For nearly four decades, Dr. James Adovasio and legions of archaeology students have methodically unearthed a mother lode of ancient human artifacts, plant and animal remains at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter that have overturned assumptions about how long humans have lived in the Western Hemisphere.
Because of the excavations done at the Jefferson Township historic site, Adovasio was able to show that the rockshelter represented the oldest dated and longest continual human use of a particular site in North America. Radiocarbon dates human presence there as far back as 16,000 B.C., before the end of the last Ice Age.
"Sixteen thousand years ago was the first time any humans were in the area," Adovasio said as he spoke to a group of 40 people standing on a platform just outside the shelter.
He said the shelter served as "a way station" prior to 1,500 B.C. for roaming hunters and gatherers, and afterwards was continually visited by native people who lived in nearby settlements.
On Saturday, during a special "Insider's Tour" of the rockshelter, Adovasio, director of Mercyhurst College's Archaeological Institute, also debunked long-standing depictions of an ancient male-dominated culture that apparently did nothing but hunt big game.
By the late 1800s, it was established that the first visitors to the continent had left Asia and walked across the Bering Strait into what is now Alaska. As archaeology became a scientific pursuit and more discoveries of ancient habitats were uncovered, Adovasio said, people continually pushed back the date for when the first humans made it to North America - first assuming they arrived about 2,000 years before Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. Later, as the sciences of archaeology and geology progressed, it was determined that the first humans were present in North America at least 10,000 years ago, just as the last Ice Age was ending.
While scientists were getting closer to the truth regarding timelines, Adovasio noted that their depictions of men in loincloths hunting giant bears, mammoths and elephants - he showed colorful artists' renderings of the scenes taken from early National Geographic magazines and old archaeological texts - were more fantasy than reality.
He noted that tailored clothing made by women - with individual sleeves and pant legs, as well as the use of buttons, would have been necessary for people to make the trek from Asia across the icy straits into North America. He added that it was more likely that hunting parties included men, women and children each contributing in some way to the endeavor and that excavations here and in Europe shows that the majority of the game they hunted was more in the realm of deer and rabbits.
While the Meadowcroft excavations, which are now two-thirds complete, have yielded ancient deer bones found in fire pits, hickory nuts and walnuts have also been unearthed, leading Adovasio and others to surmise that the ancient people here ate a far more varied, "broad-spectrum" diet that in addition to roasted meat also included nuts, berries and vegetables.
Despite its landmark status in showing that ancient man was in North America far earlier than previously believed, Meadowcroft's beginnings were relatively inauspicious.
One day in 1955, Albert Miller decided to dig out a groundhog hole atop the shelter, which was part of his grandfather's farm. He unearthed a variety of arrowheads and other prehistoric tools. While Miller knew he had something of archaeological value, he kept his discovery a secret as he sought help from archaeologists to further study the site.
Adovasio, who was working as an archaeologist with the University of Pittsburgh in Cyprus in the early 1970s, sent word back to the U.S. that he wanted to explore prehistoric sites in the Pittsburgh region.
Adovasio noted that since the first digs began in 1973, the site has produced 956,000 animal remains and 1.4 million plant remains. He said Meadowcroft is unique among archaeological explorations because of the significant amount of funding it has received over the years from organizations like National Geographic as well as major corporations. The money, which he said would be the equivalent of more than $8 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars, has permitted painstakingly critical work over the decades with students using trowels and even single-edged razor blades to expose layer after layer of fire pits, bones and artifacts across various eras. The highly detailed work eventually proved that the site was in existence far longer than ones in Clovis, N.M., that until Meadowcroft were believed to be the oldest in North America.
Adovasio, who will begin another season of digging at Meadowcroft in a couple of weeks, said there are some things that will never be known about the people who used the rockshelter eons ago.
"We won't know who the people were or what language they spoke," he said. "It's always been a location where people came to hunt and gather foodstuff and move on to another location."
It is also unknown how the ancient people arrived here, he said, noting several possibilities, including crossing the Rocky Mountains, or moving from west to east from across the southeastern coast and then north.
When asked if any cave drawings had been detected, he said the constant erosion of the shelter's sandstone would have obliterated anything drawn or painted on the walls from the early visitors.
"The oldest graffiti in the cliffs is from the 1920s," he said.
But the digging at Meadowcroft will go on for a long, long time, said David Scofield, director of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village, who assisted Adovasio on Saturday's tour.
