Our Better Nature Quotes

“There is today some controversy regarding the function of these vestiges of ancient human activity. Generally, the mounds have been viewed as remnant villages or seasonal habitations, kitchen middens, or garbage dumps—functional reminders that filling the belly is a primary human activity. More recently, native descendants, self-identified or reconstituted tribal entities, and their legal advocates and supporters have stressed the ceremonial and sacred purpose of the mounds as formal cemeteries and cremation sites for elite and distinguished members of Ohlone society.7 Regardless, it is evident that huge quantities of shellfish were consumed or prepared for consumption at these locations. A substantial accumulation of clam and mussel shells rests at Ellis Landing near Richmond on the east shore of the bay. A settlement the size of which probably never exceeded a hundred souls produced this one-and-a-quarter-million-cubicfoot mound over a period of two thousand to four thousand years by consuming an unfathomable eight billion mussels and half a billion clams.”
― Philip J. Dreyfus, Our Better Nature: Environment and the Making of San Francisco