Wildcat Creek Watershed: A Scientific Study of Physical Processes and Land Use Effects

People have lived along Wildcat Creek since 3,000 to 4,000 BP. By that time, Sea level rise had slowed, and the Bay's size had stabilized, allowing broad mudflats and tidal marshes to develop and significant local settlement to commence (Banks and Orlins 1985, Fentress 1994). Along lower Wildcat and San Pablo Creeks, villages began to grow as new resources were utilized along the Bay's edge. Several thousand years later the shellmounds, containing burials, ceremonial and household artifacts, and the remains of fish, birds, and other animals had been built up to as high as thirty feet and acres in size (Luby and Gruber 1999).