Santa Clarita Valley History In Pictures
> BOUQUET CANYON   > TATAVIAM CULTURE
2 Mortars, 2 Pestles
Bouquet Canyon, California

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Two stone mortars and two pestles discovered in Bouquet Canyon during road grading in the late 1920s or early 1930s by Walter Carroll Harris, who was working for the County of Los Angeles as a road grader.

The exact discovery location within Bouquet Canyon is unknown. Bouquet was a gravel road. (San Fernando Road in Newhall, which turned into Bouquet at Saugus, was paved in 1926.)

The largest mortar measures 8.5 to 9 inches in diameter — the size of a bowling ball — and weighs as much.

Both mortars, especially the smaller one, show possible traces of asphaltum around the rim, suggesting basketry hoppers might have been attached when they were in use by local indigenous Tataviam women.

The finder, Walter C. Harris, established the Blue Cloud Mining Co. in Bouquet Canyon and mined chinchilla dust. His son, Norman Harris (1941-2013), inherited the business and served on the board of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, as did Norman's wife, Cynthia Neal-Harris, from whom these materials were obtained in 2017.



LW3120: Materials purchased 7-9-2017 by Leon Worden. Accession numbers: LW.SCV1714 and LW.SCV1715 (mortars); LW.SCV1716 and LW.SCV1717 (pestles).
TATAVIAM ARTIFACTS

Bowers Cave

Peabody Museum Index


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Bowers Cave Specimens (Mult.)

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Bowers on Bowers Cave 1885

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Stephen Bowers Bio

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Bowers Cave: Perforated Stones (Henshaw 1887)

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Bowers Cave: Van Valkenburgh 1952

• Bowers Cave Inventory (Elsasser & Heizer 1963)


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Tony Newhall 1984

• Chiquita Landfill Expansion DEIR 2014: Bowers Cave Discussion

Agua Dulce

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Vasquez Rock Art x8

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Ethnobotany of Vasquez, Placerita (Brewer 2014)

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Bowl x5

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Basketry Fragment

Acton

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Blum Ranch (Mult.)

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Little Rock Creek

Castaic Area

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Grinding Stone, Chaguayanga

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Fish Canyon Bedrock Mortars & Cupules x3

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2 Steatite Bowls, Hydraulic Research 1968

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Steatite Cup, 1970 Elderberry Canyon Dig x5

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Ceremonial Bar, 1970 Elderberry Canyon Dig x4

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Projectile Points (4), 1970 Elderberry Canyon Dig

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Paradise Ranch Earth Oven

Piru Creek

Lopez Report 1974


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Twined Water Bottle x14

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Twined Basketry Fragment

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Grinding Stones, Camulos

Newhall Area

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Arrow Straightener

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Pestle

Tejon Area

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Basketry x2

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Coiled Basket 1875

Other

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Riverpark, aka River Village (Mult.)

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Riverpark Artifact Conveyance

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Tesoro (San Francisquito) Bedrock Mortar

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Mojave Desert: Burham Canyon Pictographs

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Leona Valley Site (Disturbed 2001)

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2 Baskets

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So. Cal. Basket

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Biface, Haskell Canyon

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2 Mortars, 2 Pestles, Bouquet Canyon

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