Weber Street Site

A New Site Discovered

In 2006, the Redevelopment Agency, in cooperation with Chevron Corporation, were removing contaminated soil and abandoned oil supply pipelines from a property on the South Shore of the Stockton Channel.  While excavating soil from the historic alignment of one of these pipelines, an unexpected discovery involving Native American

What the Archaeologists Found

Investigations confirmed that a new archaeological site had indeed been discovered. The site is located on Stockton’s Weber Street. It contained both prehistoric and historic material. A wide range of artifact types was collected, ranging from ancient stone tools to nineteenth-century glass bottles. Archaeologists tested different prehistoric artifact types such as obsidian projectile points (also known as “arrowheads”) to figure out how old the site might be. The results suggest that it could be approximately 2,500 years old!

Source: Pacific Legacy Ltd.

This archaeologist has a very

big pile of backdirt to examine

for artifacts and bones!

Historic artifacts found at the site also help to tell a story of the early pioneer days of Stockton. The earliest historic artifacts date to about 1860, when the area was just an empty lot used as a trash dump. They include items like ceramic dishes and broken storage pots. Later artifacts relate to the operation of a grain warehouse built on the site in the early 1900s.

The Weber Street site is special because it helps archaeologists to understand multiple layers of Stockton’s unique history. During all the construction work that took place near the Weber Street site, the City made sure that an archaeologist was always on hand to watch for additional discoveries that might be made.

Source: Pacific Legacy Ltd.    Shake it! These archaeologists are working as a team to screen backdirt in their search for artifacts.

What Happened to the Site?

Today, it’s known that much of the Weber Street archaeological site has either been disturbed by construction activities that occurred in the 1960s or remains very deeply buried underground. Artifacts from the site were all collected and taken to a lab, and materials from several gravesites were handled according to the wishes of the Northern Valley Yokuts , a California Indian