History
Within the canyons, geology students will find excellent examples of exfoliation, in which rock layers peel back like layers of an onion, and of frost wedging, in which ice trapped in a crack expands to split a rock. Paleontology students will see fossils of millions of clams, snails, and small-shelled, squid-like creatures left behind during the five times that seas washed over the ground.
Appearing more than 12 million years ago, the highest points surrounding the canyons are Santiago Peak at 5,689 feet (1,734 m) and Modjeska Peak at 5,481 feet (1,671 m). Together the pair forms "Old Saddleback," an easily recognizable landmark.
The first people to live in the canyons were Native Americans (the Acjachemem). They arrived to find dense woods filled with live oaks, sycamores, mountain ash, and pines buffeted by winds. Dependent on acorns as their staple food, the Native Americans cut paths through the wilderness to reach oak groves. After collecting the acorns, they carried them to canyon streams and immersed the nuts in the running water to leach out the bitter tannic acid. Once done, they carried the acorns to a large boulder or rock outcropping, where they used mortars to grind the nuts into powder. Over open fires, they cooked a porridge called "atole."
Read more about this topic: Santiago Canyon, California
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This book or that, come to this hallowed place
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Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
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“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)