BajaNomad - Some thoughts on Baja tourism

Some thoughts on Baja tourism

Osprey - 4-6-2011 at 01:30 PM

Baja Invasion

All of us Bajaphiles complain about the hordes of new vacation visitors and retirees from the north cluttering up our formerly pristine Baja California. In my case it was Vini, Vidi, Velcro, I Came, I Saw, I Stuck Around. We should not complain. We are all Johnny Come Latelies.

New discoveries reveal that island hoppers in boats have been coming here from all over the Pacific rim for the last 40,000 years. 8,000 years ago it was like Easter Week here. Lots of vacationers in love with the sealife found the seas full of good things to eat, the climate moderate, no time share PC guys and gals pulling their sleeves.

I think most of these early visitors came just as the mammoths, camelids, sloths, etc. of the Ice Age were disappearing. I believe there might have been many more deer and antelope but early spring breakers would have had a hard time roundin’ them up to make stew. It is hard to say what riches the seas might have held way back when but if you let your imagination run it will give new meaning to the words “wide open”.

I’ve explored lots of southern Baja beaches and I can say that very few of them do not have evidence of kitchen middens, mounds of shells from shellfish which sustained perhaps hundreds of early tribes of visitors from Hokkaido to Chili.

A couple of miles from my house there is a large, well preserved early man surface site that holds literally thousands of worked hand tools and many kitchen middens which might be evidence of either large or extended occupation. I think these people were here 4,000 years ago (Mexican Natural History dept. tagged them as Las Palmas Group) because the site is only 5 meters above sea level – 10,000 years ago the sea level might have been 60 or 70 meters higher. Thank God these folks were few and primitive because about that time in history the Albans pushed the walrus to the brink of extinction in the northern seas. Only very recent visitors have had the luxury, the freedom, the permission to loot and pollute this little sea.

I contacted Mexico’s Natural History department (INAH) in La Paz several times about this important site, giving them the GPS numbers, photos of the middens, the site, the tools. After a long silence I wrote to an archeologist friend in the states who contacted them directly and he reported back to me that The Las Palmas group was way down on their very long list of “Things to Do”. Now, after reading the mountains of new scientific evidence stacking up about shore hopping voyagers from all over the globe showing incursions here, I’m beginning to think that somewhere in the future, Baja California’s antiquities may be a close second draw for world-wide tourism.

I won’t be here to see it and, of course, I could be wrong. It might not even come close to Cabo specials at Easter Week on the regular $14 dollar margaritas = 2 for $25 bucks. Can’t beat that.

Woooosh - 4-6-2011 at 02:51 PM

any deeper thoughts in there? :tumble:

BajaBlanca - 4-6-2011 at 03:21 PM

Very good thoughts Osprey, President Calderon has declared he wants Mexico to be one of 5 most visited world-wide destinations by tourists and this is the year for investing in his dream .... I would think that archeologists all over the world might be interested in exploring Baja ....

DENNIS - 4-6-2011 at 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaBlanca
.... I would think that archeologists all over the world might be interested in exploring Baja ....

They probably would although the higher learning institutions are so protective of everything to a point of being absurd.
Some years back, one of the Universities here, CICESE or UABC...don't recall which, came across some sophisticated siesmology equipment. Unrelated to anything, a field trip of students from NOB came down to see things including the new equipment and the stuff throughout the city hit the fan.
"How dare those ogling Gringos come down here and look at our new tools."
It was a big deal and quietly bothered me a lot knowing as I do of the quantities of expensive lab equipment and other things the US Universities donate to the school systems here. I've seen it.

Woooosh - 4-6-2011 at 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaBlanca
Very good thoughts Osprey, President Calderon has declared he wants Mexico to be one of 5 most visited world-wide destinations by tourists and this is the year for investing in his dream .... I would think that archeologists all over the world might be interested in exploring Baja ....

You might want to get to Tiger Woods golf course site before a lot of the Baja artifacts are gone. I think the archaeologists tried to stop the project but settled on getting to document them before they were bulldozed.

