Sunday, January 26, 2020

American Archeology - Older than you Think

So look, I have been examining man-altered rocks, here in Massachusetts, for a long time and certain things are clear to me, though I don't expect to be believable by anyone else. But like it or not, I make observations that I have to put into some kind of systematic logical framework. In the end I am developing a pretty peculiar view of American Archeology.

One example is stone tool shapes that have been worn and weathered down to something much subtler and almost invisible, unless you already know those shapes. I see things that might have gone through the glacier and come out the other side without entirely loosing their shape. Or maybe these items are weathered from a very long period of time, after the glacier left the landscape but when rivers and floods, and gravel, and boulder deposits still were changing the shape of the land, tossing things around in active rivers and shorelines, and when maybe some things were getting buried pretty deep underground - with all these things it suggests a prehistory of Massachusetts that extends back at least 20K years and, perhaps reaches back to a previous glacial period.

If Neaderthals made Mousterian tools, then I am only too happy to speculate about who could have made a Levallois blade I found - apparently from deep underground at my house in Woods Hole. Only too happy. But whether I want be happy about it or not, the item exists. So explain it to me? And indeed all those worn out, weathered, crude tools - explain them to me while you're at it. And until you do, I am going to have to imagine thick browed mariners, exploring a tundra country side and hunting mastodons out where today we go clamming.

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