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3.8 Cultural Resources

other materials were deposited on the ocean bottom. Marine animals and shore birds were buried in
these deposits as they died and sank to the bottom. Through time, many of these specimens became
fossilized.

During the Pleistocene age, movement of and collision between tectonic plates elevated much of this area
above the ocean and formed hills and mountains where the ocean bottom and valleys once existed.
Erosion cut through these older sediments, as they were uplifted from the terrain that now exists.

Over 1,100 vertebrate fossil localities within the County are known. Most of these localities are generally
scattered within 700 square miles (about 17 percent of the County) of hilly terrain that is underlain by

fossil-producing rock formations. A substantial portion of these 700 square miles have been developed,
and much of the remaining area is threatened, particularly areas surrounding the Santa Clarita Valley,
including the Santa Susana Mountains to the southwest and the Sierra Pelona Mountains on the north. 1

As development encroaches into the foothills of these ranges, the paleontological resources that may be
present within these areas are subject to a greater risk of damage or destruction. Additional risk factors
include the lack of outward visibility of these resources (they are often buried, sometimes under

substantial quantities of earth) and a lack of information regarding specific locations of these resources in
some portions of the City’s Planning Area.

Prehistory and Archaeology

Early man arrived in the Santa Clarita Valley 18,000 to 25,000 years ago during the migration across the

Bering land bridge. The earliest physical evidence of human occupation in the Upper Santa Clara River
Area dates from 7,000 to 4,000 years before present (BP), and was recovered from two sites near Vasquez
Rocks. The identity of the area’s first inhabitants is unknown. The Tataviam peoples, Uto-Aztecan
speakers of Shoshonean descent, began to reach the OVOV Planning Area in approximately 450 A.D.

They were described as a distinct linguistic group when they were first encountered in 1776 by Spanish
explorer Pedro Fages. 2

The Tataviam lived primarily on the upper reaches of the Santa Clara River, east of Piru Creek, extending
north into the Antelope Valley, south to the San Gabriel Mountains, and possibly as far east as the
3
Soledad Pass. However, archaeological data indicate that subsistence patterns and ritual practice were

1 County of Los Angeles 1979.
2 King and Blackburn 1978.
3 King and Blackburn 1978; Impact Sciences, Inc. 1999.

Impact Sciences, Inc. 3.8-2 One Valley One Vision Revised Draft Program EIR
0112.023 County of Los Angeles Area Plan
November 2010