Part 3 :The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America...How Old

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America

by Richard J Dewhurst

3 

HOW OLD? 

Clues from Mastodons and Carbon Dating One of the most amazing aspects of the findings related to the prehistory of America is their extreme antiquity. The dates of early finds were often estimated based on the ages of trees that had grown up over previously inhabited sites, such as in the following excerpt from A History of Miami County, Ohio, 1880. As testing became more sophisticated with carbon dating and other analyses, the dates of the finds kept getting pushed back, from hundreds to thousands of years. Scientists are now getting dates of 14,000 BCE for some of their finds in the Americas. 

There were several mounds, which indicate the existence, in this locality, of a prehistoric race. The largest of these earthworks embraces about two acres in extent, and is some three feet high. Various pieces of workmanship found upon the spot, such as arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, and images carved upon stone, go to prove that these people were not totally unacquainted with the fine arts, and that they possessed more than the ordinary intelligence of the Indian. 

Upon this mound a human skeleton was plowed up, which, although badly decayed, was judged, by those who examined it, to have been that of a man at least seven feet in height. An ash tree, more than one hundred years old, growing on one of the mounds, shows that they must have been built at a period of time very remote from the present. 

At other sites, careful archaeological study resulted in estimates of a few thousand years before, such as the discoveries of the Iowa Archaeological Survey in association with the WPA mentioned in the following article from 1935 or those of the State University of Iowa, as described in the 1958 article. 

IOWA INHABITED FOR AT LEAST TWO THOUSAND YEARS BY RAY E. COLTON, ARCHAEOLOGIST 

IOWA ENTERPRISE, ESTHERVILLE, 

IOWA, AUGUST 21, 1935 

Thousands of years before the arrival of the white pioneers to what is now Emmet County, Iowa, there inhabited in this section of Northern Iowa, a strange race of people whom science has named the “mound builders.” Evidence of this race has been found at various points in north central Iowa, especially along the shores of Lake Okoboji, and other bodies of water, such as creeks and rivers. These artifacts, in the shape of arrow heads, pottery, spear heads, axes, and some human skeleton remains give to archaeologists the story of this strange race that is believed to have antedated the white pioneers by at least 2,000 years. 

Traces of extinct fortifications, burial, ceremonial, and effigy mounds have been found near Milford and Spirit Lake, in Dickinson County, and a line drawn east and west along Emmet and Kossuth counties. These mounds, and other artificial tumuli could have been erected only by the mound builders, as they are known to have been the only cultured race of ancient times of the North American continent capable of erecting these works of antiquity. Owing to their erection of these mounds, the term “mound builder” has been applied to their race and culture. 

EXCAVATION OF PREHISTORIC IOWA VILLAGE 

MORNING SUN NEWS HERALD, AUGUST 14, 1958 

The first excavation of a prehistoric Indian village in Iowa has revealed pottery and some stone tools which indicate the village was established some 3,000 years ago. Although the artifacts are not the oldest found in Iowa, the discoveries 80 inches below the surface of the ground may be considered a major archaeological find, according to R. J. Ruppe, State University of Iowa assistant professor of sociology and anthropology. Dr. Ruppe is directing a field expedition of 16 SUI students on the Indian village site located east of Wapello near Toolesboro in Louisa County. 

The site, on a 200-foot-high bluff overlooking the Iowa River, is near a series of large burial mounds where extensive archaeological exploration was carried out in the 1870s by the Davenport Academy of Science. The prehistoric village site was called to Dr. Ruppe’s attention after a roadway was cut through the bluff and large black stains in the clay hill indicated it was the site of a number of storage pits, which the Indians filled with broken pottery, flint chips, charcoal, bones, and other trash. 

The 3,000-year-old crumbly pottery called “Marion-thick,” is extremely thick and coarse tempered. Excavation will be continued through the summer to determine whether the village site may have been inhabited even earlier than 1000 BC. “We’re not sure yet how deep we’ll have to go to before we hit a ‘sterile’ level where there are no further artifacts,” Dr. Ruppe said. 

He explained that the materials found at the various depths show no single, extensive period of occupation to indicate intermittent occupation from 1000 BC to 1400 BC. The articles found at the 30- inch depth indicate that the Indians who used them belonged to the “early Woodland period,” which followed from 500 BC. Other artifacts are dated in the “Hopewell period,” which followed from 500 BC to AD 500. Artifacts close to the surface are of the “late Woodland period” of 500 to about AD 1400. A broken pottery vessel about 20 inches in diameter and estimated to be 1,400 years old was found by the students at Lake Odessa, several miles from the village site. They have reconstructed about half of the cordmarker, mud colored vessel. “It is one of the few found with all the broken pieces in one place,” Dr. Ruppe said. 

Thousands of artifacts have been found since the group of SUI students began digging at the village site. In one pit, 4,268 flint flakes were uncovered. Also found were arrowheads, fragments of smoking pipes, fish scalers, various types of bones, much charcoal and obsidian, and a type of volcanic glass used in making tools. Each item, when discovered as the students shave a quarter of an inch of earth with their trowels, is recorded on maps to show exactly where and at what depth it was found. After being carefully cleaned and labeled, all items are sent to SUI to be analyzed further this fall in the classroom. From this information the students will be able to reconstruct the lay-out of the village and gain an insight into the Indian culture. 

After carbon dating was developed, truly mind-boggling results emerged, as the articles quoted below make clear. The results have been reinforced by some startling finds that indicate the coexistence of the giants with mastodons, which became extinct some twelve thousand years ago. 

HILLTOP DIG NEAR BUFFALO 11,000 

YEARS OLD—AREA’S ANCIENT 

INHABITANTS PROBED ON PHOENIX HILLTOP 

BY STEVE CARLIC, STAFF WRITER 

SYRACUSE HERALD AMERICAN, APRIL 3, 1983 

It’s just about time to dust off the buckets, break out the pickaxes and take another look at North America’s earliest residents. They lived just down the road from the village of Phoenix—11,000 years ago. Last summer anthropologists from the Buffalo Museum of Science spent several weeks digging on a hilltop near Route 264 about four miles north of the village. They plan to return May 16 to June 4, to dig again. Michael Gramly, curator of anthropology at the museum, said residents are invited to join in the dig. By studying the hundreds of arrowheads, stone flakes and stone tools found at the site, Gramly hopes to shed light on the mysterious Paleo-Indian people, believed to be the first inhabitants of North America. 

