If it holds up, Collins's claim would add Gault to the list of proposed pre-Clovis sites, including Monte Verde in Chile, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania and Cactus Hill in Virginia. They're all controversial, however, based on charges of contamination and other problems.
Collins hopes to bolster his case by digging further at Gault. He'll also use another method to test the soil's age. And some 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from Gault, in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, members of his team will soon tackle the perplexing question of how Paleo-Indians got here in the first place. Until an ice-free corridor opened in northwestern Canada about 13,300 years ago, providing a route to the interior, a dome of ice divided Asia from North America. Some archaeologists have proposed an ice-free route along the northwestern coast; others suggest the first Americans, like the first Australians, had boats and used them either to travel east from Asia or, a few daring archaeologists propose, west from Europe. Hard evidence is unavailable because the coastline moved several hundreds of meters inland when the ice sheets melted.
"The archaeological record is out there underwater," says Hemmings, "so that's the next frontier in this search." Hemmings plans to spend two weeks this summer in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico looking for Clovis and pre-Clovis sites. In an expedition funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a team lead by Hemmings and James Adovasio of Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., will explore promising sites along ancient coastlines using remotely operated vehicles. They've identified prime targets by studying underwater maps for features Clovis people are known to have preferred, such as cliff faces near streams or rivers.
Back on dry land, Collins believes Gault has more to tell us about early Americans. "It's a special place," says Collins, "and it's been a special place for a long, long time."
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6 Comments
Add CommentClovis has always seemed like a random data point to me, in terms of being the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs Michael D. Coe still active?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider what appears to be an ancient stone road(or who knows what), found *deep* underwater off of Cuba. Likely it wasn't underwater at the time. That may be one more clue to add to the puzzle of how the 1st people arrived.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "interesting" markings on the stones may be considered early cartegraphic remnants. The tools could have served as early maps of streams, rivers or hunting trails. Precise geometric patterns, such as the series of squares/rectangles, could be ceremonial or decorative in nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of the "fluted" points look similar to one found in a cornfield across the street from "Jasper Park" in Vera Cruz, PA. The teacher there had shown it to me I was looking at another highway extension to impact jasper mine activities there in the late 1970s. He said U of Penn thought it at least 10,000 years old. He had some carborundum nodules he also collected nearby. It's sometimes called "turtleback" jasper, either from the spotted brown (turns red in heat) or the large nodules were reduced to large "turtles" to carry like one I saw a Maryland flint-knapper had, traded as far away as New England, the state sign says. One of the earliest articles printed in the "American Anthropologist" discussed the pit mines though abandoned about 1640 dated from Dr. Mercer's tree-ring dating a very early citation for that type of dating (190?). He was a large collector of folk art and tools and had a museum nearby.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding Fig 9 of 10:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a sculptor and I would be challenged to incise such precise linear elements into stone without metal tools. Then again, I would be challenged to manufacture a spear point from stone with stone.
The next point of interest is the degree of symetric correlation evident with the obverse and reverse of the artifact. Obviously they are not equal, but, the short double horizontal element near the bottom of this image is retained by both sides, as is the basic characteristic of single lines connecting the horizontal elements to closed forms. On one side the closed forms are vacant, and on the other side some of the closed forms are decorated. This would suggest that the horizontal elements and the closed forms have a spatial and/or temporal relationship indicated by the connecting single line which could include symbolic expansion/reduction from one side to the other.
My first impression is that the designs are representing a specific species of vegetation. The horizontal elements represent the soil level and perhaps a partially visible tuber or corm, the single linear connecting elements stalks, and the closed forms the leaves or flowers of the plant at differnt stages of development.
If this be the case then the artifact may have served the function of a "flash card" for children who were about to go out on their first gathering foray.
Or, it could just be an idle doodle of something of interest during a time of plenty. Such is art.