Early California: A killing field

This vintage photo shows a steam shovel demolishing of the Emeryville, Calif., shellmound in 1924 to make way for a paint factory. University of Utah archaeologist Jack Broughton analyzed 5,736 bird bones from the ancient Native American garbage dump to demonstrate that California was not always abundant in wildlife as it was when settlers arrived, but that ancient native people hunted some bird species to local extinction. Credit: Courtesy Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology,University of California, Berkeley.