Charmstones, Pendants, and other Special Objects from San Clemente Island, CA

This poster presents information on charmstones, pendants and other specially curated objects recovered during a recent site-recording project undertaken by ASM Affiliates for the U,S. Navy on San Clemente Island, California. I report on several rare artifacts, including four pendants (two stone and two abalone), steatite effigies, a ceramic object, and several marine mammal ear bones. These finds represent rare or previously un-recorded artifact types on San Clemente Island. I discuss the significance of these findings in relation to ethnographic and archaeological evidence from other sites on the southern Channel Islands and within coastal southern California. In particular, I examine evidence for how these artifacts may have functioned as magico-religious objects.