Topic: The Ruiz-Alvarado Adobe, the History and Archaeological Research of El Cuervo 

Speaker: Elizabeth (Betsy) Pain

The Ruiz-Alvarado Adobe, known as El Cuervo, is located at the west end of the Los Peñaquitos Canyon Preserve.  Like the Rancho Peñasquitos Adobe to the east, both structures are located on land originally owned by Francisco Maria Ruiz. They are some of the oldest existing adobes in Southern California and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While much is known about the Rancho Peñasquitos Adobe, not much is known about El Cuervo.  

This discussion explores the occupant chronology of the adobe as well as a review of the only archaeological field excavation to have been conducted by San Diego State University in 1982 and 1983.  Palomar College has been given limited access to the adobe and surrounding area to map and record the still existing features on the property. Our goal is to add to the story of the canyon through boots-on-the-ground and drone surveys, GPS data point collection and mapping.  No excavation of El Cuervo will take place as a result of our Permit. 

Betsy Pain is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Palomar College.  She is also the Archaeology Program Coordinator.  Since 2012, Betsy has been co-teaching Palomar College’s hands-on excavation class at Rancho Penasquitos Adobe with her colleague Jim Eighmey. 

As with Palomar College, all of Betsy’s field experiences have been academically based.  As an undergraduate at UCLA, she had the opportunity to excavate the slave quarters on the site of an old sugar plantation in Jamaica. This was a shift away from focusing on the landowners and toward wanting to understand more about the people who were forced to work there.

While in graduate school at California State University, Northridge, Betsy was the field director for an NSF funded field school that took place at San Elijo Lagoon here in San Diego.  The project was a collaborative effort between UCSD and ASM and Affiliates.  As a result of her work on the project, Betsy chose to do her Master’s thesis on the temporal shellfish use at the lagoon spanning the Holocene.  

With experience in both historic and prehistoric archaeology, Betsy’s goal is to add to the history of the preserve by highlighting the connection between the two adobes and to help in the interpretation of the people who have lived in the canyon over the last 10,000 years.