Museums - California Department of Parks and Recreation State Archaeological Collections Research Facility

The State Archaeological Collections Research Facility is a unique resource in California. In addition to providing a location to process and research recent excavations in California State Parks, the facility is home to an extensive collection of artifacts and archaeological records.
The SACRF houses an array of collections that have been recovered by state archaeologists and researchers. Artifacts from California State Parks in Monterey, Fort Ross, Old Sacramento, Old Town San Diego, San Juan Bautista and many more are housed in the facility. Many of the objects are cross-referenced into artifact type collections, which are groups of objects similar in structure and use that have been assembled for use by researchers. The type collections offered at the SACRF include a bottle type collection, a ceramic type collection, a makers’ mark collection, and a vertebrate faunal collection.
The oldest excavated site in the California State Park system that is represented in the SACRF is Duncan’s Landing Rockshelter on the Sonoma Coast State Beach (CA-SON-348/H). Its lowest levels date to 8500 BP. This three-meter-deep shell midden site produced obsidian projectile points, bone tools (awls and fish gorges), shell ornaments, beads (olivella, land snail, and soapstone), and milling equipment. Recent studies have been undertaken by researchers at UC Davis to develop data on past climate events using oxygen isotope testing on mussel shells with reliable radiocarbon dates that have been obtained from this site.
Numerous archaeological excavations at the coastal location of Fort Ross, which over time has been occupied by the Kashaya Indians, the Russian-America Company, and families of ranchers and loggers, have produced artifacts reflecting the many cultures that inhabited this part of the rugged upper Sonoma Coast.
Excavations under and around the last standing structure of the Santa Cruz Mission and from the mission at San Juan Bautista have also yielded many items of everyday life. Excavations on neophyte Indian family housing sites have unearthed a variety of illuminating artifacts, some dating from the 1820s.
The John Marsh Mansion, constructed by one of the earliest white settlers of the Central Valley, was built on top of an Indian midden. Excavations at that site have revealed several layers of culture of the peoples occupying the lower San Joaquin Delta area, including a layer of the enigmatic “Meganos” culture.
There is little that most would refer to as “art” at the SACRF, but as a repository for artifacts, it is unparalled in the state.