Native Americans Native American peoples consumed this oyster everywhere it was found, with consumption in San Francisco Bay so intense that enormous middens of oyster shells were piled up over thousands of years. One of the largest such mounds, the Emeryville Shellmound, near the mouth of Temescal Creek and the eastern end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, is now buried under the Bay Street shopping center. Along the estuarine shores of the Santa Barbara Channel region, these oysters were harvested by Native peoples at least 8200 years ago, and probably even earlier. References Sources Intertidal Marine Invertebrates of South Puget Sound (2008) C.Michael Hogan (2008). ed. by Burnham, A. Morro Creek. The Megalithic Portal. The Nature Concervancy, Initials. (2010). Creating intertidal habitat for olympia oysters. Retrieved from http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/preserves/art25462.html Couch, D. (1989). Olympia oyster. Biological Report 82, Retrieved from http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/wdb/pub/species_profiles/82_11-124.pdf Ecological Observations on Spawning and Early Larval Development in the Olympia Oyster, A. E. Hopkins, Ecology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1936), pp. 551–566 Attachment of Larvae of the Olympia Oyster, Ostrea Lurida, to Plane Surfaces, A. E. Hopkins, Ecology, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1935), pp. 82–87 Spermatogenesis in the California Oyster (Ostrea Lurida), Wesley R. Coe, Biological Bulletin, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Dec., 1931), pp. 309–315 Kozloff, E. "Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast" (1983) Kozloff, E. "Marine Invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest" (1974) Pechenik, J. "Biology of the Invertebrates" (2010) Ostrea Molluscs described in 1864 Seafood in Native American cuisine Taxa named by Philip Pearsall Carpenter