On May 15 th at 4 pm, the Friends of San Pedro Valley Park welcome Mark Hylkema from California State Parks with a lecture entitled “Lifeways of the Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area.” We step back in time to the year 1769 to learn about the archaeology and ethnography of the ancestral Ohlone people and about the native lifeways that once flourished in our neighborhoods and re-live the experiences of the first Spanish explorers.

Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Fr_VB_t7SquOtFL7k_IaVQ

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About the talk: In 1769, when the first Spanish expedition reached Monterey and learned of San Francisco Bay they encountered numerous tribal communities that lived in a bountiful landscape. Over a period of over 10,000 years tribal communities adapted to several major environmental transitions and archaeological research has found that tribes spread along the San Mateo and Santa Cruz County coast developed an early focus on marine resources. Neighboring tribes of the Santa Clara Valley and San Francisco Bay shore developed a different economic focus creating an exchange system that eventually promoted more complex levels of social organization. This discussion will provide an outline of the archaeology and ethnography of the ancestral Ohlone people and provide insights into the native lifeway that once flourished in our neighborhoods. We will reflect on what it was like not too many years ago when grizzly bears and the Ohlone people dwelled here and re-live the experiences of the first Spanish explorers.

About the speaker: Mark Hylkema is the Supervisor of the Cultural Resources Program for the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks, which includes 32 parks in an area ranging from San Francisco to the Pajaro River. Mark also works on many other projects throughout the state and has 40 years’ experience in California archaeology, with an emphasis on Native American culture. In addition to State Parks, he has simultaneously served as an adjunct professor of Anthropology at Foothill College for 11 years, and has taught anthropology courses at Santa Clara University, University of California at Santa Cruz, De Anza College, Ohlone College and Cabrillo College.