tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20524196.post2693359701105119430..comments2024-02-14T11:00:03.180-05:00Comments on Tom McLaughlin: Were They The First People Here?Tom McLaughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07691546351143209227noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20524196.post-45709297057418451682014-10-02T17:50:00.554-04:002014-10-02T17:50:00.554-04:00Thanks for the response! If you have never been, y...Thanks for the response! If you have never been, you should try to visit Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. Not only is that area one of the most beautiful in our country, the natural history is fascinating. Alexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20524196.post-71778637669929310242014-10-02T09:39:26.596-04:002014-10-02T09:39:26.596-04:00The Gods Must Be Crazy
Seasonal migration followin...The Gods Must Be Crazy<br />Seasonal migration following "the herds", the weather, or maybe the "growing" seasons. Trade (pre AND post knapping)with folks happy(ish) with an adjacent "zone's" bounty. And of course great scowering and bulldozing glacial moraines and eskers.<br />I can easily see stone traditionally found "in the ground" from waaaaay up north and west, (if one is to look at the lakes in western Maine)ending up in say...Portsmouth. Where the whole "anthro.." bit came into play can only be a matter of contextual conjuncture I would imagine.<br />Nice hobby, but could I recycle the Intervale Stone as a weapon to stop extension of the North- South road? (which I propose be renamed "B Avenue"!)<br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20524196.post-68454189346627472292014-10-02T08:16:58.247-04:002014-10-02T08:16:58.247-04:00We should always qualify statements about these th...We should always qualify statements about these things and I try to. We say there is only one "known" source, or they are the "earliest-known" people to have inhabit the area, etc. There could be more discoveries at any time.<br /><br />I've asked Mike Gramly - the archaeologist who supervised the excavation of the Vail site - a similar question. He is confident the Paleo-Americans knew more about these sources than we do. He was director of the Maine State Museum for a while in the seventies or eighties. He said they roamed the region on foot, and could see more exposed bedrock than we can now with the forested landscape and resulting duff covering the ground. He said they were always alert for sources of workable, or "knappable" stone.<br /><br />Gramly finds lots of clear, crystal quartz pieces in his excavations. So do I in my meanderings around the tilled fields of north Fryeburg along the old river. It can be found on many hilltops around here, but Gramly is convinced there's one particular source somewhere in this region from which the Paleo-Americans drew theirs. It's a very difficult stone to knap, but it's the hardest and keeps its edge longest. They liked colorful stone and seem to have been drawn to the quartz for its beauty the way we're drawn to diamonds. They seem to have had a strong aesthetic sense.<br /><br />Regarding the Ramah Chert I mentioned, Dennis Stanford at the Smithsonian told me there's a similar stone in northern Quebec somewhere and positive identification can only be made by some kind of spectrometer. I showed one of my pieces to Arthur Speiss, Maine's senior archaeologist, and asked him what it was made of, and he said: "Ramah." He's been up there to Ramah Bay to see the source for himself. So has Gramly.Tom McLaughlinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07691546351143209227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20524196.post-11079695268616916422014-10-01T14:41:59.674-04:002014-10-01T14:41:59.674-04:00Interesting post, Mr. McLaughlin. Quick question: ...Interesting post, Mr. McLaughlin. Quick question: do you know if archaeologists/anthropologists have some sort of confidence measure for the sourcing of the different types of stone you mentioned? For example, you mention that one type of stone source has only been found up in Canada. But I could envision some big piece of land in Maine that has never been surveyed geologically also containing that stone. Alexnoreply@blogger.com