Chumash Indian Museum

In Oakbrook Regional Park in northeast Thousand Oaks, California, the Chumash Indian Museum stands on the former Chumash village of Sap'wi, or “House of the Deer,” within a 432-acre landscape preserving archaeological remains, a reconstructed village, and ancient rock art. Chumash people inhabited the site 10,000 years ago, and it became an archaeological zone in 1971 after nearly twenty caves were found. Established in 1994, the museum preserves and interprets Chumash cultural history through exhibits, artifacts, and a reconstructed tomol. The grounds also include ethnobotany gardens, bedrock mortars, rock shelters with pictographs 4,000 to 6,000 years old, and a nature preserve later damaged in the 2018 Woolsey Fire.

Thousand Oaks, California · United States