" the project plans to remove more than 90% of the vegetation destroying a pristine ecosystem of coastal sage scrub and more than 25 archaeological sites in that area. "

http://quepasabaja.com/?p=583

http://www.elaw.org/node/3811

[Edited on 4-6-2011 by Woooosh]

mtgoat666 - 4-6-2011 at 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaBlanca
.... I would think that archeologists all over the world might be interested in exploring Baja ....

sounds like a case of
Communication breakdown, it's always the same
Havin' a nervous breakdown, drive me insane

re the potential for archaeo tourism in baja -- unless elbow finds the lost civilization -- archaeo is interesting to the sensitive liberal types, but a few middens and petroglyphs will never rival an aztec or pyramid, so archaeo tourism will stay a niche on the fringe.
the paintings in sierra de san fransisco attract a few visitors, but not that many. look at baja nomads, they like simple gut-level thrills like motor bikes and fishing and drinking and RVs with sat TV -- most nomads wouldn't pay to see a petroglyph, and most wouldn't walk to see a petroglyph.

Bajahowodd - 4-6-2011 at 04:13 PM

Perhaps harsh. :lol:

May be true of a particular segment of nomads, but certainly not all.

bajatravelergeorge - 4-6-2011 at 04:19 PM

I made my first trip from Los Angeles to Ensenada over 40 years ago and yes, I've seen that coastline become more and more populated over the years. But that growth is nothing compared to what happened north of the border from San Diego to Santa Barbara and inland to Victorville. In over twenty years of traveling south of Ensenada down to Santa Rosalia, that has changed very little. South of Santa Rosalia to Cabo has grown some, but in relation to north of the border, its nothing. Baja still has ways of suprising me on every trip I take and until that changes, I'm hooked on Baja. I'm almost glad that people up north are afraid to come down and explore Baja, except for what its doing to the real estate prices.

Bajahowodd - 4-6-2011 at 04:23 PM

Good point. And, yeah, as I recall, my first trip to Ensenada was around 1971. And if you really want to get a feeling of how things have changed, we drove from Saugus to Ensenada to have lunch, and were home for dinner. Traffic??? :?:

DENNIS - 4-6-2011 at 04:58 PM

If land in Baja was available to own in those past years, the whole Peninsula would be covered with houses.

Marc - 4-6-2011 at 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Perhaps harsh. :lol:

May be true of a particular segment of nomads, but certainly not all.

Not me.

grizzlyfsh95 - 4-7-2011 at 08:16 AM

Only very recent visitors have had the luxury, the freedom, the permission to loot and pollute this little sea.

paleeeez

Osprey - 4-7-2011 at 08:22 AM

Paleeez what?

wessongroup - 4-7-2011 at 08:28 AM

That's it... Pyramids... that's what Baja needs to kick off tourism... :biggrin:

Bajatripper - 4-7-2011 at 11:24 AM

Interesting topic. I would like to know more about the "sicentific evidence" that points to Pacific Rim visitors arriving in Baja during the last 40,000 years. I know of Harumi Fujita's work on Espiritu Santo Island here in the Bay of La Paz, which supports your date for early man's activities on that island, but she has never supported the Pacific Island myth.

The source of that myth can be traced back to the controversial works of Paul Rivet, published in the early 1900s (and which is now widely discredited). But other than speculation based on his book, I have never come across anything else that supports such a contention.

A recently-opened Casa de la Cultura (La Paz has more than one) does an excellent job of recapping the history of the populating of the peninsula, and the Pacific Rim myth gets no mention whatsoever.

Even so, here in La Paz, every so often a few locals rediscover the myth and sponsor celebrations using it as a theme, complete with Polynesian dancing girls. Never mind that Rivet's visiting Pacific Islanders were from Melanesia, which means they would have looked like the people of Papua New Guinea, who tend to be short and black and have kinky hair.

Osprey - 4-7-2011 at 01:54 PM

Tripper, it's more than myth now. The theory is becoming more poplular since the recent discovery of sites on the Channel Island off Southern California. Give me a day to pull up some links and I'll fill you in. Molto's DNA on Pericue near San Lucas is now subject to doubt because of the Piñon woman find in Mexico City (12,000 BPE) and now some others that point away from all the Baja artifacts reproving the walkdown position. Lots of heavy proof that dichlocephalic specimens here and elsewhere were seafaring coast hoppers -- several scientists now posit Proto Japanese could have made many trips to Baja California in boats from Hokkaido and I for one believe they painted the caves 7,500 years ago and again and again over the ages on their hunts/pilgrimages.

