The Punta Arena Site: Early and Middle Holocene Cultural Development on Santa Cruz Island
The Punta Arena site is a red abalone midden located on the southeastern coast of Santa Cruz Island. This site is of particular interest to researchers within the context of the Red Abalone Midden Project (RAMP) due to high levels of stratigraphic preservation, thickness of the red abalone midden layer, and the presence of a great variety of other taxa within the midden. The main goal of the RAMP is to examine how the occurrence of red abalone middens can help in the overall understanding of past environmental and cultural changes on the northern Santa Barbara Channel Islands. This volume seeks to utilize the unique size and preservation level of the Punta Arena site to observe cultural and environmental change within the red abalone interval, as well as to potentially evaluate changes in subsistence patterns on the northern Channel Islands through analysis of the archaeological assemblage from this site.