The dig site is located on a knoll that provides a view of the Oswego River valley. Gramly believes the site provided hunters with a view of approaching herds of animals migrating south. He said 1,400 artifacts were discovered last summer at one site. At least five Paleo-Indian campsites have been identified at the Phoenix site; only one was excavated by his team of 10 to 15 volunteers and adult education students from Buffalo. The nature of the artifacts and the relative scarcity of them leads Gramly to believe the hilltop was a temporary hunting camp, a place where prehistoric hunters spent two or three weeks during warm weather. Diggers, supported by the National Geographic Society, spent last year sifting dirt from a 275-square meter plot. “The area has been extensively plowed in the past, but that did not disturb the site too much,” Gramly said. The site was excavated thoroughly last year and the team is returning this spring to investigate a second of the five campsites. 

“We’ll be doing the same thing as last year,” Gramly said. “We need two areas excavated thoroughly to compare the two. It’s possible that the people returned to the area in a different season, which would be evident in certain differences and we’ve got similarities of the sites. The Phoenix site has been known by anthropologists for decades, but digs were never undertaken for various reasons.” A large number of arrowheads and other artifacts discovered by local farmers encouraged Gramly to conduct the dig. 

Artifacts discovered last year were cataloged. Gramly has lectured on his findings and a scholarly paper will be written in November that describes his findings. 

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SITES IN THE COUNTRY 

In the mid-1970s, excavators removed over twenty thousand artifacts from a dig in the general area of the Delaware Valley, which dated back to 9000 BCE at the earliest and showed thousands of years of continuous habitation. 

PALEO-INDIAN CULTURE IN THE DELAWARE VALLEY 

BY JOE RATTMAN 

POCONO RECORD REPORTER, AUGUST 30, 1975 

Archaeologists digging near here have discovered indications of a Paleo-Indian culture in the Delaware Valley no later than 2,000 years after the last glacier receded northward around 9,000 BC. Dr. Charles W. McNett Jr., an archaeologist at the American University in Washington, said fluted points he found at a site he is excavating, confirm that the site’s nomadic inhabitants were the first people to live in the area after it was no longer covered by ice. 

“Several of my colleagues have said they think this is the most important Paleo-Indian site in the East, if not in the country,” McNett said. 

The Paleo-Indian artifacts were discovered under eight to ten feet of soil, sand and silt beneath artifacts of more recent cultures on a fertile floodplain of the Delaware River adjoining the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The 11,000-year-old find this summer predated finds last summer dated to 8800 BC. 

MORE THAN TWENTY THOUSAND 

ARTIFACTS REMOVED FROM SITE 

“More than 20,000 artifacts were found last summer alone at the site,” McNett said. The river flooded several times over the centuries, gradually building up the soil and placing layers in between the artifacts that indicated occupations at various different times. 

“It is not clear where the Paleo-Indians came from but it is speculated that they migrated from western Pennsylvania where they seemed to be living around 14,000 to 15,000 years ago,” McNett said. 

Some of the oldest spear heads ever found were discovered in the Pee Dee Basin in the South Carolina counties of Florence, Darlington, Marlboro, and Marion. The oldest of these spear points are of Clovis origin and have been carbon-dated to 10,000 B.C. In addition, these points were found in association with mammoth and mastodon kills. In addition to the spear points, some of the oldest pottery ever discovered comes from South Carolina. It is what is called “fiber-tempered” pottery and it was found in association with polished stone tools, various scrapers, projectile points and lithic material. 

THE PEE DEES OF SOUTH CAROLINA DATE TO 8000 BC FLORENCE MORNING NEWS, AUGUST 4, 1974 

Bob Durrett, a Francis Marion College senior majoring in history, has just completed a comprehensive study on the early Indians of the Pee Dee. In his study, the young archeologist focused on the Archaic Period of the Indian culture of the Pee Dee dating from 8000 to 1500 BC. Being, for the most part nomadic, the Archaic Indians moved along river areas in the Pee Dee basin in search of food, probably sheltering themselves in rough huts of saplings or hides. Occupational sites from this culture were studied in four South Carolina counties: Florence, Darlington, Marlboro, and Marion. 

According to Durrett, the people of the Pee Dee have always been aware of the past existence of the Indians of this region. “Farmers have found the artifacts in their fields,” he said. “However, people mistakenly associate these artifacts with the historic Indians of early colonial America. In reality, Indians could have lived in this area of South Carolina as early as 12,000 years ago,” he added. 

SOUTH CAROLINA CLOVIS SPEAR POINTS 

KILLED MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS 

Durrett bases this opinion on the fact that, in South Carolina, Clovis spear points have been found like those found in the Southwest, which are associated with the bones of now extinct mammoths and mastodons. Carbon-14 dates taken from the prehistoric kill sites of these huge animals go back to about 10,000 BC. Therefore, according to Durrett, since the spear points from the Southwest and from South Carolina are so similar, it is perhaps reasonable to assume that the age of the Clovis artifacts in this state would be close to those from the Southwest, perhaps earlier. 

MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS IN SOUTH CAROLINA 

In addition, archeological findings reveal that mammoths and mastodons existed in South Carolina and remains of these animals were found in Darlington County in the 1840s. It was the ancestors of the Archaic Indians, known as the Paleo-Indians, who exploited the large game. Archaics hunted smaller game and added fish, grain, and vegetables to their diets. In his writing, Durrett tries to relate the artifacts to their culture: it was with the Archaic Indians that the “grinding stone” and polished stone tools appeared. In addition, bone pins have been found that were probably used to prepare clothing from hides. It is thought that certain of the “dart or lance” projectile points were used to kill, then to butcher and dress bone or hide. One such artifact was found in a field across from the FMC campus and many have been found in this area. “Artifacts of the polished stone tool are relatively scarce in this area,” said Durrett. “However,” he added, “many early pot shards from the late archaic period have been discovered in the Pee Dee, this due to the fact that pottery is well preserved in this climate and soil. The pottery of the late Archaic Indians was fiber-tempered; that is, plant fibers were added to the clay to make it stronger. One of the most common fibers used was the Palmetto fiber, which easily molded with the clay.” 

