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| Landmark #335 | Alameda County | Visited: Sept. 14, 2013 | Plaque? NO. 🙁 |
| What is it? | A small park with informative signs! |
| What makes it historical? | THE GUIDE SAYS: It is said that the Indians who came to this site camped just above the shoreline. The shells they threw aside from their catches of shellfish eventually covered some hundreds of thousands of square feet, marked by several cones. When the University of California excavated this site in the 1920s, they found that the mound consisted mostly of clam, mussel, and oyster shells, with a plentiful mixture of cockleshells.
OTHER TIDBITS: This is an appalling description that not only leaves out the name of the tribe who built this mound, the Ohlone, but also the fact that this was an important site where they buried their dead amid the shells! The way they buried the bodies helped establish geneologies and territorial rights! It was in use between 500 BC and 1700 AD when the Spanish missionaries captured the Ohlone for their mission building! Starting in the 1800s, newcomers began to destroy the mound, bit by bit, first to build an amusement park, then to build an industrial park in 1924. This reduced the shell mound to nothingness and filled the ground with toxins! 700 buried ancestors were removed and taken to UC Berkeley for storage. In the 1990s, an archaeologist revisited site, but he could not convince anyone else to run a full-scale investigation. More bodies were exhumed and sent to Texas to be burned as toxic waste, and a retail center was built over the mound, where it remains today! |
| How can I Help the Helpers? | HERE’S HOW:
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| Where is this place? | LISTED DIRECTIONS: 4600 block of Shellmound St Emeryville, CA 94608 ANNOTATIONS: From Los Angeles: ~374mi (602km) — 6.3hrs |
| When should I go? | Whenever the mood strikes you! |
