ARCHEOLOGISTS PROVIDE VIEW OF SIMI'S PAST; ARTIFACTS UNEARTHED AT STRATHEARN ADOBE.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

To the untutored eye, the charred bits look like burned charcoal or scorched rock.

But to archeologists Joe Simon and Dave Whitley, the melted glass and burnt pottery found behind the Strathearn Adobe last spring reveal and confirm much about life at the headquarters of El Rancho Simi, the 113,000-acre land grant occupied first by the Spanish, and later by Mexicans fleeing that country after independence.

Before the Spanish built the adobe about 1795, Chumash Indians lived at the site. Artifacts from the Chumash, Rancho and Strathearn periods have been found within the 6.5-acre historic park.

Today, the two archeologists will display their findings from the Spanish Rancho period during a program at the Strathearn House and Historical Park.

``We'll show slides of the dig and of some of the artifacts,'' Whitley said. ``And we'll have some of the artifacts on hand.''

Whitley and Simon found the artifacts during the construction of a drain behind the adobe. The pair was hired to oversee the project because the California Environmental Quality Act requires that any construction work in potentially sensitive areas must be overseen by archeologists.

As the oldest structure in Simi Valley, and the site of both the headquarters of El Rancho Simi and a Chumash village, the Strathearn site qualifies as protected.

The drain was needed because rainwater tended to pool next to the adobe's back wall. While digging a narrow trench for the drain, the archeologists came upon evidence that a fire destroyed a section of the adobe around 1840.

The team also found evidence of Chumash occupation, though the area directly around the adobe was not a central village, Whitley said. Lithic flakes, shards of fused shale that the Chumash mined from nearby Grimes Canyon, have been found at the site. The flakes, called debitage in archeological circles, are the byproducts of toolmaking.

The program will begin with a slide presentation in the Strathearn Historic Park Visitor Center at 2 p.m. Afterward, the two archeologists will give a tour of the dig site.