EARLIEST POTTERY DATES IN AMERICA 

“The earliest dates,” Durrett stated, “that have been found on the fiber-tempered pottery in North America come from South Carolina.” Durrett’s collection of Pee Dee artifacts includes samples of polished stone tools, various scrapers, projectile points, and lithic material. Durrett has included pictures of many of the artifacts with his paper. In his paper, Durrett also includes a word on the importance of preserving Indian artifacts. He warns readers against “pot-holing” or going to historic and prehistoric sites and indiscriminately digging for artifacts. 

“Once these artifacts are removed from the context in which they are found, if no careful techniques and cataloging are undertaken,” said Durrett, the value of the material is gone forever as far as gaining information. There is no monetary value to the artifacts. “Their value lies in the insight they give into our historic heritage,” he said. 

CARBON DATING PUTS FIND AT UP TO 14,225 BC 

INDIANA EVENING GAZETTE, JULY 3, 1976 

Recent archaeological digging at a cave near Avella, in Washington County, and carbon-14 testing of cave materials, indicate that the prehistoric Indians of our area date to about 14,225 BC. Don W. Dragoo, Curator, Section of Man, Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, states that fluted points of the Indian period, dated approximately from 16,000 to 6,000. Most of them have been surface finds, except for one area along the Conemaugh River near Blairsville, which he believes may have been a campsite of these ancient peoples. 

SMITHSONIAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE 1880S AND 1890S 

In an Associated Press story from 1997, reporter Anthony Breznikan interviewed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about the ten thousand artifacts he had removed from an area of western New York since 1993 in his capacity as a head archaeologist for the Mercyhurst College Archaeological Institute and the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS, JULY 29, 1997 

“Humans have lived at this site as early as 12,000 years ago,” said Dr. Adovasio about the flatlands near the Allegheny River 90 miles south of Buffalo, New York, “when they followed retreating glaciers north. The first year-round residents were the Hopewell tribe from 100 to 500 CE. 

“In the late 1800s, archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution found Hopewell burial mounds in the area. There were many tribes in Pennsylvania who seemed to be imitating what the Hopewell were doing, but the artifacts from these burial mounds appeared to be real.” 

MARYLAND OCCUPATION DATES TO 10,000 

BCE SITES BEING DESTROYED AT AN ALARMING RATE 

ANNAPOLIS CAPITAL, MAY 13, 1981 

There is abundant evidence of man’s presence in Maryland for 10,000 years or more. Along the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are more than 10,000 significant Indian occupation sites. In Anne Arundel County alone nearly 700 sites have been recorded and given permanent identifying numbers by the Maryland Geological Survey. These sites are being destroyed . . . at an alarming rate. Simple pole barns and houses on piers did much to preserve a site. The early farmer with horse drawn plow did little damage to Indian ruins, even though they are usually so thin so as to be contained entirely within the plow zone. But with the advent of the tractor and earth leveling machines, concerned groups of preservationists watched with a little dismay. However, since this was a necessary part of the farming that gave us the free time for our pursuits, not many objected. But in the early 1960s with the mass movement to the suburbs and especially, the waterfront, the time for real concern became apparent. 

MOUND BUILDER SITES HAVE NOT FARED WELL 

NEW YORK TRIBUNE, 1874 

Indian ruins have not fared so well. From Wayson’s Corner to Ft. Meade, nearly every shred of gravel has been removed for road building and other construction uses. 

Some of those Indian sites extended a quarter mile and farther from the river edge and all the artifacts that once lay there undisturbed for thousands of years, are now in roads, driveways and concrete. We found an Archaic (2000 BC) Indian ax about 20 years ago that was dumped on a Deale driveway. The gravel was from the Patuxent River. Several Indian artifacts were recovered from St. Helena Island in the Severn River. They were found eroding from a decaying concrete bulkhead that was built in the early 1930s. The gravel in the concrete is of the type and color found along the Davidsonville area of the Patuxent. Near Rose Haven in extreme southern Anne Arundel County, a housing development was planned on an Indian site that has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. 

DEVELOPER ALLOWS A DIG BEFORE DESTRUCTION 

The developer was very generous in allowing the Archeological Society of Maryland Inc. and its chapters to conduct a test excavation in 1977. About 80 people participated in the dig over a period of 10 days. After finding much cultural material, mostly Middle Woodland, (400 BC–AD 400) we found that the primary site was in no immediate danger since it was in a low area encompassed by the so-called 100- year flood plain. We abandoned the project at this point. It is our hope the site will remain forever undug. The longer a site remains untouched, the longer archeologists of the future will have to observe a ruin without its having been destroyed and just written about. 

OBSERVATORIES, ALLIGATOR MOUNDS, AND GRAVES 

Some [mounds] have the appearance of military structures, and others look as though they were built as observatories, while others seem to be designed for religious or burial purposes. Some mounds have the form of birds, serpents, alligators, and other animals. The “old fort” at Newark, has a mound in the center several feet high and about fifty feet long, built in the shape of an eagle with spread wings.

 

Fig. 3.2. Alligator effigy mound in Ohio, built circa 950 CE 

NOT BARBARIANS 

It was certainly no barbaric skill that could have traced out those perfect circles, surveyed those rectangles and octagons, much less controlled the tens of thousands of laborers that must have been necessary to construct these earthen walls and mounds. 

But it is all a mystery. One can only wonder that such a mighty people should so completely pass away as to leave no trace of their history but these piles of earth. 

