A recent Daily Forty-Niner article reported that Cal State Long Beach’s newest coming attraction, the Outpost Grill and Café, would be built over an area once inhabited by Native Americans. The over-arching irony is that a modern food-processing station will be built on top of an ancient food-processing station.
Imagine our mixed sense of disgust and gratitude when we found out that this particular area shows to have once been a site where materials of “subsistence endeavors” were found, according to the recent investigation. Keeping with tradition, the site will soon be home to an indoor/outdoor eating café that will accommodate about 300 seats.
Midden Trace D, the name of the archaeological collection, was not only found to contain ancient food residue and charred animal remains, but hunting tools were discovered as well.
The irony doesn’t end here. Archaeologists have also determined that the area was not a permanent settlement, but was used seasonally. It almost seems like the site was once a Native American college, with fall, summer and spring semesters.
The investigative article indicates quite clearly that only fate has such a sense of humor.
Obviously there will be a few changes. Knives will replace ground stone tools and visitors will eat off of paper plates rather than no plates, possibly to keep up with modern health codes.
We definitely welcome a new eatery on the lower campus. Being confined in the nether regions can sure make one hungry. It will take some adjusting to have a permanent food structure after so many months of ordering from diner on wheels.
We (and no doubt many other students in the forgotten zone) look forward to the day we can buy scantrons, bluebooks and other amenities without a daylong hike up the mountain to the University Bookstore.
It’s not surprising that this discovery was found on our seemingly typical college campus. CSULB has long been known for being a disputed hot bed of local Native American sacred ceremonial sites, such as the 22-acre Puvungna grounds.
It was not that long ago that much controversy arose when The Beach proposed building a strip-mall on what was then considered public land. The classic attempt to generate profits on someone else’s sacred site is probably not considered to be the most empathetic plan in history.
The current construction assures that progress has been made that future students will appreciate. We hope the university will take every precaution to be respectful of remains and remnants that are important to the descendents of the ancient inhabitants.
The article in fact read that the Outpost building contracts require that a “qualified archaeologist and Native American representative/monitor will be onsite during all ground disturbing activities.”
Although we welcome change and more food options on lower campus, we also feel that it is of great importance to practice reverence as the site develops.
In honor – or in irony – we suggest offering Navajo Fry Bread, or other cultural staples. While we don’t wish to diminish the historical importance of this discovery with that suggestion, we simply can’t bring ourselves to order any dining special containing the word “molluscan.”
