Margaret Jodry

A Clovis Well at the Type Site 11,500 B.C.: The Oldest Prehistoric Well in America

An enigmatic circular pit uncovered during archaeological excavations at the Clovis type site, Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, in 1964 has been reexposed and posited as a water well excavated by Clovis people around 11,500 B.C. The prehistoric well, the oldest in the New World, was probably a dry hole. Other Clovis wells may exist in the area. The excavation of wells near where there had been surface water shortly before adds to the evidence for drought during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.

New Evidence for a Possible Paleolithic Occupation of the Eastern North American Continental Shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum

Mastodon remains dated to 22,760 RCYBP were recovered with a bifacial laurel leaf knife from 250 ft below sea level on the outer continental shelf of Virginia. This chapter reports the results of our research concerning this find and an on-going survey of the extensive archaeological collections of the Smithsonian and other repositories including large private collections that are representative of the Chesapeake Bay drainage system. We located additional laurel leaf specimens recovered by watermen working on the continental shelf. The study indicates that these bifaces are not part of the post last glacial maximum (LGM) technologies and, therefore, support an LGM occupation of the continental shelf of North America.

Clovis Coastal Zone Width Variation: A Possible Solution for Early Paleoindian Population Disparity Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, USA

ABSTRACT A coastal ecological model based on coastal zone width is presented to explain human interest in the coastal plain during the Clovis-era circa 13,200 to 12,800 years ago. Isobathic depths on the continental shelf along with relative sea-level data are used to approximate the Clovis-age coastal zone widths for the Delmarva Peninsula and coastal North Carolina. Coastal plain areas with former broad coastal zones during the Clovis-era have revealed large numbers of Clovis diagnostics within the extant terrestrial settings. In contrast, regions with narrow coastal zones during the Clovis-era imply limited use of the coastal plain. Modern analogues to these types of settings denote disproportionate coastal and marine resource productivity, which may explain the disparity of Clovis sites along the extant Atlantic coastal plain areas of the eastern United States.

Predynastic human presence discovered by core drilling at the northern Nile delta coast, Egypt

A small but significant find made during a geological survey provides evidence of the oldest human presence yet discovered along the northernmost margin of Egypt9s Nile delta. A manuport, a rock fragment carried by human agency to the site, was discovered in a sediment core section north of Burullus lagoon near the Mediterranean coast. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon analysis of plant-rich matter in the mud surrounding the object provides a date calibrated to 3350–3020 B.C., the late Predynastic period. This long thin manuport, formed of dolomite, had not been deposited by the Nile or the sea but was collected and transported from an outcrop exposure positioned at least 160 km south of the core site. The fragile manuport, used for an undetermined function, lay buried at a depth of 7.4 m in dark olive gray mud deposited in a shallow brackish lagoon setting close to a marsh. This fortuitous find documents an early human presence in the middle Holocene wetlands along the delta9s paleocoast, a sector where traditional excavation and augering are normally incapable of reaching occupation levels or zones of activity at considerable subsurface depths. Core drilling provides a means to help archaeologists locate undetected and potentially important sites.