[1] In 1992, the university challenged its historic designation and threatened to forcefully build a strip mall on the site, which was blocked by direct action and intervention by the ACLU.

[4] Another similar (but larger) Tongva site is Kuruvungna Springs on the grounds of University High School in Los Angeles.

Puvunga also serves the endpoint of an annual pilgrimage that begins at the village site of Panhe, now located in San Onofre.

[2] In Tongva traditional narratives, it is also, a few centuries later, the birthplace of Chingishnish, "the prophet or deity who appears at Puvunga after Wiyot, the creator, has been killed, and tells the assembly what they must do to feed themselves.

[5] Nearby coastal villages included: the very close settlement of Motuucheyngna (at modern-day Seal Beach),[8] now sometimes referred to in archaeological terms as Puvungna East;[7] Guashna (now at Playa Vista) located about twenty miles up the coast;[5] and the village of Lupukngna, located down the coastline at the mouth of the Santa Ana River.

[10] In 1822, Geronimo Boscana referred to the village as Pubuna and located it[clarification needed] within the Spanish land grant Rancho de los Nietos established in 1784, which was eight leagues northwest of Mission San Juan Capistrano.

The land contained a large portion of the historical village of Puvunga, and was used to build the campus of California State University of Long Beach.

[15] On Christmas Eve of 1952, a burial site in Puvunga was discovered about a mile north of the California State University, Long Beach campus (then referred to as Long Beach State College) when workers of the L. S. Whaley Company uncovered two dozen ancestral remains and funerary objects during the construction of a housing development.

'"[1] In 1955, it was noted by Helen Smith Giffen that there were "shell debris littering the fields below the Los Alamitos ranch house [which] bear witness to the fact that this was once the site of an Indian rancheria [Puvunga]."

[16] On the first official Earth Day celebration, organic gardens were established on the 22 acres (8.9 ha) of Puvunga that were still undeveloped and available to the public.

Tongva remnants unearthed included arrowheads and pottery sherds in a style called Cerritos Brown ware.

Archaeologists in 1974 wrote that the Tongva "abruptly abandoned the site in the early 1800s, only a year or so before the first white family took possession of the land".

[19] Two other sites were included in the National Register: the adjacent LAn-234 and LAn-306, located just east of campus on the grounds of the historic Rancho Los Alamitos.

A shopping center and apartments at 7th Street and Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach Veterans Administration Hospital, Rancho Los Alamitos and the college now stand atop the historic settlement "near the present-day mouth of the San Gabriel River and the Cerritos Channel".

[5] As a result, direct action was initiated to prevent the site's development, including protest tent campsites and prayer vigils.

[21] A burial site in the greater Puvunga area was disturbed in the construction of the neighborhood of Hellman Ranch in the adjacent city of Seal Beach.

[3] Local self-identified Indigenous groups, such as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (Acjachemen Nation), were not consulted in regard to the dumping.

Chairman of the tribe Matias Belardes commented on how the dumping reflected a shift in attitude from the university since the 1992 lawsuit:[22]We’ve had a decent relationship since then [the 1992 strip mall incident] .... [We] find it disrespectful and disheartening.

[22]In response, six departments at CSULB are developing film and educational resources to teach the campus community about the significance of the site in an attempt to prevent future damage.