"The excavation will never be done in our lifetime," he said.
Author: Michael Bradwell | Source: Observer-Reporter [June 26, 2011]
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| Meadowcroft Rockshelter archaeological site has revealed the earliest evidence of people in North America, dating back 16,000 years [Credit: Heinz History Center] |
"Sixteen thousand years ago was the first time any humans were in the area," Adovasio said as he spoke to a group of 40 people standing on a platform just outside the shelter.
He said the shelter served as "a way station" prior to 1,500 B.C. for roaming hunters and gatherers, and afterwards was continually visited by native people who lived in nearby settlements.
On Saturday, during a special "Insider's Tour" of the rockshelter, Adovasio, director of Mercyhurst College's Archaeological Institute, also debunked long-standing depictions of an ancient male-dominated culture that apparently did nothing but hunt big game.
By the late 1800s, it was established that the first visitors to the continent had left Asia and walked across the Bering Strait into what is now Alaska. As archaeology became a scientific pursuit and more discoveries of ancient habitats were uncovered, Adovasio said, people continually pushed back the date for when the first humans made it to North America - first assuming they arrived about 2,000 years before Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. Later, as the sciences of archaeology and geology progressed, it was determined that the first humans were present in North America at least 10,000 years ago, just as the last Ice Age was ending.
While scientists were getting closer to the truth regarding timelines, Adovasio noted that their depictions of men in loincloths hunting giant bears, mammoths and elephants - he showed colorful artists' renderings of the scenes taken from early National Geographic magazines and old archaeological texts - were more fantasy than reality.
He noted that tailored clothing made by women - with individual sleeves and pant legs, as well as the use of buttons, would have been necessary for people to make the trek from Asia across the icy straits into North America. He added that it was more likely that hunting parties included men, women and children each contributing in some way to the endeavor and that excavations here and in Europe shows that the majority of the game they hunted was more in the realm of deer and rabbits.
While the Meadowcroft excavations, which are now two-thirds complete, have yielded ancient deer bones found in fire pits, hickory nuts and walnuts have also been unearthed, leading Adovasio and others to surmise that the ancient people here ate a far more varied, "broad-spectrum" diet that in addition to roasted meat also included nuts, berries and vegetables.
Despite its landmark status in showing that ancient man was in North America far earlier than previously believed, Meadowcroft's beginnings were relatively inauspicious.
One day in 1955, Albert Miller decided to dig out a groundhog hole atop the shelter, which was part of his grandfather's farm. He unearthed a variety of arrowheads and other prehistoric tools. While Miller knew he had something of archaeological value, he kept his discovery a secret as he sought help from archaeologists to further study the site.
Adovasio, who was working as an archaeologist with the University of Pittsburgh in Cyprus in the early 1970s, sent word back to the U.S. that he wanted to explore prehistoric sites in the Pittsburgh region.
Adovasio noted that since the first digs began in 1973, the site has produced 956,000 animal remains and 1.4 million plant remains. He said Meadowcroft is unique among archaeological explorations because of the significant amount of funding it has received over the years from organizations like National Geographic as well as major corporations. The money, which he said would be the equivalent of more than $8 million in today's inflation-adjusted dollars, has permitted painstakingly critical work over the decades with students using trowels and even single-edged razor blades to expose layer after layer of fire pits, bones and artifacts across various eras. The highly detailed work eventually proved that the site was in existence far longer than ones in Clovis, N.M., that until Meadowcroft were believed to be the oldest in North America.
Adovasio, who will begin another season of digging at Meadowcroft in a couple of weeks, said there are some things that will never be known about the people who used the rockshelter eons ago.
"We won't know who the people were or what language they spoke," he said. "It's always been a location where people came to hunt and gather foodstuff and move on to another location."
It is also unknown how the ancient people arrived here, he said, noting several possibilities, including crossing the Rocky Mountains, or moving from west to east from across the southeastern coast and then north.
When asked if any cave drawings had been detected, he said the constant erosion of the shelter's sandstone would have obliterated anything drawn or painted on the walls from the early visitors.
"The oldest graffiti in the cliffs is from the 1920s," he said.
But the digging at Meadowcroft will go on for a long, long time, said David Scofield, director of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village, who assisted Adovasio on Saturday's tour.
"The excavation will never be done in our lifetime," he said.
Author: Michael Bradwell | Source: Observer-Reporter [June 26, 2011]