Awarded over $3 million from the California Department of Parks and Recreation in support of the Cannabis Watershed Protection Program (CWPP), Sonoma State's Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) is assisting in interpreting and protecting cultural resources found in Northern California's state parks on illegal cannabis sites.
"We are here to help discover things that have been overlooked. We're documenting the past in a way that hasn't been done before to ensure the cultural resources are considered in the larger process," said ASC principal investigator (PI) and archaeologist Mark Selverston.
The Cannabis Watershed Protection Program was created in 2019 with funding from Proposition 64 (The Control, Regulate, and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act) to remediate and restore decades of environmental damage from cannabis grows on public land. The CWPP is a multidisciplinary team of cultural and natural resource management experts, facilities staff, interpretation and education staff, and law enforcement agents.
ASC has been supporting State Parks on the project since 2020.
Selverston said he and the ASC team have uncovered numerous cultural resources in parks where illegal cultivation sites have been identified through the CWPP.
"Depending on where it is, we have found quite a bit of Native American cultural resources, as well as pioneer homestead findings in some of the bigger projects connected to the Gold Rush," he said.
ASC provides various organizations with cultural resource management services such as resource inventory surveys, damage assessment, Native American community engagement, public interpretation, and stabilization plans.
Darren Andolina, cultural resources supervisor for the CWPP, said that the isolated land is ripe for illicit growing activities because many park parcels are in remote areas.
"People have been illegally growing cannabis on public lands for decades," Andolina said. “The growing activities can impact cultural resources, as well as the natural environment, and we are committed to addressing these impacts.”
Joining Forces to Preserve Cultural History
Andolina joined State Parks five years ago and knew he needed cultural resource inventory assistance to help inform the CWPP restoration projects.
"State Parks' ethos is to protect and preserve our cultural heritage," he said. "If we don't fully understand what are in those cultural sites and where they are on the landscape, we don't really have the ability to help protect and preserve them."
ASC’s responsibility is to ensure that the cultural resources found are protected. Selverston said what the ASC has discovered has often been overlooked in the past.
“We are protecting our stories and bringing those pieces back into our history to better understand who we are and what our past is in California," he said.
Tribal Engagement
One of the CWPP projects Selverston manages closely is at South Yuba River State Park, which is within a significant watershed in Nevada County. State Parks and ASC are collaborating with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan to ensure the cultural resources found are taken into consideration.
"Any time cultural resources are being respected and cared for, and there's a conversation where tribal people are involved in the process, it makes me very happy," said Shelly Covert, the Tribe's spokesperson and executive director of the Tribal-guided nonprofit, California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP).
The Nisenan Tribe are the Indigenous people of the territory, and the Yuba River, or ‘Uba Seo, is considered sacred to their people.
"The watershed is the heart of our homelands," Covert said.
Andolina said acknowledging the injustices of the past and how European colonization of western North America disrupted Tribal life and the Tribes’ connection to the land is an important part of honoring cultural resources and Native ways.
"It’s a commitment by the state government, as well as the cultural resource community, to take accountability and support Tribal communities in reestablishing their connection to the land as well as their cultural ties. We are here to help facilitate to whatever extent we can," he said.
Covert said the Nisenan’s sustainability of life is linked to regaining access to sacred places, spiritual areas, and land that Tribes are mandated to protect. "We have stories and memories that tether us to the land in a way that is hard to explain sometimes," she said.
With a relatively small territory and still on the land they originated from, the tribe remains where their ancestors are buried, which Covert said is a privilege.
"The people who remain are the cultural resources outside the rocks on the land itself," she said. "The people are the cultural resources because they hold the memory and perspective of the landscape."
Student Field Work
Along with the professional and cultural aspects of ASC's scope, the department offers real-world experience for SSU students studying cultural resource management. The center funds internships and other training opportunities that help students learn the significance of cultural and historical landscapes while developing public outreach and interpretation approaches.
Amanda Jorgenson, a SSU graduate student studying cultural resources management, has been an archaeological technician for the ASC for over a year. Jorgenson has worked with Selverston on the cultural survey of the Sonoma Developmental Center at Jack London State Historic Park.
Jorgenson said the fieldwork has allowed her to explore the hills and forests of a local park and research the property's unique history. “I am learning to tell the stories of these places and the people who inhabited them.”
She said the notes, pictures, and measurements she takes in the field contribute to her interpretation of the landscape.
"It feels meaningful," she said.“I go home dirty, covered in poison oak, and filled with the knowledge that I've helped contribute to the historical record, even if the details are sometimes only very small."
Krista Sherer - Strategic Communications Writer