SIGNIFICANT FINDS AT THE 

MEADOWCROFT ROCKSHELTER 

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in western Pennsylvania has recently come into prominence as one of the oldest verified archaeological sites in the United States. Although no skeletons have been recovered from the rock shelter, it must be born in mind that two documented excavations of skeletons in the area predate the rock shelter finds by fifty years. They tell us in no uncertain terms who these people were and what they looked like. 

In addition, fossilized bits of bone have been reclaimed from Paleo-Indian, Archaic, and Woodland Indian sites, and radiocarbon dating has revealed continuous use and possible occupation from 17,000 to 14,000 BCE and right up until the present. Digging at the site has gone down 11.5 feet to obtain these results, this being the first site in the Americas that was dug down past the Clovis levels to reveal Solutrean projectile points that predate the Clovis points by thousands of years. Clovis points and other bifacial (two-sided) objects like scrapers have also been recovered, as well as flint from Ohio, jasper from eastern Pennsylvania, and shells from the Atlantic coast, showing that these people engaged in widespread trade in the extremely ancient past. 

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter site was first discovered and excavated from 1973 to 1978 by an archaeological team from the University of Pittsburgh led by James M. Adovasio, Ph.D., perhaps the main academic in the forefront of the study of what are called Paleo-Indians, or what should more accurately be referred to as the extremely ancient settlers of the Americas. Not only has Adovasio been at the forefront of the excavations at this site, but he has also been active in the dating and reclamation of the bog mummies in Florida (see chapter 10). He has published his findings in an excellent book called The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology’s Greatest Mystery. But despite his expertise in the areas of this study, Adovasio has remained silent on the subject of the previously discovered skeletons, which is odd, as it directly relates to his life’s work. Perhaps, like most of the others in the academic field of archaeology, he is simply unaware of the finds or has been brainwashed into believing these old finds were all part of some ongoing hoax. But the only hoaxers are at those at the Smithsonian and the major universities and museums across America who are involved in the ongoing suppression of scientific evidence crucial to understanding the true history of this country.

Because of the scientifically confirmed, carbon-14–dated extreme antiquity of the area, as proven by the work of the team at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, led by Adovasio, the fact that significant skeletons were recovered from this area fifty years ago takes on added significance. 

The first skeleton was discovered by William Jacob Holland and his assistant. Holland was the main curator at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh from 1896 to 1922 and was considered the most prestigious anthropologist and archaeologist in the state at that time. 

THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM CLAIMS POSSESSION 

OF AN EIGHT- TO NINE FOOT GIANT 

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, NOVEMBER 22, 1920 

Dr. W. J. Holland curator of the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh and his assistant Dr. Peterson, a few days ago opened up a mound of the ancient race that inhabited this state and secured the skeleton, who, while in the flesh, was from 8–9 feet in height. 

The mound was originally about 100 feet long and more than 12 feet high somewhat worn down by time. It is on the J. B. Secrest farm in South Huntington Township. This farm has been in the Secrest name for more than a century. The most interesting feature in the recent excavations were the mummified torso of a human body, which the experts figured was laid to rest at least 400 years ago. 

“Portions of the bones dug up and the bones in the leg,” Prof. Peterson declares, “are those of a person between eight and nine feet in height.” The scientist figures that this skeleton was the framework of a person of the prehistoric race that inhabited this area before the American Indian. The torso and the portions of the big skeleton were shipped to the Carnegie Museum. Dr. Holland and Peterson supervised the explorations of the mound with the greatest of care. The curators believe the man whose skeleton they secured belonged to the mound builder class. 

The second very major find from the immediate vicinity of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter was of a cache of forty-nine skeletons that were discovered in Washington County at another mound in the 1930s. The story of this discovery was accompanied by photos of bones, skulls, and teeth, and one of the accompanying photo captions notes, “Archaeologists are amazed at the excellent condition of the teeth.” 

THUNDERBIRD IMAGES DATE 

BACK TEN THOUSAND YEARS 

As we pull back the curtain of the true history of the Americas, the first thing that we discover is that many popular, iconographic images that we associate with the American Indians find their roots in the much more ancient culture of the mound builders. A case in point is the classic image of the thunderbird. At a site along the Shenandoah River, estimated to be over one mile long, effigy mounds in a number of totem styles, including the thunderbird, were uncovered that date back to 10,000 BCE. Giant burials were found in association with these sites, as well as numerous artifacts, including Clovis point arrowheads.

EXTREMELY ANCIENT HISTORY OF VIRGINIA 

INDIANS THUNDERBIRD FACTORY SITE 

MAY BE OLDEST IN NATION 

BY NED BURKS STAR STAFF, FEBRUARY 6, 1984 

Front Royal: Along the floodplain of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, about seven miles south of Front Royal, lay the remains of a primitive “factory” that was thriving in the valley long before modern industry came to Warren County. 

It is called the Thunderbird site, and archaeologists who have examined stone artifacts found there say the area was used by a Paleo-Indian culture for the manufacture of hunting and butchering tools almost 12,000 years ago. 

The site also contains the oldest evidence yet discovered of a house structure in North America, and evidence gathered there over the past 13 years has allowed archaeologists to construct a working model of one of the oldest known civilizations on this continent. 

Amateur archaeologists began to discover Indian artifacts at the site in the 1960s, and their find came to the attention of William Gardner, a professor of anthropology at Catholic University, in 1969. Gardner and his assistants soon discovered that their predecessors had barely scratched the surface of what would become one of the most important archaeological finds in the eastern United States. Gardner is completing a book on the prehistory of the Middle Atlantic Region of North America, in which he is incorporating much of the information he has gathered from the Thunderbird excavation. 

He became so fascinated with the area that, with the help of a number of graduate students, he has been excavating and mapping the site ever since. 

EXTREMELY ANCIENT DISCOVERY A TOTAL SURPRISE 

The “dig” is undisturbed now because of winter weather but excavation will continue next summer. 

When Gardner began work on the site with the help of a National Geographic Society grant in 1971, it did not take him long to realize how significant the Thunderbird excavation would be. He thought at first that the artifacts at Thunderbird were strictly from a “surface scatter,” similar to so many other sites discovered in the east. 

