The shellmound sits within the territory of the
Chochenyo people, a division of the Indigenous
Ohlone. Carbon dating puts the earliest additions to the shellmound at about 3700 B.C.E., with continuous additions from a village at the site until 800 C.E. The village, the earliest known habitation in the Bay Area, then relocated, but the mound remained in use for ceremonial purposes, including as a burial site and a repository for shells, ritual objects, and ceremonial items. There are no remains of the village. The aboveground portions of the mound, reportedly long and high, were removed between 1853 and 1910 and used for road construction and other commercial purposes. The Berkeley City Council designated a three-block area as a
city landmark in 2000. In the early 1970s, a area at 1900 Fourth Street within the site was paved and became a parking lot for
Spenger's Fish Grotto, a restaurant that operated from 1890 to 2018. in 2018 the proposal was modified to include 260 residential units including below-market rate housing, to take advantage of the fast-track provisions of
Senate Bill 35. In September 2020, the
National Trust for Historic Preservation declared the site one of the 11 "most endangered historic places" in the United States. The City of Berkeley did not grant permission for the proposed development in either form, partly in response to
Indigenous activists including
Corrina Gould, a local Lisjan Ohlone leader, and organizations including the Coalition to Save the West Berkeley Shellmound and
Indian People Organizing for Change. The developers sued the city; in 2019, a judge ruled in favor of the city, but on April 20, 2021, a three-justice panel of the
California Court of Appeal unanimously declared that "[t]here is no evidence in the record that the Shellmound is now present on the project site in a state that could reasonably be viewed as an existing structure, nor even remnants recognizable as part of a structure" that would be disturbed by the development and that the project could proceed. The City of Berkeley and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan sought review from the
California Supreme Court of the order allowing the development to proceed, but only one, rather than the required four, Justices considered the case appropriate for further review, so the appellate decision allowing the development to proceed became law. A building permit was issued in 2022, but work has not begun at the site. The developer sued the city for financial damages, and a trial date was set for April 2024. ==Planned Ohlone memorial park==