11-Million-Year-Old Fossils Once Found in Aliso Viejo

Long before Town Center became Town Center and 21 parks were developed, the grounds of Aliso Viejo were home to fossils and artifacts.

Mission Viejo residents Becky Berge and Diana Weir uncovered these fossils and artifacts in the Saddleback Valley from the late 1970s through the year 2000 to enlighten children and the community about the area’s past.

“We discovered the fossilized skeleton of a paleoparadoxiid in Aliso Viejo.  It looks kind of like a hippopotamus.  The fossil wound up in the Natural History Museum in L.A and is on display there now," Weir said.

The  paleoparadoxia existed about 11 million years ago. They ate plants and lived on land and sea. They measured about 6 to 10 feet. The Aliso Viejo specimen was found in what is now Aliso Viejo Golf Club, south of Moulton Parkway and El Toro Road.

Berge’s daughter was in the gifted children’s program at her school in 1975 in Mission Viejo.  On the weekends, the program provided scholastically enriching field trips for the children.  One weekend, Berge and her daughter attended a "Fossil Day" and learned about geology and paleontology.  The instructor that day was Carol Stadum, then a science teacher at Huntington Beach High School.  Stadum told Berge that there were ancient sharks’ teeth among other fossils coming out of the ground of what is now Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills and Mission Viejo. Berge was fascinated by this information.

“I was a former teacher, and I was interested in educating children and enrichment programs," Berge said. “And there we were, living on land that was underwater at one time. I had to become a docent so I could show fossils to kids and teach them about the history that had happened here.”

Berge enrolled in a docent program through the Newport-Mesa school district.  Once she was trained, she started a fossil program for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. She even went on to write a science unit for the district about Saddleback Valley fossils. 

Berge asked for volunteers to help. About 20 people, who had all been teachers, volunteered their time to teach the children about paleontology and archaeology.  Paleontology is the study of past life forms through fossils, and archaeology is the study of ancient peoples and their cultures through artifacts and buildings.

There was Berge, and her colleagues, working with the children, out in the sun, on hillsides that are now covered with houses. Volunteering for over 13 years, she and her co-chair Marilyn Morgan, a member of the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society, worked with students and trained docents.

“We showed the kids how to shake the dirt through sifters to find the fossils and artifacts," Berge said. "If we found something large, we would have to wrap it in plaster to preserve it. You had to keep exact records of where you found the item and at what depth it was found. You didn’t just go around and randomly take things out of the dirt.”

One day, a boy whom Berge had taught came to her and told her a story. He said every day he had walked home on the same path by the same hillside. He never noticed anything unusual about the hillside.  After learning about fossils from Berge, one day on the way home he noticed a shark’s tooth sticking out of the slope of the hill.

“This kid saw something he had never seen before. It was very rewarding," Berge said. "What is education but to recognize and understand something you never knew about before?”

Weir wanted to be trained as a docent by Berge. Weir had been interested in fossils and artifacts ever since she was little. 

“I would go to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh when I was a kid and see all the mummies. I loved it,” Weir said.

Weir took Berge and Morgan’s class, joined the PCAS and began working on site at various digs with amateurs and professionals.

“The pros would teach us how to perform a proper excavation,” Weir said. “We would string off grids, save everything we found and properly document items.  Then I met Larry Barnes, who was a curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Larry discovered seven new species of dolphins in the fossils near Oso Parkway above Marguerite.”

Barnes told Weir and Morgan about a paying job with a local archaeological/paleontological company that worked with Orange County developers. Much of southern Orange County open land was being converted into residential and commercial areas at the time. It was necessary to have archaeologists and paleontologists onsite to monitor artifacts or fossils uncovered during construction. So Weir and Morgan took the job.

“No other women had been on a grading job before.  Marilyn and I started getting along with the guys.  We would follow scrapers, and, if they were coming towards us, we would jump out of the way.  That was our training,” Weir said.

In 1982, Weir and Morgan formed their own company with geologist Rod Raschke.  It was called RMW Paleo Associates.  Raschke, Morgan, and Weir were on almost every site being developed in south Orange County. 

“The phosphate beds were full of sharks’ teeth. We found tons of them off of Lake Forest north of Trabuco. Also, in Lake Forest, we found a 35-foot-long baleen-whale skeleton,” Weir said.

Weir and Berge are groundbreaking women in more ways than one. In sometimes very difficult conditions, they have worked physically to unearth fossils and artifacts.  Also, they have educated hundreds of people about the prehistory of the Saddleback Valley.

You can reach Diana Weir at dianaweir@smokinggun.com and Becky Berge at bberge@cox.net. Berge is currently a real estate agent in the Mission Viejo area.  Weir is retired but maintains her interest in paleontology.  Now they are both "into native California plants."