Surface scatters are clusters of stone chips and projectile points that remained in the plow zone of the soil and were frequently disturbed by farmers who settled the valley in modern times, Gardner said. To his surprise, he discovered that the stones at Thunderbird were much older than he had anticipated, and that the site was more than just a temporary stopping point for nomadic Indians who roamed the Shenandoah Valley for food. 

“After taking off all the disturbed soil in the plow zone we came down on stains in the ground where posts had been driven,” Gardner said. “That was the first evidence, and so far really the only evidence, of a house structure at this time period. It really threw us for a loop.” It turned out that Gardner and his crew had stumbled on what had once been a traditional Indian camping ground, first established between 10,000 and 9,000 BC. 

Using carbon dating, Gardner discovered that a piece of charcoal found on the site dated to about 8000 BC. He knows the site was probably in use for almost 2,000 years before that, because certain distinctive spear points known as Clovis points also were found near the river. Clovis points discovered in the western United States have been dated as early as 9500 BC, and Gardner’s student Bob Verrey has called them “the hallmark of the Paleo-Indian period,” the oldest known period of human habitation in North America. 

Gardner said that the Indians who occupied the Thunderbird site could confidently be dated to 9500 BC because of stylistic similarities between the spear points found here and elsewhere. “It’s like taking a piece of furniture and saying, ‘This is Colonial,’” he said. 

Gardner also stated that the number of stone chippings found on the site, and the fact that the chippings have been found at varying depths beneath the surface, indicates that the area was used more or less continuously over a period of 2,000 years as a center for making stone hunting and cooking tools. 

Further excavation and a painstaking system of mapping, which involves leaving stone chips and projectile points at exactly the level at which they are discovered, allowed Gardner and Verrey to construct a working model of the culture of the earliest known inhabitants of the region. Gardner calls archaeology “history without a written record.” 

Studying the Paleo-Indian culture in the Shenandoah Valley is complicated even more because no human or animal remains have been found at the site. Gardner explained that the well-drained, acidic soils in the Shenandoah Valley have caused all animal and vegetable matter of the period to decay without a trace. Even in the drier soils of the West, no human remains from the period have been found. Consequently, archaeologists are left to make deductions about the early inhabitants of the valley based almost entirely on the evidence of stone artifacts and the patterns in which they are found. 

“Though the Indians who once roamed this land in search of deer, elk, and moose remain faceless, certain things can now be said about their lifestyle with some certainty,” Gardner said. “The valley would have been attractive to them, with its plentiful supply of game and freshwater. Thunderbird was an ideal place to be in the winter, because the food options were better (than farther north). With the river, you can always break through the ice and get fish and turtle. Sooner or later the animals will come down there too. 

“Even more important for the Indians than the abundant game were the outcrops of jasper, an American flint rock that jutted from the cliffs just across the river from the Thunderbird site. Jasper was a stone highly valued by the early Indians because it was especially well suited for making high quality stone tools and weapons. Large piles of stone chippings found at the site indicate that the Indians used the area as a quarry reduction station, whittling rocks down to portable size before making the finished products: knives and spear points for the men who did the hunting, and scraping and cooking tools for the women who prepared the food.” 

Gardner and Verrey hope to learn more about these early Indians. Excavation at the Thunderbird site will continue for at least four more years, when Gardner’s ten-year excavation rights to the site expire. The land is owned by Thunderbird Ranch Hunt Club. Together with ongoing research, including the search for more carbon dates that will allow Gardner and Verrey to pin down the oldest date of settlement more precisely, the site is being used to train students. Despite the amount of time spent on the project, a great deal more work remains to be done. By the end of last summer excavation on one household area had been completed, but Gardner estimated there are at least twenty such areas that remain to be unearthed. 

ANCIENT THUNDERBIRD SITE IS ONE MILE LONG ONLY 2,400 SQUARE FEET DUG OF ONE-MILE-LONG SITE 

“The Thunderbird site is almost a mile long, and we’ve dug maybe 2,400 square feet,” Gardner said. “We’ve opened a few small windows in a house of 10,000 windows.” The Thunderbird Museum and Archaeological Park, which houses many of the artifacts discovered at the Thunderbird site and other Indian sites in the Northern Shenandoah Valley, is closed for the winter, but will reopen in mid-March. It is just off U.S. 340, about seven miles south of Front Royal. 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FAMOUS ELEPHANT PIPE 

This detailed account comes from the Chicago Tribune. The report is very thorough and covers the excavations of a series of mounds in which were found various burials and a large number of artifacts, the most amazing being the elephant or mastodon pipes illustrated by Davis and Squier in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, the first book ever published by the Smithsonian. 

One of the most impressive earthworks found during this Iowa excavation was the remains of a six-acre octagon with curving sides and a passageway on the western side that led to a freshwater spring. 

To give you an idea of the vast extent of some of these sites under investigation, in this report on the Iowa dig, it is reported that a general survey of the area revealed the presence of thousands of mounds that went on for miles and the remains of what is described as a large, ancient city. 

GENERAL SURVEY REVEALS THOUSANDS OF MOUNDS 

CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 18, 1889 

A party of relic hunters, including this writer, arrived one fine morning in early autumn in the region of mounds lying to the north of Toolsboro. Those Mound Builders were a strange race of people. This continent was theirs before the arrival of our modern red man, and their high type of civilization is a cause of wonderment. Their origin, their date, and their disappearance are explained only by theory and conjecture. 

Here on this majestic bluff of the Mississippi we are surrounded by huge, unnatural and remarkable elevations of land, undoubtedly the work of human hands, and of so distinctive a character that not even the famed works at Newark or Circleville will excite more archaeological interest. 