[Edited on 4-7-2011 by Osprey]

Udo - 4-7-2011 at 06:29 PM

I am willing to bet that YOU make the best margaritas down south, George.

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Baja Invasion

It might not even come close to Cabo specials at Easter Week on the regular $14 dollar margaritas = 2 for $25 bucks. Can’t beat that.

woody with a view - 4-7-2011 at 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS
If land in Baja was available to own in those past years, the whole Peninsula would be covered with houses.

luckily, when we "stole" calif, az, nm, tx from the mex-indio-ards they drew the line in the right spot.

heck, i could be living in central cali right now!

:lol:

[Edited on 4-8-2011 by woody with a view]

mcfez - 4-7-2011 at 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mtgoat666

the paintings in sierra de san fransisco attract a few visitors, but not that many. look at baja nomads, they like simple gut-level thrills like motor bikes and fishing and drinking and RVs with sat TV -- most nomads wouldn't pay to see a petroglyph, and most wouldn't walk to see a petroglyph.

Stereotyping again goat?
You haven't a clue what the Nomads like....

gnukid - 4-8-2011 at 04:29 AM

When we go to the rocky beach and mountains, we look around and begin to first imagine what it was like to live there, where would past cultures cook, clean seafood, how. We put ourselves in the mindset of an indian. Then we sit still and open our eyes, trying to look at the same place for more than 30 minutes. Suddenly archeological finds are everywhere, tools, remains etc... The pieces fit together, the rocks and shells tell stories.

I have one friend Pancho who is a fisherman, he is particularly good at seeing the past cultures remains and methods as we walk. La Paz has some areas with vast remains, we talk/argue about how many people and how long ago. I argue that even a group of two or three would leave piles of tools daily, shells scoopers and cleaners to gather meat from scallops and clams...

Definitely time to think in terms of history, 1000, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 years ago. We imagine ourselves to be advanced and the past civilization to be primitive, however it appears more cyclical.

[Edited on 4-8-2011 by gnukid]

Osprey - 4-8-2011 at 07:02 AM

For the Tripper: Here's a short piece from National Geo. from 2003

Who Were The First Americans?Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

September 3, 2003
A study of skulls excavated from the tip of Baja California in Mexico suggests that the first Americans may not have been the ancestors of today's Amerindians, but another people who came from Southeast Asia and the southern Pacific area.

The question of who colonized the Americas, and when, has long been hotly debated. Traditionally, Native Americans are believed to have descended from northeast Asia, arriving over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska some 12,000 years ago and then migrating across North and South America.

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But recent research, including the Baja California study, indicates that the initial settlement of the continent was instead driven by Southeast Asians who occupied Australia 60,000 years ago and then expanded into the Americas about 13,500 years ago, prior to Mongoloid people arriving from northeast Asia.

The skulls from Baja California, which may date back only a few hundred years, have slender-looking faces that are different from the broad-cheeked craniums of modern Amerindians, the descendants of the Mongoloid people.

"Our results change the traditional idea that all modern Amerindians present morphological affinities with East Asians as a result of a single migration," said Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. "The settlement of the New World is better explained by considering a continuous influx of people from Asia."

The new study is reported in this week's issue of the science journal Nature, and could further fuel the controversy surrounding the origins of the first Americans, which is a controversial issue for American Indians in particular.

Challenging Clovis

Conventional wisdom says that Native Americans descended from prehistoric hunters who walked from northeast Asia across a land bridge, formed at the end of the Ice Age, to Alaska some 12,000 years ago. American Indians resemble the people of Mongolia, China and Siberia.

In the 1930s, archeologists found stone spear points among the bones of mammoths near Clovis, New Mexico. Radio carbon dating in the 1950s showed that the oldest site was 11,400 years old. The sites were assumed, for years, to be the first evidence of human occupation in the Americas.

