Firsting, lasting, haunting: the carved stone partial monuments of California’s civic landscapes

Carved stone plinths and pedestals, the leftovers of previously intact monuments, are found around the world. These lithics have been understudied by archaeologists; and as this paper examines, empty monuments are not banal spaces. Despite a missing statue, the stone and stone-like foundations of former monuments continue to communicate authorized memories about pioneering settlers and Indigenous disappearance. The negative spaces also reflect iconoclastic takedowns. As seen in four examples from San Francisco and other cities in central California, the hauntings of broken monuments further reveal latent power to either uplift Indigeneity or reinstate the harmful messaging that culminated in a monument’s disfigurement. This paper argues for more attunement to dissonant spaces in support of Indigenous heritage and presence in civic landscapes and beyond.