Just on the outskirts of Toolsboro is the inclined mound known locally as “The Old Fort.” Still, it does not appear to have been erected for defensive purposes. To class it as a sacred enclosure would be more in harmony with the theories advanced by scientific men who have made a study of the similar earthworks in the Ohio Valley. As an indication that it was not originally designed as a fortification, we observe that its plan of construction is more ornamental than practical. It was built carefully—not hurriedly—and without regard to strength of position and, further, it is an isolated specimen of an enclosure earthwork. If it was designed as a fortification for practical use in the time of war, there would be other fortifications, or vestiges of war in the immediate neighborhood. 

A NORTHEAST LINE OF FORTIFICATION 

MOUNDS WALLED THE EMPIRE 

The line of defense of the Mound Builders extended from New York State diagonally across the country to Wabash, which conclusively proves that the hostilities encountered from the race came from the Northeast, and there was no occasion for a fort in the region. 

This enclosure, the only one of importance west of the Mississippi and probably the most unique on the continent stands without counterpart, while the various geometric forms of squares and circles represented by Newark or Circleville are common to other sections of the mound region of the Ohio Valley. 

The earthen embankments are now somewhat obliterated, but can still be distinctly traced, the angles and bastions exhibiting the form of an octagon, the sides of which are curved inwards, and enclosing the area of half a dozen acres. A lane or passageway originally extended back from the west side of the enclosure several hundred feet to a spring, which has long ceased to be in existence, though it is remembered by local settlers. 

Within the enclosure great quantities of pottery, flint chips, arrow points, polished stone axes and tomahawks, occasional pipes, and copper implements and other articles have been picked up from time to time and found their way into museums and collections. 

EIGHT STALWART SENTINEL MOUNDS 

Standing upon the margin of this, the highest and most precipitous of the Mississippi river bluffs, are eight stalwart sentinel mounds, drawn up in a line as though zealously guarding through the ages the sacred enclosure just behind. They are conical in shape with a terraced summit; their height is from twenty to thirty feet and their circumference from 60 to 100 feet. 

Our first day here was consumed in a general survey of the mound region, which, in addition to the above, includes several thousand burial mounds, some large and some small, extending along the bluffs for miles; and one must naturally conclude that this was the site of a densely populated mound builder’s city. Early the following morning, while at work on the mounds, two of the largest were attacked simultaneously. Human remains were first discovered in Mound 1. 

When the earth was cleared away exposing the skeleton, it became apparent that the individual had been buried in a sitting posture facing towards the rising sun. The skeleton was that of a man of medium height (very rare); around the neck was a string of shell beads, while scattered about the remains were numerous arrow points and two small stone axes. The cranium was of the short-headed type, the forehead less receding and the crown less dome-shaped than that of the modern Indian. Nothing of consequence was exhumed from Mound 2. 

Mound 3, disclosed a perfect skeleton, within a few feet of the apex, which was readily identified as an intrusive burial, and proved to be the remains of a representative American Indian. Intrusive burials are not of uncommon occurrence, as the Indians, feeling an innate reverence for the mounds, frequently appropriate them for their own sepulchers. The practice confused early investigators, but from what is now definitely known of the burial habits of the two races, the question may easily be decided. 

The Indian remains were carefully removed and the excavating proceeded. At last the original occupants of the mound were unearthed: two figures in a sitting posture facing eastward. The practice of placing the remains in this position was a common though not universal custom of the mound builders, and is one of the points of evidence on which archaeologists base their opinion regarding them as a race of sun-worshippers. 

From this mound were secured relics which would indicate an age somewhat more advanced than shown by Mound 1. 

The knives and hatchets were of hammered copper; some being wrapped in a cloth of coarse texture, though exhibiting skilled workmanship, which only could have been preserved for so many centuries by the chemical action of the copper with which it had lain in contact. 

Copper beads and a copper bracelet adorned one of the skeletons. Two finely-carved pipes of catlinite —of curved base variety—one representing a bird with eyes of pearl and the other an animal of questionable description, together with other specimens of less consequence were discovered. 

TWO WORLD-FAMOUS MASTODON PIPES ARE FOUND 

During the remainder of the week several more mounds were explored and numerous interesting relics of that pre-historic age were added to our collection. 

Here it was in the immediate neighborhood that the two elephant pipes—now world famous—were found, furnishing the strongest proof of the antiquity of man on the continent. These pipes, carved from solid stone, representing the form of the elephant or mastodon—the only one ever known—were both found in Louisa County, Iowa and both are now to be seen in the museum of the Academy of Sciences at Davenport. 

These pipes show beyond a reasonable doubt that the mound builder and the mastodon were contemporaneous. Their genuineness has been called into question, to be sure, but the severe criticism to which they were subjected only proves their value and importance. Their genuineness is attested by scholarly men of the highest character.” 

Fig. 3.7. Elephant pipe, from Iowa, illustration 

from Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley 

by Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis 

On the more traditional front, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of advanced culture and mining activities in Wisconsin dating back to at least 9000 BCE. At sites like Oconto and Osceola, copper artifacts, including spears, arrow points, knives, adzes, gouges, fish hooks, and harpoons have been found in association with textiles, drilled beads, and even bone flutes that can still be played. 

OCONTO SETTLED RIGHT AFTER ICE AGE 

BY JOHN NEW HOUSE 

WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, DECEMBER 13, 1963 

“Dating of the Old Copper Culture, also tells us that the Paleo-Indians, who preceded the Old Copper Culture, arrived shortly after the disappearance of the last glacial age in the state,” explained Warren Wittry of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

The date of the last glacier has been determined as about 11,000 years ago, again by use of the “atomic calendar” (carbon-14 dating) method. The material tested in this instance consisted of wood from a spruce swamp in Manitowoc County that had been flattened by the last glacier. The Paleo-Indians hunted now-extinct bison, elephants, the North American horse, and camels in this country, with those in Wisconsin hunting the bison and probably the mastodons or mammoths of that day. “We have found their tools: a distinctive type of arrow, without the fluting of later Indians and a small flint incising tool with a sharp point. What we hope to find are these tools in association with bones of bisons and mastodons from that period,” said Wittry. 

