Stone-age mystery resurfaces in Minnesota

[GL]

EYOTA, Minn. � In the late 1930s, Adolph Schumann was plowing a corn field on his family’s Olmsted County farm when he hit a rock.

Riding on the moldboard plow behind his team of horses, the teenager was close enough to the soil to see what he had unearthed. It looked like an arrowhead. And there were more.
Adolph came back with his younger brother, Alfred, and they filled a gunny sack.

It was a cache of stone tools left behind 12,000 years earlier by the land’s first inhabitants, one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the region.

The boys would be old men before anyone knew the significance of their find.

Around 10,000 B.C., at the end of the last ice age, North America’s first settlers made their way from Siberia across the Bering Strait. Within a few hundred years, they had covered most of the continent.

Wooly mammoths, long-horned bison and 400-pound beavers roamed the tundra landscape left behind by retreating glaciers.

Little is known about those people, but archaeologists believe they were nomadic hunter-gatherers, moving in groups of 25 or so, using spear points, knives and other tools flaked from hard “sugar quartz” sand stone found in only a few places in this area. One such outcrop was near Black River Falls.

There, archaeologists discovered, people chipped out rough tool blanks that could later be shaped for specific uses. They carried these stone forms on their hunting forays and buried caches they could return to as they needed to retool.

On a knoll above the creek that would eventually be called the Middle Fork of the Whitewater River, a band of hunters stashed about 20 pounds of stone tools � tools they had carried nearly 100 miles through rugged bluff country, across a raging Mississippi River that was still carving out its valley as it drained vast glacial lakes.

They never returned to claim them.

Over the years, the Schumann boys found more artifacts in their field, and added them to the sack.

Adolph went off to war, Al to college. When they came home, Al worked the home farm, and Adolph bought one down the road.

Neither gave much thought to the pile of rocks until one day in the mid 1960s, when Al read a newspaper story in which an expert said there were no Indian artifacts found in Olmsted County.

“I called him up and said, �Hell, I’ve got a gunny sack full.’”

Schumann brought the sack to the Olmsted County Historical Society, where the artifacts were cataloged and added to the collection.

They sat on a shelf for more than 40 years before anyone noticed.

In 2007, a University of Wisconsin-Milwakuee graduate student named Andy Bloedorn landed a summer internship at the historical society. His job was to inventory the collection.

On his second week, Bloedorn came across a cardboard box. On the side, in magic marker, was written “sugar quartz specimens.”

“I knew that sugar quartz was pretty important material throughout prehistory,” said the 31-year-old Winona resident. “I looked inside, and my jaw kind of dropped.”

There were 65 pieces, all from the same site.

Bloedorn, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, sent some photos to Robert “Ernie” Boszhardt, the regional archaeologist for the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at UW-L.

Boszhardt knew right away what he was seeing.

“These are 12,000 years old,” he said.

To be sure, they had the pieces analyzed by lithic experts.

Dillon Carr, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University who did his undergraduate work at UW-L, helped confirm the find. He calls it “spectacular.”

The Schumann cache is now part of the Native American collection at the History Center of Olmsted County, where it is on display. It is a time capsule, one of only about 20 from that period found in North America, and likely the oldest in this region.

“I don’t think anybody knew how significant they were,” said museum curator Karl Wolf.

As much as the Schumann cache reveals, it also raises questions.

Some of the pieces were heat-fractured, others tinted by red ochre, suggesting they were left in a ritual.

“What does that mean?” Boszhardt asks. “Why would anybody do that?”

Boszhardt hopes to get a grant so that archaeologists can properly excavate the site.

These days Adolph Schumann is 88. Al is 84, and the farm belongs to his son. But they can still point out the spot where they found the tools.

Both marvel at their connection to prehistoric people.

“A person wonders how this stone � how did that get transferred this far?” Adolph said. “How did they travel, how did they know where they were going?”

More about the stone tools

The Schumann cache of Paleo-Indian stone tools is part of the Native American collection at the History Center of Olmsted County in Rochester, Minn., where they are on display. To learn more about the prehistoric settlers of the Upper Mississippi River Valley, check out “Twelve Millennia” by UW-La Crosse professor James Theler and Robert Boszhardt of the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center.

LINK

 

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[pickaway]

Nice read,Dreams of finding a cache like that, good ole red ochre seems to have been used thruout most of the cultures...hmmmm?

