Posted on 03/21/2015 2:29:48 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The find includes thousands of stone flakes, an array of bifaces, scrapers, and hammerstones, plus several projectile points, some of which were fashioned in a style that experts describe as “completely new” for this region and period in its history...
And in the layer with the artifacts were burned bits of willow, poplar, and pine, which were themselves dated between 10,000 and 12,500 years ago...
While other sites in Washington’s lowlands have produced animal remains from the end of the last Ice Age, this is the first discovery of stone tools that date back more than 10,000 years, according to Dr. Robert Kopperl, lead researcher of the find.
“It’s the oldest artifact assemblage from western Washington, and the excellent context in which we were able to do our excavations and sampling is now providing a picture, much clearer than ever before, of the environment these people were living in during the transition out of the Ice Age,” he said...
Initial work turned up some stone artifacts above the layer of peat— a remnant of a time when the area was inundated with wetlands and lakes — which seemed to resemble a peat layer nearby that was about 3,500 years old.
But radiocarbon results showed that the newly found peat was between 8,000 and 10,000 years old.
“That in itself was interesting,” Kopperl said, “and then when we did our 2009 test excavations, all of the artifacts we found were below that peat instead of above the peat, indicating that they pre-dated 10,000 years before the present.”
(Excerpt) Read more at westerndigs.org ...
Lots of old tools in Seattle.
A recent find at a existing site, that continues to be unearthed, in the Mojave desert goes back approximately 12,000 years.
I was wondering if it was an early Costco warehouse.
Well, after close examination, I would have to say that these were definitely made by people from Washington......D.C..
They are the only people who would make a “projectile point” with no point.
“Stab him with that round rock, Paul! That will get him! Then we can cut him up with my knife made out of grass.”
La Brea woman was thrown into the tar pits there some 9,000 years ago. It’s thought by some that she might have had a dental abscess and was possessed of evil spirits by her contemporaries.
They just had to get out of the city.
If it's not a broken point, it may be a scraper to smooth down spears or arrow shafts; the curve at he bottom appears to be flaked for sharpening.
No big deal. We have a 70-year-old Neanderthal tool in Blair House.
Thanks Dusty Road.
Interesting
Thanks bait4719.
I wonder where all the billions of “join AOL” floppies and CDs wound up?
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