Bob Bardell published this article 15 years ago and it is now more relevant than ever.
We are convinced the history and importance of the Volvon Tribe will lead to a deeper understanding of pre-historic and post-historic California life-ways. This 2022 version features some minor corrections and Bob’s Afterword. (Attached)
It starts:
If you want to see the remains of a vanished Indian civilization, you don’t have to travel to Four Corners or the Yucatan. You can visit Volvon—the lost city in the Bay Area’s own backyard. Volvon contains the largest collection of bedrock mortars in the Bay Area and one of the largest in California. Its many house pits bespeak a once size-able population. Although these bedrock mortars and house pits may lack the grandeur of the ruins of Mesa Verde or Palenque, their antiquity is beyond question, and people lived in Volvon, more or less continuously, for thousands of years, until the Spanish missionized them at the beginning of the 19th century.
The Lost City is the centerpiece of Volvon Territory.
We have identified over 80 unique village and camp sites in Volvon featuring over 2000 bedrock mortars. And there is more still undiscovered.