“ROYAL” BURIALS AT OCONTO 

“Burials at Oconto were in pits just large enough to receive the bodies of the dead, which were put in a variety of positions. Some were flexed, with knees under chins. Some were extended, face up or face down. Some of the pits contained bones and several of these had copper instruments of spatula form but with sharp edges. The supposition is that they were used to dismember the dead before cremation,” Wittry observed. 

Some pits contained burials in the flesh, as shown by the related pattern of the bones, with bundle burials on top. 

“Apparently the Indians waited until a member of the group died in the spring, to dig the grave, then put in the bundles of bones of those who had died during the winter,” explained Wittry. 

The burials in Oconto were about 2½ feet below the surface. One pit contained the body of a woman and a child about 2 years old. At the base of the child’s neck was a whistle made from the tibia of a deer. Markings and placement was distinctive. 

“One of the big thrills for an anthropologist came later when I discovered that this was only the fourth such whistle to be discovered,” said Wittry. “Two of the other known whistles were found in Kentucky, and one of them was found in the same manner: placed at the base of the neck of a small child.” 

OCONTO SETTLEMENT REMAINS 

DATED AT 5,600 YEARS 

The date at which at least one group of Indians of the Old Copper Culture lived in Wisconsin has been established as 5,600 years ago, with a leeway of only several hundred years one way or the other as a safety margin. Called one of the most important findings in state anthropology in recent years, the dates were arrived at through the newly-discovered radioactive carbon-14—sometimes called the “atomic calendar”—method of computing age of once living materials. 

FORTY-FIVE SKELETONS EXHUMED FROM 

TWENTY-ONE BURIAL PITS TWENTY

YEAR-OLD BOY MAKES DISCOVERY 

The burial ground was discovered in June, 1952, by Donald Baldwin, a 13-year-old boy digging in the wall of an abandoned gravel pit near Oconto. The Oconto County Historical Society immediately acquired the land and kept it under guard, preserving it from vandals and souvenir hunters. 

The site, when excavated, yielded bones of 45 individuals in 21 burial pits with the bones in fair to good condition. 

“Luckily the burials were in sand over gravel,” noted Wittry. “So the drainage was good and the conditions for preservation excellent.” 

OLD COPPER CULTURE SITE AT POTOSI 

The Oconto burial ground of the Old Copper Culture is the second found in the state. In 1945, erosion on the banks of the Mississippi River near Potosi revealed the burial ground of about 500 individuals. 

The bones were in a trench, some 20 feet wide and 70 feet long, under a cover of black sand about five feet deep. 

8,500-YEAR-OLD CAMPSITE FOUND NEAR GREEN BAY ASSOCIATED PRESS, GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN, JULY 3, 1959 

An Indian camp site which may have belonged to the earliest Indians yet known in northeastern Wisconsin has been uncovered in the town of Scott, Brown County, not far from the east shore of Green Bay. The site, which is being excavated, was found by Ron Mason, curator for exhibits at the Neville Public Museum, and his wife, Carol. Both are anthropologists. Mason says everything points to the Scottsbluff Indians, who roamed the Plains States from 6,500 to 8,500 years ago. 

Mason compared the Scottsbluff period of 6,500 to 8,500 years ago, to the Old Copper Culture site at Oconto. So far, the Old Copper Culture Indians have been the earliest known Indians in northwestern Wisconsin. Two carbon readings have been made at the Oconto site. They fixed the age of fragments at between 5,500 and 7,500 years. 

SMITHSONIAN REMOVES TONS OF ARTIFACTS AND SKELETONS FROM ALABAMA CAVE ANCIENT ALABAMA CAVE NOW OPEN TO TOURISTS 

ALTOONA MIRROR, MARCH 13, 1986 

Russell Cave, Alabama, is open to visitors and study of the 9,000-year-old home of the Stone Agers has moved into the laboratory. The cave on a wooded mountainside near Bridgeport is man’s oldest known habitation in the southeast. From at least 7000 BCE to as late as 1650 CE, generations of primitive huntsmen found ready-made shelter there, a mild climate, clear fresh water, and a forest full of game. 

The Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society explored and excavated the cave several years ago. It is now a national monument. 

FIVE TONS OF ARTIFACTS 

From a deep working trench, Carl F. Miller of the Smithsonian excavated five tons of artifacts: stone projectiles, arrowheads, fish hooks, bone awls and needles, shell ornaments, human skeletons, animal bones, and the ashes of ancient campfires. Much of this material has been catalogued and studied by the Smithsonian. In a separate project, the National Parks Service has enlisted the aid of several universities to classify animal bones from the new trench. 

NEW MEXICO TRADE TIES WITH CALIFORNIA 

BY HAL BORLAND GALVESTON DAILY NEWS, 

OCTOBER 26, 1930 

Last year a joint expedition of the University of Minnesota and the Archaeological Institute’s School of American Research excavated a large area in the Mimbres Valley–Cameron Creek section of southwestern New Mexico. There they discovered skeletons, pottery, jewelry, weapons, food, and other relics of a race whose history is believed to extend more than 2,000 years. 

Not the least interesting among the finds were shell bracelets and beads identified with the Gulf of California and indicating commercial connections with the West and the South. 

This year further exploration of the ruins was carried on by an expedition from Beloit College. Professor Paul Nesbit placed the first period of the Mimbres people at 2,500 B.C., placing them as one of the earliest known American civilizations. These investigations uncovered more evidence of commerce, including a beautifully cast copper bell said to be symbolic of the Central American culture. 

GRUESOME RITES OR A HORRIBLE MASSACRE 

Other ancient relics were found in the Lowry Ruins of southwestern Colorado last summer by the Field Museum Archaeological Expedition to the Southwest, led by Dr. Paul Martin. 

A year and a half ago Dr. Martin announced the discovery of a hitherto unknown savage culture in ruins in that area, more modern, however than those explored earlier this year. There he found a grimceremonial room literally heaped with skeletons—and other evidence of gruesome rites—or of a horrible massacre. 

