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these students from Bay Area colleges constitute an archaeological expedition. They are working on a site in marin County that was first occupied by Miwok indians probably about 3000 years ago. It's the oldest site of its kind discovered so far on the northern peninsula. This dig is

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within hailing distance of the busy freeway. Yet this shell mound representing continuous Indian occupation of this site for 15 centuries, has lain here untouched by man. Since the Indians stopped living here about 600 years ago, the black soil is the telltale indication of charcoal from Indian

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campfires. Sea shells, clams, oysters, sometimes crab tell the story of the indian diet. Obsidian from the santa rosa area reveals details of indian trade routes. Commerce played an important role in indian life, beads such as the two seen here were used as standardized currency among tribes.

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There is an urgency to the exploration of this shell mound. Bulldozers will shortly be working here preparing the way for condominiums. The developer is cooperating with the archaeologists, but once this mound is gone, the details it hides can never be recovered beyond the hard work that

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goes on here, there is also an excitement. These workers are peeling back layers of indian history, cutting down through centuries of time. Each one of these archaeological sites represents the unique and total culture history of a single group of people for in this case as much

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as 3000 years of time and to have the bulldozers come through and tear out a site such as this would be to destroy or to erase the cultural record of the history of a given people, who did not keep written records of their own. This then

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is not an idle exercise, nor is it merely classroom practice. These students are adding to the total sum of human knowledge, adding to our knowledge of a people whose every other trace has disappeared. Bill Hillmann, Eyewitness News at the Miwok village in Marin County. Mhm.