements at the western portion of the Santa Barbara Channel. Visitors should be prepared for a wide range of conditions including sun, fog, cool temperatures and wind. There is no potable water, and no shade trees on this island, so visitors should bring ample drinking water, a hat and sunscreen. Lunch, snacks, and water should be carried in a backpack or similar style bag since hiking trails are steep and narrow in some places. If planning to stay on the beach at Cuyler Harbor a small ice chest can be used. The white sand beach of Cuyler Harbor, and a steep 1.5-mile canyon hike with beautiful examples of native vegetation are open to all visitors.

To visit the pristine interior of San Miguel Island an island ranger or a National Park volunteer naturalist must accompany hikers. San Miguel is well known for the strange formations of Caliche, which are sand casts of ancient tree trunks and roots. In addition, though not accessible in a day visit (a 16 mile round trip hike) is the famed Point Bennett, that has one of the largest congregations of seals and sea lions found anywhere in the world. View the San Miguel hiking guide.  

The Channel Islands are the most important nesting grounds for seabirds on the West Coast. Though damaged by decades of cattle and sheep ranching, the islands still sport an impressive array of native plant life. Whales, orcas, and dolphins pass offshore. Tide pools, a vanishing habitat on the mainland, are doing well on Channel Islands.

The national park occupies five of the eight islands in the chain, as well as much of its offshore waters. The islands are Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara. Each island has its own character. Anacapa is the entry point, tiny, popular, and closest to shore. Santa Cruz is the largest and most biologically diverse; it is largely owned by the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy. Santa Rosa is the most historically interesting, and the most wide open of the larger islands for those who want to do some independent exploring. San Miguel has (arguably) the best hiking as well as terrific wildlife. Tiny Santa Barbara is the most isolated, a place to go to be alone in a wild, windy ocean.

Anacapa, San Miguel, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands are accessible by booking seats on chartered boats departing daily from Ventura and Santa Barbara or other coastal cities which offer scuba, fishing and excursion charters. If you are short on time, half-day non land excursions are also available in Ventura on the Whale Watching trips. But the good news is that if the whales are migrating, the captain of your day-trip charter will stop to watch and take photos. California's natural splendor is what you'll discover on a trip to the islands where you may view cormorants, seals, sea lions and endangered California brown pelicans near a giant kelp forests shelter with more than 1,000 species of ocean life.

www.islandpackers.com

"Eccentric linguist left behind priceless hoard of native history"