COLORADO KIVA PRESERVES 

3,000-YEAR-OLD PAINTINGS 

This year Dr. Martin worked on two kivas, or ceremonial rooms, one built on top of still older ruins. Remains of these houses and pottery of cultured design representing a highly-advanced Indian tribe were discovered. 

“Then,” says Dr. Martin, “we penetrated to the lower kiva, where we found that paintings on its walls had been preserved more perfectly than paintings on the room above.” The lower kiva was estimated by Dr. Martin to date back about 3,000 years. 

GYPSUM CAVE FINDS DATE FROM 30,000 TO 20,000 BC 

MORE DAM DESTRUCTION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES 

BY HAL BORLAND GALVESTON DAILY 

NEWS, OCTOBER 26, 1930 

The most startling find of the year, however, was that of Dr. Mark Harrington in an expedition to Gypsum Cave, near Las Vegas, Nevada, for the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. Working in an area that will be submerged by water impounded by the projected Hoover Dam, the party first came on darts from an atlatl, a weapon that preceded the bow and arrow. With these darts they found the skull of a giant ground sloth, which was known to be of great antiquity. Then the excavators set about searching for evidence that man had visited the cave before the sloth. 

Eventually they found a patch of real charcoal, presumably from a campfire, under a layer of unbroken strata of the Pleistocene Era, in the top most of which was found remains of the Basket Makers. Other discoveries included numerous bones of the ground sloth, the tiny skeleton of a prehistoric horse, and scores of broken darts and points of obsidian and flint, parts of weapons used by primitive men of that time. At the bottom lay the remains of the campfire. 

This seeming link between man and sloth is regarded by many scientists as the most important proof of man’s antiquity in America yet brought to light. The sloth is known to have become an extinct mammal 20,000 years ago. This pushes the probable time for America’s earliest man back thousands of years further than any reliable previous estimates. It places man in America, in fact, in glacial times. 

LEE CANYON, ARIZONA, DINOSAUR PICTOGRAPHS 

These finds in Gypsum Cave were forecast a few years ago by the discovery of a series of remarkable pictographs in Lee Canyon in Arizona. Samuel Hubbard, who discovered them said: 

“The pictographs included one of an elephant attacking a man, the first elephant drawing by prehistoric man ever found in the United States, as far as this writer knows. Another was of a group of animals, undoubtedly of the ibex, a two-horned antelope still found alive in the mountains of Asia, whose bones have been discovered in European caves but trace of which has never before appeared in the New World. The third, and most valuable, is a pictograph of an animal quite evidently intended to represent a dinosaur. 

“The elephant in America dates back at least 30,000 years. The dinosaur belongs to an even earlier tropical era going back millions of years before that. Yet, there in Lee Canyon are pictures of both the elephant and the dinosaur, chipped in the rock by prehistoric man.” 

EVIDENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE 

There must have been great climatic changes in this thirsty land since these thousands of people lived here. Today there is not an ounce of water to be found anywhere—just a great burned up, heaved up, dried up waste. 

Such a great population must have had water and such a population could not have subsisted entirely on game, for certainly rainfall could not have supplied them with sufficient water, nor these mountains with enough game. It is my guess that far back in the past ages a great river flowed at the bottom of these cliffs, that rainfall was plenty, that the inhabitants were farmers, and that what appears to be a fort or reservoir on top of the cliffs was a storehouse for the community’s grain.

In the ruins of southern Colorado I am told a great calamity befell the people and that the skeletons lie unburied, and the general confusion denoted a sudden end, but on the Puye ruins, there is absolutely no indication of where these thousands of people went, or how or why they went. 

PERSONNEL SET UP MUSEUM OF INDIAN 

ARTIFACTS FOUND ON ISLAND OF POINT MUGU 

PRESS COURIER, JANUARY 18, 1963 

Oxnard, California: Sailors and scientists at San Nicolas Island have dedicated their spare time to digging up samples of civilizations long past to break the monotony of the space age. Now on display at the Point Mugu administration building is a collection of primitive artifacts used by Indians who inhabited this land some 4,000 years ago. 

The collection is a gift to Capt. J. G. Smith, commanding officer of the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, donated by two archeology-minded sailors who recently were transferred from the island. Captain Smith, also an amateur archeologist, is credited with the discovery of an Indian fresh water system on the island last April. 

San Nicolas Island has long been known as one of the prime archeological sites of the eight Channel Islands that skirt the California coasts. Since first excavations and studies were began in 1875, San Nicolas has yielded hundreds of artifacts from ancient Indian burial sites. 

These discoveries have helped give archeologists a new insight into the ancient history of California. Most extensive studies of the island have been carried on during the past ten years by members of UCLA’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology and by other Southern California institutions. Last year, however, sailors who live and work at this small space-age island facility started a new excavation for artifacts during off hours from their regular duty watches in support of satellite and missile firings from nearby Point Mugu, Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Naval Missile Facility, Point Arguello. 

Early in 1962, two navy men were assigned to a group of archeologists from UCLA to assist in excavations on the island. James O. Casper, aviation boatswain 3rd class, and Kenneth H. Britton, commissary man 2nd class, soon found themselves not only assisting, but genuinely interested in digging for artifacts. 

San Nicolas Island is a windswept, almost barren plateau measuring nine miles in length and averaging three miles in width. It is the most remote of the Channel Islands and is located 78 miles west of Los Angeles and 55 miles southwest of the Point Mugu Naval Air Station. Navy and civilian personnel stationed on San Nicolas are virtually isolated from the mainland. Spare-time drags unless used to the best possible advantage. 

Consequently, the two sailors found themselves grubbing through sites even after the archeologists had gone. In time, Casper and Britton gathered an impressive collection of artifacts from prehistoric burial fields on the island’s sandy and dune-covered southern tip. Their collection included a small whistle made of black stone, shell heads, fish hooks fashioned from abalone shell, primitive knives and drills, arrowheads chipped from stone, and a length of rope woven from seaweed. All the artifacts were formed by hand from the only materials the Indians had—those which nature had provided. Radiation dating analysis on similar items indicated that the artifacts range in age from 2,000 to 4,000 years.

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