History of Ancient Los Angeles Was Driven by Its Wetlands, 8,000-Year Survey Finds

It may be hard to visualize if you’ve been through drought-stricken southern California lately, but much of what’s now Los Angeles was once a teeming wetland. And a new landmark survey going back 8,000 years has found that human settlement in the region has ebbed and flowed with the levels of the sea and the waters of the Los Angeles River.

An artist’s depiction shows an early Tongva settlement in the Ballona Wetlands. The Tongva are thought to have first settled what’s now the Los Angeles area between 9,000 and 2,500 years ago. (Detail of painting by by Mary Leighton Thomson)

Since 1989, a team of scientists has conducted scores of archaeological surveys, drilled dozens of cores into the coastal soil, and pored over countless microscopic fossils to reconstruct the environmental and human history of Los Angeles.

They found that the historical heart of L.A. has been the marshy flats now known as the Ballona wetlands.
Today, the wetlands are little more than a grassy inlet near the upscale development of Marina del Rey. But for much of prehistory, according to the team’s results, human habitation in the region only flourished when those wetlands were at their healthiest.

“This is one of the largest and most important archaeological studies ever conducted in southern California,” said Dr. Richard Ciolek-Torello of Statistical Research, Inc., who helped lead more than 100 archaeologists in the research. [...] westerndigs.org/ / Reference