But more recent discoveries challenge the Clovis story. In 1996, archeologists in southern Chile found weapons and tools dating back 12,500 years. In Brazil, they found some of the oldest human remains in the Americas, among them a skeleton—named Luzia—that is more than 11,000 years old.

Luzia did not look like American Indians. Instead, her facial features matched most closely with the native Aborigines in Australia. These people date back to about 60,000 years and were themselves descended from the first humans who probably originated in Africa.

The researchers believe Luzia was part of a people, referred to as "Paleoamericans," who migrated into the Americas—possibly even by boat—long before the Mongoloid people. These Paleoamericans may later have been wiped out by or interbred with Mongoloids invading from the north.

Continued on Next Page >>

David K - 4-8-2011 at 07:08 AM

Very cool!!!

Keep it coming amigos!!

elbeau - 4-8-2011 at 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mtgoat666
the potential for archaeo tourism in baja -- unless elbow finds the lost civilization -- archaeo is interesting to the sensitive liberal types...

...even elbeau (at least spell it right) is coming to his senses and realizing that even if there were a lot of past Baja spring-breakers, the likelihood of finding large-scale ruins is tremendously remote, but the chance that Baja had significant cultures that haven't made it on the radar is real.

Osprey - 4-8-2011 at 07:20 AM

Here's a link to the Santa Rosa Channel Island colony. (12,000 ybp)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12646364

grizzlyfsh95 - 4-8-2011 at 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Paleeez what?

Paleeez stop using hyperbole when you preach your politics.

Osprey - 4-8-2011 at 11:44 AM

Politics? Politics? The whole east side of the 68,000 sq miles of the SOC is DEAD. The water is totally absent of oxygen. They are called "dead zones" because all the sea animals are gone or dead. The fertilizer from the runoff of the agriculture of the Yaqui valley and the effluent from the shrimp farms have spawned phytoplankton who use up all the O. LOOK IT UP CHUMP. I have no causes, no political bent you can find -- I report, you decide.

[Edited on 4-8-2011 by Osprey]

bajalera - 4-8-2011 at 04:50 PM

My husband was the archaeologist who recovered the unusual skulls and strange artifacts from Cape Region caves, and named the Las Palmas Culture. The people who have periodically "rediscovered" a Melanesian connection based on the similarity of hyperdolichocephalic (high-sided, narrow-headed) skulls have, so far, pretty much ignored the research that has been published.

Note for Grizzly: With one piddly little star, you haven't paid enough dues to breeze in here and rudely assail an old-timer's thoughtful comments. Mind your manners, junior.

[Edited on 4-9-2011 by bajalera]

Bajatripper - 4-8-2011 at 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
For the Tripper: Here's a short piece from National Geo. from 2003

September 3, 2003
A study of skulls excavated from the tip of Baja California in Mexico suggests that the first Americans may not have been the ancestors of today's Amerindians, but another people who came from Southeast Asia and the southern Pacific area.

The question of who colonized the Americas, and when, has long been hotly debated. Traditionally, Native Americans are believed to have descended from northeast Asia, arriving over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska some 12,000 years ago and then migrating across North and South America.

The skulls from Baja California, which may date back only a few hundred years, have slender-looking faces that are different from the broad-cheeked craniums of modern Amerindians, the descendants of the Mongoloid people.

"Our results change the traditional idea that all modern Amerindians present morphological affinities with East Asians as a result of a single migration," said Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. "The settlement of the New World is better explained by considering a continuous influx of people from Asia."

Continued on Next Page >>

Thanks for the post, Osprey, but I'm still skeptical.
The fact that the study's leader, Rolando Gonzalez-Jose is a physical anthropologist and not an archaeologist makes me suspect that he is simply rehashing Paul Rivet's work. Note the article mentions only that the skulls were dug up on the tip of Baja, but no date is given. The original skulls Rivet studied are kept in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, not far from Barcelona (relatively speaking).

