Clovis people used Great Lakes camp annually about 13,000 years ago, researchers confirm

[Judi Lynn]

September 11, 2024
by University of Michigan



Independent researcher Thomas Talbot and University of Michigan archaeologists have found more than 20 Clovis tools and hundreds of pieces of manufacturing and refurbishment debris at the Belson Clovis Site in St. Joseph County. Credit: Daryl Marshke/Michigan Photography


The earliest humans to settle the Great Lakes region likely returned to a campsite in southwest Michigan for several years in a row, according to a University of Michigan study.

Until recently, there was no evidence that people from the Clovis period had settled the Great Lakes region. The Clovis people appeared in North America about 13,000 years ago, during the geologic epoch called the Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene, sheets of glaciers covered much of the world, including Michigan, making the land inhospitable for human settlers. But a 2021 U-M study confirmed that Clovis people built a camp, now called the Belson site, in southwest Michigan.

Now, the same researchers have confirmed that Clovis people traveled to the site annually, probably in the, for at least three but likely up to five consecutive years, according to Brendan Nash, lead author of the study and a doctoral student of archaeology. Tools from the site also show evidence that the settlers' diets included a wide variety of animals, ranging from rabbits to musk ox. The team's results are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

At the Belson site, the researchers discovered tools that were made with a type of stone called chert from what is now western Kentucky, about 400 miles from the Belson site. These tools were then resharpened at the Belson site, leaving behind small pieces for researchers to analyze.

More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-clovis-people-great-lakes-annually.html

[PatrickforB]

1. Wonderful! I love these posts.

Just look at those fine points, and think on the raw sense of exultation the human who knapped the flint must have had using such blades to survive in a primeval world.

Warm regards!

[Codifer]

2. Imagine,

what the clear night sky looked like then and how wonderful it would have been to inhale the pure sweet air and the satisfaction that comes with the realization that you just might know near everything you needed to know.

.... and no trumps anywhere.

[wnylib]

3. This find illustrates what archaeologist James Adovasio said

about the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in western PA that he excavated. Confirmed dates at Meadowcroft, which is just north of Pittsburgh, go back to 14,000 years ago, with even earlier dates possible.

The land that bordered the southern edge of the glaciers was a good place for people to hunt. Meltwater from the glaciers in summer created pools and streams that drew game animals and provided soil for plants to draw grazing animals.

So, across the northern US, along the land that was once the southern edge of the glaciers, is a good place to look for ancient sites of human habitation.

My grandparents had a farm in northwestern PA, about 30 miles southwest of the city of Erie. It was close enough to Lake Erie (which was formed by the retreat of glaciers) that I think that human habitation there probably didn't go back more than 10,000 years ago.

My father told me about finding stone spearheads and arrowheads in the soil when they plowed. He saved a few and showed them to me when I was around 8 years old. I was too young to notice details in the way they were created and did not know about Clovis points vs. Folsom points back then. All I remember about them is that some were larger (spear heads) while others (arrow heads) looked tiny in comparison.

The woods on the farm were composed of old trees with very thick trunks, so probably were at least 100 years old and probably a few hundred years. My father told of cutting down one old tree and finding a hatchet in it that the tree had grown around.

That hooked me into an interest in the archeology of North America.

[calimary]

4. Fascinating stuff!

Did you inherit a few of those arrowheads?

[wnylib]

5. Unfortunately, no. I don't know what happened to them.

Last edited Thu Sep 12, 2024, 11:03 AM - Edit history (2)

My father kept them in a tool drawer as mementos from his own childhood. I suspect that, in later years, he tossed them out or gave them to someone. I only saw them one time when he pulled them out to show me.

Our family moved into a new house in a new suburban development when I was in my teens. I know that my parents tossed out or gave away a lot of things that they considered not worth taking with them.

The arrow heads and spear heads would have been of personal interest, but would not have had not any archaeological value because they had been removed from their original location. At best they would have represented the period when they were probably made, based on an evaluation of their manufacturing method and type of stone used.

[sanatanadharma]

6. Consider "... the period when they were probably made,..."

Consider "... the period when they were probably made,..." was then, like now, the most modern of times.
Everyone, everywhere, always, lives in the most modern of times.

The problems we have in this 'most modern' are not that our knowledge or morality is too little.
It is that our 'desires' are too many.