Posted on 11/07/2006 1:28:01 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
Mashantuckets, Ballard To Explore Ancient Coastline
They are questions that have intrigued scientists, archaeologists and historians for centuries: When did Native Americans first arrive on the North American continent, and where did they settle?
Now, Robert Ballard, president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium, and Kevin McBride, research director of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, and other researchers hope to answer that question.
On Wednesday, Ballard, McBride and Dwight Coleman, the IFE's research director, outlined plans for a multiyear expedition to chart the location of ancient coastlines now underwater, identify sites of Native American settlements and find artifacts to prove they were there and date their arrival.
“The most important questions about early American habitation can only be addressed underwater,” said McBride, adding that the underwater vehicles and exploration technology developed by Ballard are finally making such research possible.
The work can only be done underwater because 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, ice covered much of North America. In Connecticut, it stretched all the way to the coast. Water levels were much lower, and the coastline of what is now Connecticut was 100 miles south of where it is today. In between was land that was flooded when the ice melted, and ocean levels began to rise.
Native Americans are known to have lived on high ground near rivers along the ocean because of access to a variety of food. Ballard and his team will look for those geographic features, which are now underwater. One clue will be huge piles of discarded clamshells and other items that formed ancient garbage dumps. The researchers hope tools, arrowheads and other items will be found nearby.
McBride said the original theory was that people arrived in North America from Asia by walking across the Bering Strait 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. He said recent finds show the real story is more complex and older than that.
“And the story probably involves coastal areas that are now underwater,” he said.
The team's work is scheduled to begin in March in the Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuary, located 100 miles south of the Texas-Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. There they hope to find evidence of Native American habitation near underwater salt domes, which they theorize the Indians may have used to preserve food. Ballard said he dreams of finding actual ancient salt mines.
The team will use two underwater vehicles developed by Ballard along with the Navy's NR-1 nuclear research submarine and its support ship, the Carolyn Chouest, both based at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton
“There's a lot of potential here, but our goal is modest at first. If we find a single tool from the Flower Gardens, we'll be really happy,” McBride said.
In 2008, the work will shift to an area around Block Island, which was a mountain in ancient times and where Ballard and McBride have done previous studies, and then progress to other areas off the East Coast.
All of the expeditions will be broadcast live via satellite and Internet 2 technology from the research vessels not only to the aquarium, but to colleges, 20 museums and 60 Boys' and Girls' Clubs across the country. Ballard hopes that these upcoming expeditions as well as others he has broadcast in recent years capture the imagination of students and interest them in becoming the nation's next generation of scientists and engineers.
“We're not just going to reach local kids but tens of thousands of them across the country,” he said.
Among Ballard's other partners in the expedition are the University of Connecticut, which is providing its research vessel, the Connecticut, docked at the Avery Point campus, and the University of Rhode Island, which is providing a research vessel and building a new ocean exploration center to monitor the expeditions. Ballard has also established the country's first graduate program in archaeological oceanography there.
Ballard said it was two of his students at URI, one of whom is Corey Gillette of Old Lyme, who spurred him to put together the expedition because of their interest in early Native American habitation.
This expedition is the culmination of an idea Ballard had when he decided in 1994 to relocate his headquarters to the aquarium. Ballard said then that he envisioned a time when technology would allow him to not only broadcast his expeditions live but let him go on them from the comfort of his living room.
Ballard and McBride will monitor and direct the March expedition from a command center at the aquarium.
“It's going to be interesting. This will be the first time in 40 years that I haven't actually been on the ship. Bring the beer and pizza over, and we'll watch together,” he joked earlier this week.
Ballard and McBride will talk with Coleman as video images are beamed back to the surface from the submarine and remote vehicles 24 hours a day, and also will talk to students watching the work at other locations
Once the group proves its method of locating settlements, Ballard said it can be used around the world to find evidence of early human habitation.
For the 64-year-old Ballard, who has located the sunken wrecks of the Titanic, PT-109 and ancient Phoenician ships, this expedition is another chance to expand his legacy.
“I'm not sure what it's going to be, but we're going to find something,” he said.
j.wojtas@theday.com
This is where archaeologists need to look for most future discoveries.
Yes, it is more expensive. The geologic records clearly indicate that underwater research is necessary though.
Please review the descriptions that follow your Topic(s). If you cannot find one that fits, then consider posting under General/Chat.
pingski
But first, demand that the east coast tribes turn over for inspection all of the "anomaly's" that have been found off the coast by treasure hunters in the last 100 years.
These items have been "repatriated" to eastern tribes and hidden away from view because they don't fit with the "conventional wisdom" and in some cases prove the "first peoples" claims to be downright false. (at least one case of a number of spear and knife points found that were of a higher quality than anything found on land, and may date back 8000 years do to the depth, and depth of sediment in which they were found)
One place to look for sure is the submerged forest off the coast of Nantucket, and a couple similar locations off the coasts of the Florida/Georgia border.
Chippewa (and Ottawa and Potawotomie - all three of the Three Fires People) oral history tells of living by the sea when terrible floods destroyed the rice marshes and drove the people inland. They had a sign from Gitchee Manitou that their wanderings would end and they would have their new home when they found the new great marshes of rice, which are, of course, the lakes and bogs around the Great Lakes, where they settled.
Their Algonquian cousins still in the East, the Narragansetts and Pequots, have the same story of the flood, which broke the freshwater lake and made it a bay of the sea (Long Island Sound was once a lake).
These are not really myths. They are called legends, but what they really are is oral history. And they are probably at least as accurate as the Torah of the Old Testament, which was also oral history for 1000 years or so until it was written down.
This is a move to bring on underwater casinos.
The traces of cocaine and nicotine found in Egyptian tombs shows clearly to me that the current accepted assumptions are false. Major population centers are to this day still located near major waterways and/or the ocean. Humans have always been sea faring. The traces of much of the past are underwater.
LOL!
GGG ping.
What are euphemistically called "native Americans" probably arrived in several different waves, and from different directions, than just across the one-time land bridge that stretched across the Bering Sea from northern Asia.
There is reason to believe that the Brazilian rain-forest natives are descendents of ocean-crossing ancestors of Hawaiians and New Zealand tribes, Melanesians, who were probably among the bravest of early explorers. The Vikings of Lief Ericson were probably not the first people who crossed from the continent of Europe to the eastern part of North America, just the ones for whom there is any recollection of having done so.
Mankind probably made a number of visits to North and South America even longer than 90 to 100 centuries ago, but for various reasons, the earlier colonizations did not take effect.
Or maybe they were relocated here as part of a breeding and stocking program by extraterrestrials, who shall soon be coming back to visit and check up on progress.
Maybe you did not realize you were just somebody's lab rat.
Yep
A little unintentional irony here, referring to them as Native Americans in the same sentence that posulates their arrival from somewhere else.
Interesting article nonetheless, and even more interesting comments so far.
That means that we're all African by descent!
In the final analysis we're all human by race and all else is just environmental modification. Peruvian Indians have well developed lungs for living at high altitudes. Negros are named for their skin adaptation and yellow, white and other adaptations have everyting to do with our planet's multiplicative environment!
Where do you get your data about the Torah?
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