The founder of modern geology, James Hutton (1726-1797) recognized that the history of the Earth could be determined by understanding how geologic processes work in the present day. “The present is the key to the past” was Hutton’s quote driven into my head by UCLA professor Clemens A. Nelson in the spring of 1975. Combine that thought with recent findings in archaeology and paleontology, and you can peer back in time into the Ballona Wetlands, imagining indigenous people feasting on the clams and other mollusks present then and now in Ballona’s tidal areas.
The common California Venus (Chione californiensis), a medium-sized edible saltwater clam, is one of seven hardshell species found in estuaries, bays, sloughs, and open coastlines along the Pacific coast. This clam primarily inhabits the intertidal zone (exposed at low tide), but also occurs in subtidal areas (always under water). The Venus is edible, though today we more commonly eat the littleneck variety, which is a different species (Protothaca staminea). Venus and littleneck clams are abundant today in the few remaining salt water tidal areas of Ballona, just as they were a thousand years ago (1). Venus clams comprise up to 94% of clam shells found in archaeological digs around Ballona (2).
You need a valid California fishing license to dig clams (and don’t try it in Ballona – it’s an off-limits ecological reserve). Minimum legal size is 1.5 inches, and you may take them only by hand; a rake, shovel, garden fork or trowel is allowable, and only during daylight hours. The cobble beach areas near Malibu Lagoon are reportedly good clamming locations at low tide.
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A thousand years ago, indigenous people of Ballona subsisted on plants and animals of the marsh, particularly shellfish, waterfowl, fish, small mammals, and various seeds and berries. Venus clams were the most abundant shellfish found in archaeological excavations next to Ballona, and their abundance does not appear to have changed over time (3). Back then, Ballona had a large subtidal lagoon surrounded by tidal marsh, with transitional and freshwater marsh at its furthest inland border, where Centinela Avenue is today
Enjoy your Ballona Wetlands!
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(1) C. L. Powell, L. B. Grant, and S. W. Conkling. 2005. Paleoecologic analysis and age of a late Pleistocene fossil assemblage from Upper Newport Bay, Newport Beach, Orange County, California. The Veliger 47(3):183-192.
(2) Altschul, J.H., et al., Statistical Research, Inc., Submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, Playa Vista archaeological and historical project, at the base of the bluff, archaeological inventory and evaluation along lower Centinela Creek, Marina del Rey, California, April 2003, Page 192.
(3) D.R. Grenda and J.H. Altschul, Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, 1994, Vol. 7, pp. 213-226.
