ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a synopsis of author's recent research on ethnogenesis during California's Spanish-colonial and Mexican periods. It discuses the potential of ethnogenesis research in California prehistory, the early American period, and the twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the San Francisco Bay region to provide a long-term diachronic perspective on ethnogenesis in one specific locale. The primary evidence for primordialist ethnogenesis in colonial San Francisco is the consistent homogeneity in material culture used by the colonists. The emergence and articulation of a shared identity as Californios was one means through which the military settlers transformed colonial systems of power. In California archaeology, instrumentalist perspectives on identity have been more common in studies of the Spanish-colonial, Mexican, and American periods. These studies have emphasized the mobilization of ethnic, racial, and national identities within the political cauldrons of colonization, statehood, and capitalism.
