Archaeological evidence of human activity under Lake Huron

More than 100 feet deep beneath Lake Huron is a wide strip of rock that 9000 years ago was a land bridge, this is the first archaeological evidence that University of Michigan researchers discovered about human activity preserved. below the Great Lakes.

A strip of rock used for hunting under Lake Huron is about 3.5 m wide.(Photo: John O'Shea)

Researchers have identified the location of the work supposedly for reindeer hunting caribu and tents used by animal hunters during this period.

John O'Shea, curator of Great Lakes Archeology at the Museum of Anthropology and professor of Archeology, said: 'This is the first time we have recognized such a project at the bottom of the lake. Scientifically, this finding is important because the entire ancient structure is preserved and never changed due to agriculture or modern development. This finding has implications for the ecological, archaeological and environmental models'.

The article about the discovery is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Co-authors include O'Shea and Guy Meadows, director of the Hydrodynamic Laboratory and professor at the Department of Architecture and Water Engineering, and Space, Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. O'Shea and Meadows discovered the characteristics that they believed to be hunting pits, tents, reindeer lanes, and stone piles used to attract caribou reindeer to the lanes. Sliding line is a long row of stones used to guide reindeer into traps. The 1148-foot building that they believe is an interesting drive is similar to another on Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Hunting took place on the 10-mile-wide Alpena-Amberley strip and stretched over 100 miles from Point Clark, Ontario to Presque Isle, Michigan. This strip of land is a bridge between 10,000 and 7,500 years ago when the water level is much lower. Its surface is still quite intact, unlike some near-shore areas where scientists believe other archaeological works exist. These locations are covered by sediments, so buildings are thought to have been completely lost.

Scientists have hypothesized that the strip may have signs of ancient humans. But they didn't know what to look for. O'Shea and Meadows focused on reindeer hunting after considering the climate of the area at the time, probably similar to the Arctic. People who hunt animals near the Arctic often use caribu reindeer lanes.

UM researchers limited the area to search for these structures by simulating the land strip when it was on land. They worked with Robert Reynods - computer science professor at Wayne State University to recreate the ancient environment and simulate the caribou re-migration path. Based on this analysis, they selected 3 positions to study.

O'Shea and Meadows used UM's new research vessel Blue Traveler, which ships underwater solar devices with cameras to survey these locations.

Meadows said: 'The combination of these state-of-the-art tools has led to the success of research. Without these modern tools, we might not have achieved this result. '

Archaeologists will begin surveying these areas in the summer.

Understanding of the Paleo-Indian and early Archaic periods in the Great Lakes region is very limited because most archaeological vestiges are thought to have been lost beneath the lakes.

The Paleo-Indians are nomads, O'Shea said. During the Archaic period, human communities became more stable with a larger population, a more widely distributed economy.

O'Shea commented: 'There are no archaeological relics from this period, you cannot know how humans moved from point A to point B, or from Paleo-Indians to Archaic. This is why research findings are of particular importance. '

Perhaps in addition to hunting facilities, settlements are also preserved under the lake. These habitable areas may contain organic artifacts that can be damaged in drier acidic soils on land.

The research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Refer:
Evidence for early hunters beneath the Great Lakes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 8, 2009