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James-Abels Collection, is housed at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Other examples of
basketry and perishable materials were collected in 1934 by William Duncan Strong and Waldo Wedel and
are part of the anthropological collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (Horne
1981; Strong 1935).
In 1962, Gordon Grant and Nicholas Goodhue, under the auspices of the Santa Barbara Museum
of Natural History, recovered two baskets in the Santa Barbara backcountry (Grant 1964:11). These baskets
consisted of an asphaltum-lined water bottle and a decorated shallow dish [a parching tray] (Grant 1964:11).
Other caches from the same region have been discovered on private ranches. Archaeologists in the Heritage
Resource Program of Los Padres National Forest have supervised recoveries of cached items that have been
found more recently (Goller 1996; Whitby 2012).
In broad terms, the cached assemblages are often objects for gathering and storage, rather than
ceremonial or non-utilitarian items. The cached assemblage discussed herein falls within this gathering and
storage theme, emphasizing the importance of storage and resource allocation in the Santa Barbara
backcountry.

THE BRYNE CACHE: DISCUSSION OF ASSEMBLAGE
The cache assemblage (Figure 1) consisted of a three distinct coiled baskets—a storage basket (B1),
parching tray (B2), and a base/lid (B3)—with a piece of yucca cordage 8 cm in length recovered within the
storage basket. The assemblage was placed within a northwest-facing cave located approximately two
2
meters off the ground. A platform of stacked stones at least 18 cm in height had been built in the cave, and
with the exception of some slight movements of stone to extract the baskets, the stacked stone feature was
left intact. In the following sections, each basket will be individually addressed. The discerning and
distinguishing of basketry techniques and materials were made with the aid of Jan Timbrook (Santa Barbara
Museum of Natural History) and Ed Jolie (Mercyhurst University).
The storage basket (known as a xʔim in Barbareño, Ventureño, and Samala Chumash languages)
measures 73 cm across, and was placed horizontally atop the parching tray. Within the storage basket, a
woodrat nest approximately 15 cm thick had been constructed. To recover the basket, portions of the
woodrat nest were excavated, revealing the third basket—adhered to the larger basket by amberrat, a
molasses-like mass. This third basket was later removed and cleaned at the Santa Barbara Museum of
Natural History, revealing a small and heavily mended, coiled basket with a differing weave and stitch
count from the storage basket, a differing overall structure, and multiple repairs. Further removal of pack
rat midden at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History revealed copious amounts of piñon nuts as well
as an 8-cm length of yucca cordage.
The storage basket (B1) measures 79.5 cm at its widest, and 68 cm in height (Figure 2). It is closely
coiled with a bundle foundation and non-interlocking stitches at 1.5 to 2 coils per centimeter, and 4 stitches
per centimeter (Figure 2). The basket’s bundle base was formed with deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens),
while sumac (Rhus aromatica) served as the sewing material; the black designs appear to have been created
from mud-dyed juncus (Juncus textilis). Sumac may have been a preferred sewing material in the interior
regions, and is generally more prevalent for baskets intended for harsh utilitarian uses, being a stronger and
more durable weft material than juncus, though it is harder to weave (Dawson and Deetz 1964:15).
The basket is patterned with what is often referred to as the butterfly stitch, an X-shaped motif
known throughout South Central California, as well as from Chumash basketry (see Shanks 2012; Dawson
and Deetz 1964). Interestingly, a similar storage basket, also recovered from the remote Santa Barbara
backcountry, and housed in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (NA-CA-146-4F-7), has an
almost identical pattern of decoration to this storage basket (see Hudson and Blackburn 1983: Figures 5.72
and 5.73).

SCA Proceedings, Volume 30 (2016) Bryne, Gandy, Robinson, and Johnson p. 215