Like Rivet, Gonzalez-Jose focuses on hyperdolychocephalic (narrowness of the skull as measured front-to-back) characteristics of these skulls to arrive at his conclusions. Rivet erroneously stated that hyperdolychocephalic skulls were found in the Americas only in the Cape Region of Baja and at Lagoa Santa, Brazil. His implication was that early Melanesian immigrants landed at the Cape Region and along the west coast of South America. The South Americans then hiked over the Andes (no small feat, especially considering they were Pacific Islanders) to settle on the east coast of South America--and left no traces of their passing anywhere along the way. Later physical anthropologists and archaeologists have noted that the hyperdolychocephalic condition is actually quite common throughout the Americas (I couldn't help but notice that Gonzalez-Jose avoids mentioning this, instead focusing on where the condition is found in Asia-- which doesn't really prove the point he's trying to make).

Osprey, I have no problem with accepting that early American man arrived much earlier than previously thought--indeed, some scientists who study the domestication of plants don't think that corn could have been domesticated in the time alloted under the old time frame. Indeed, some early Americans may well have come from the western Pacific Islands. I just don't think that this study proves a whole lot that hasn't been theorized before--since at least Rivet's time in the early 1900s (Rivet also mentions Australians migrating to the Americas). It's an interesting theory, but I need more than narrow skulls to climb on board.

If Bajalera ever finishes her book on the first Bajacalifornianos, she has a whole chapter dedicated to pointing out the flaws in this theory.

[Edited on 4-9-2011 by Bajatripper]

David K - 4-8-2011 at 05:30 PM

Love it! :light:

Osprey - 4-8-2011 at 05:55 PM

Tripper, Lera, I love it too. Great stuff, a good look at what's happened in the scientific community all over in search of unanswered questions. Tripper -- thanks for bringing good science to pour in the pot. Gotta go now but I'll add more tomorrow to a rich soup of borrowed knowledge that will eventually show us that none of our theories should be ignored, that someday they might all come together to make a multi-migration map we can all be happy with; the idea that people got here all the ways they could, for many reasons, stayed a little and died out, got assimilated and/or moved on.

woody with a view - 4-8-2011 at 06:02 PM

Quote:

Gotta go now but I'll add more tomorrow to a rich soup of borrowed knowledge that will eventually show us that none of our theories should be ignored,

PROMISE?

this place is just an echo chamber when the Gavilon stays away!

Osprey - 4-9-2011 at 10:34 AM

More links as promised.

http://www.innerexplorations.com/bajatext/an.htm

http://archaeology.about.com/od/pathroughpd/qt/pacific_coast...

monoloco - 4-9-2011 at 12:57 PM

The first link was interesting to me because I was just at the anthropological museum in La Paz and saw their exhibit of the metal items found on Espiritu Santos. I wasn't aware that any of the indigenous cultures here possessed metallurgical capabilities but the items were dated well before the Spanish period.

Osprey - 4-9-2011 at 01:27 PM

Another link: ocean travel in skin boats 5000 YBP

http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/index.html

My Two Cents

Gypsy Jan - 4-9-2011 at 06:36 PM

Osprey writes in a very dense, self-referential way that is off-putting, at least to me.

He writes from the heart, but doesn't lead the reader in to a plan for the subject of his concern.

I believe in what he is saying, but he offers no format for action to preserve these historic sites.

Sorry, Osprey, I do not mean to offend you, GJ

Osprey - 4-9-2011 at 07:31 PM

Jan, no offense taken. I'm not sure what self-referential means. Mostly I write fiction and the stories are told by the characters and me. Thoughts about who came here, when, from where, why, show the reader my curiosity lead me to investigate and the rest is just what I found, what I think about it. The best and oldest evidence of early man visits to Baja California are deep under the sea all along its shores. Mexico knows only too well what a wealth of antiquity resource it harbors and is putting into place well formulated plans to protect and preserve. I have no plan. I'm a visitor just like the rest. If a Nomad reader makes his way down the rabbit hole of the internet to learn more about early man and he is enlightened, it would please me greatly to know he followed me and my sometimes clumsy moves to a better understanding of where we live and play.

Hi Osprey

Gypsy Jan - 4-10-2011 at 02:34 PM

When I read your posts, I feel like I have wandered into a dinner party where everyone else is perfectly dressed and is up to speed on the subject.

I feel awkward, uniformed and that I am digging the toe of my shoe into the carpet.

Just me, you know. GJ