Point found during survey of Butte-961 site survey.
The Concow Basin, located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains approximately fifteen miles east of Chico, California, is the ancestral lands of the Konkow Maidu tribe and the location of Butte-961, an ancient village site that dates to about A.D. 1500. This dates is based on analysis of projectile points found there. The village is approximately twelve acres in size, though associated cultural resources have been found over a much larger area.
Butte-961 was originally recorded in 1987 by Anthony Salzarulo and Robert Johnson, residents of nearby Concow. Salzarulo is of Maidu ancestry, and he has visited the site many times. The Salzarulo and Johnson site record identifies seven bedrock mortar outcrops with several hundred mortar holes. The site record also identifies “several dozen” circular housepit depressions in three clusters. A larger depression outside the village is believed to be a ceremonial dancehouse. Interestingly, most of the circular depressions are roughly six feet in diameter, while the dancehouse depression is forty-one feet in diameter and approximately five feet deep. The original site record also mentions projectile points, pestles, side-notched pebbles, and soapstone vessel fragments in the site record.
In 2018, the Camp Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California history, burned Butte-961 and adjacent properties. The fire took eighty-five lives, almost destroyed the towns of Concow and Paradise, and caused an estimated $16.5 billion in damages. However, a subsequent investigation of Butte-961 showed little damage to cultural resources from the fire. Intact village sites of this age are rare in this area. Development destroyed most of them.
Pithouse depressions found at the Butte-961 site.
The Soper-Wheeler Company, who owned the land the site is located on, had been negotiating the sale of the property to the Konkow Maidu Cultural Preservation Association, a local non-profit organization who wanted to preserve the site. The Conservancy joined negotiations at the end of 2017 to help facilitate the transaction. Soper-Wheeler sold the property to Sierra Pacific Industries, at which point the Conservancy began negotiating with the new owner to obtain the site.
Spring of 2022 the Conservancy purchased a 640-acre parcel of land that contains Butte-961. The Conservancy is collaborating with Koncow Maidu and others to develop a management plan to stabilize and secure the site.
