Geo-Archaeological approach finds new archaic sites in Michigan

Submitted by bat400 on Saturday, 15 December 2007 Page Views: 1100

Pulling her hand back through a pile of dirt, Claire Kitzman forced sand through a sifting screen, revealing a tiny piece of chipped rock lodged between the bars of the grate.
John Anderton, a geo-archaeologist and geography professor at Northern Michigan University, held the quartzite chip and confirmed it was a piece of cultural antiquity dating to the Archaic Period in geologic history, about 2,000 to 8,500 years ago.

"It's prehistoric garbage, basically," Anderton said, referring to the waste flakes from chipping stones and bits of fire-cracked rock the archaeologists are discovering at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Under a $94,000, three-year research grant from the National Park Service, Anderton and a small group of his students have been working to uncover evidence of new prehistoric Archaic archaeological sites at Pictured Rocks.

"There are extensive areas of the park that contain evidence of former beaches, old wave-cut caves and ancient barriers and lagoons," Anderton said. "This information will be used to generate a geographic information system model of a prehistoric Native American settlement that will be used to predict the location of archaeological sites."

Finds from the past several months are helping researchers learn more about the people who frequented the northern part of Alger County thousands of years ago.

"From what we see archaeologically, they have a lot of focus on quartzite cobbles," Anderton said. "They seem to be making simple flake tools. For what? Based on the site locations, probably to process fish."

Anderton said people from the Archaic Period frequented Pictured Rocks in small numbers, likely making seasonal campsites to benefit from available food sources.

"We have not found a major village yet in the park," Anderton said, but a couple of large Archaic Period villages have been unearthed on Grand Island nearby.

A total of 23 sites were found this summer. Only a dozen prehistoric sites had previously been documented at the park. The last large archaeological study at Pictured Rocks took place almost 20 years ago.

For more, see the The Mining Journal(Marquette).

Note: Ancient history discovered at Michigan park. Prehistoric trash opens door to past.

Contributor Bio for bat400: Located in the Lower Ohio River Valley, United States.

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