CARLSBAD —— Archaeologists working against the clock in Carlsbadhave unearthed another nearly intact skeleton of a horse that mayhave lived and died 50 years before the Spanish began theirconquest of California.

Last week’s discovery, high on a hill overlooking the AguaHedionda lagoon, follows the discovery in June of the skeletalremains of another horse and a small burro, said project managerDennis Gallegos of Gallegos and Associates, the contractor hired toexplore the site.

The finds are significant because native North American horseswere thought to have been extinct more than 10,000 years ago, andthe remains are older than the recorded conquests by the Spanish,who reintroduced horses to the New World.


“This is a story untold,” said Mark Mojado, the culturalrepresentative for the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians.

Why the animals were buried at all, why they were buriedtogether, and why they appear to have been buried in a ritualisticway is a matter of academic conjecture, according toarchaeologists, paleontologists and others who have seen thesite.

Radiocarbon dating of 340 years, plus or minus 40 years, putsthe death of the horse sometime between 1625 and 1705, Mojado said.Therefore, the horses died at least 50 years before San DiegoMission de Alcala, the first of the California missions, wasfounded in 1769. The other horse and the burro were buried at thesame level, suggesting that they were buried about the sametime.

The bones of the horses and the donkey showed no signs of havingbeen shod, an indicator that the horses were not brought by theSpanish, who fitted their horses with iron shoes, said Larry Tift,a researcher with Gallegos.


The site

The three animals were unearthed within a few feet of oneanother on a hilltop overlooking the Agua Hedionda Lagoon, Gallegossaid.

The 900-square-meter site has also revealed several “shellmiddens” —— or layers of disturbed shells. A pile of small 2- to3-inch river rocks 20 feet away may have been a part of a cookingpit or perhaps a sweat lodge, Tift said.

Shell beads, flaked cutting and scraping tools, grinding toolssuch as metates and manos, even relatively recent pottery shardsfound over the last seven weeks, tell the story of constanthabitation over 5,000 years on the hilltop, Tift said.


Possible explanations

The radiocarbon date, if corroborated by more elaborate tests,may be remarkable since North American horses were thought to havebeen extinct by the late Pleistocene era more than 10,000 yearsago, said Bradford Riney, a paleontology specialist with the SanDiego Natural History Museum.

“That would make (the site) extremely important,” he saidThursday. “It would be an early example of domestication.”

Alternately, Mojado postulated that the horses may have beenSpanish in origin, perhaps from an ill-fated exploration that neverreturned and so was lost to history. Perhaps the lost Spanishexplorers offered the horses and donkey to the American Indians asa gift, Mojado said.


“There were no horses here then,” he said. “They didn’t knowwhat a horse or a donkey was. They would have seen them as big deeror antelope.”

As a gift, and an unusual gift at that, the animals mostcertainly would have been revered, which could explain why theywere buried high on a hill in the same way some Indians buriedtheir own, Mojado said.

One horse and the donkey appear to have been buriedritualistically with their heads to the north, faces to the left,and their bodies “flexed” in the fetal position, an American Indianmethod of burial. The newly discovered horse, its ocher-coloredbones already fading to yellow from exposure to sun and air, wasnot similarly posed.

Researchers said they know horses were deliberately buriedbecause they can see definite lines where someone cut into theshell layers to dig a burial pit.


“I’ve been doing this for 16 years and I’ve never seen anythinglike it,” Tift said.

The bones show no signs of cutting, splitting or crushing thatwould indicate a violent death, Piek said. Researchers see no signsthe horses were butchered for meat.

Carlsbad then

Taken together, the features of the site suggest that thehilltop was used by American Indians from about 5,000 yearsago.


At that time, the region now called Carlsbad was much wetter andmore lush, with an average annual rainfall of about 350 inches.Although sea level was lower than now, lagoons —— fed by freshwatersprings —— reached deeper into inland valleys, providing a readyfood and water source for its people, said Gallegos archaeologistLucas Piek.

The hilltops provided an ideal place to live, Tift said. Theocean breezes would have helped cool dwellers and keep insectsaway, as well as providing security. Inhabitants could watch theapproach of other humans and animals. The vantage point was alsoideal for observing the movements of game animals.

The site is one of more than 300 in the Carlsbad area, Mojadosaid. A stone’s throw away, researchers found the 8,000-year-oldremains of a human. Down in the valley, archaeologists uncoveredglass beads —— trinkets brought from Spain —— to trade with thenatives.

California’s Prehistoric State Artifact, a stone that somebelieve is shaped like a bear, was found on the Kelly Ranchproperty on a nearby hill to the north. Radiocarbon dating ofartifacts at that site suggest that humans occupied the area morethan 9,000 years ago.


Why was this site studied?

The cultural exploration is required by law as part of a studyof the environmental impacts the project will likely create. Thestudy examines traffic, noise, threats to indigenous plants andanimals, as well as potential damage to historically significantsites. Gallegos said his work should conclude within two weeks.

Grand Pacific Resorts plans to break ground on a 700-room resorton the hill on Aug. 1, said Tim Stripe, Grand Pacific Resort Inc.'sco-president. The company plans to build 350 hotel rooms, 350time-share units, two restaurants, four pools, tennis courts andconference rooms on a 50-acre site between Cannon Road and HiddenValley Road. The $150 million, Mediterranean-style complex willbecome Carlsbad’s third large-scale resort.

After Gallegos and Associates has documented the site andremoved the animal skeletons and other artifacts, a portion of thehilltop site will be capped with sand and soil to preserve anyremaining archaeological artifacts. A small park, planted withnative flora, is in the planning stage to preserve the site as openspace, Mojado said.


Contact staff writer Philip K. Ireland at 901-4043 orpireland@nctimes.com.