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Now that it is public knowledge........

hope the archaeologist and state do not take
the farm away from the family.

all have a good un......
SHERMANVILLE

 

[seger98]

Now that it is public knowledge........

hope the archaeologist and state do not take
the farm away from the family.

all have a good un......
SHERMANVILLE

Can they really do that? Nice article

 

[SoIll]

who said they were clovis?

 

[pickaway]

Yeah i googled it and saw a pic or two definatley preforms id guess.
I'd fire the gooduns in the case and sell the rest.

 

[sniffer]

that has got to be one of the best finds I've heard of in a long time, a real look back in time

 

[GL]

Here it is.

 

[GL]

I see couple in there I'd like to have in a case.
Most just look like flakes and chunks to me.

 

[pronghorn]

who said they were clovis?

what other culture was there in Minnesota 12,000 years ago other than the clovis?
Am I missing something?

 

[blug]

Why would putting preforms in a case cause digging to be banned?

 

[oldgoat]

Blug, Idon't think he meant putting them in a case, I think he meant selling the rest...
A sizable contingent of history buffs and just plain politically correct don't like the sale of history...

 

[USMC1986]

Sweet...this find is only 10 miles from where I live. I'll have to go to the Historical Society to check 'em out.

Semper Fi
Dan

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

" I think academia needs to make room for the interested amateurs. "

i agree. the most notable cooperation i know of is the dig up at greasy grass.

here is a link to one such survey.

http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/geophysicalsurvey.htm

 

[SoIll]

Sweet...this find is only 10 miles from where I live. I'll have to go to the Historical Society to check 'em out.

Semper Fi
Dan

So tell me, were those the only artifacts in Olmsted Co.?

 

[Sidevalve45]

Hello,
The sight referred to near Black River Falls is called Silver Mound. I live about 15 miles from there and own land within sight of the mound. Every fall an artifact show is held there and you can take a tour of the quarry pits and rock shelters. It's an interesting place to visit. It's very common to see people walking the fields in the surrounding area. Nearly every piece I have found is made of sugar quartz also known as Hixton silicified sandstone.

Thanks for the info.
Sidevalve

 

[blug]

Blug, Idon't think he meant putting them in a case, I think he meant selling the rest...
A sizable contingent of history buffs and just plain politically correct don't like the sale of history...

This is an interesting case study. As far as being "politically correct", I do not even feel I need to answer that one.

I am a pragmatic man, I am only interested in relevant solutions to problems. I am not interested in dipping my ideals into watery soup.

This grouping provides an interesting case study in that the materials presented represent at face value nothing more than a group of cores and early stage bifaces. The twist is that they have been identified as belonging to a little understood group of people whom lived a very long time ago and conceivably were partially responsible for the colonization of the New World. A cache of materials such as this one, if studied properly, can reveal much information important to understanding this.

Any person can go out and collect flakes, cores, and bifaces...... much of which is essentially prehistoric garbage. These exist on just about every prehistoric site in the world.

This group is special though, it is a Clovis people cache, it is part of a rare grouping of caches that have been found from time to time across the country. This group will provide information on mobility issues, trade networks, lithic technology, and other things.

I am sure many of you have seen the various states take a run at restricting or abolishing the recovery of antiquities, lately including Oregon, Texas, Alabama, and Florida. There are probably others. I do not foresee this trend abating in the future.

Why would they suddenly want to outlaw recovery of antiquities by non-professionals?

Because people whom spend every spare moment of their lives digging up prehistoric sites which can never be replaced, instead of policing themselves, and holding themselves to a high standard of ethics, stewardship, and knowledge of the subject matter, would choose to collect, separate, and sell a rare and important Clovis people cache, instead of recognizing a rare opportunity to contribute and participate.

And so, what we have now, is a person on a forum complaining about "hippies" and "archies", and telling everyone whom disagrees to go "hug a tree", all as a guise for greed. These materiels are worth much more scientifically if considered within a context, and intact as a grouping. To hear anybody say, especially people whom claim to love history, anything else is astonishing.

I have said before that I think academia needs to make room for the interested amateurs. I believe much of the current "Cultural Resource Management" going on could be privatized, and handled more effectively by avocational archaeologists.

The problem with that idea is this drivel that some of you have posted into the public domain. How is a person to sell to an academic establishment that these ideas could work, when this thread alone exhibits such selfish and greedy thinking?

Look around you, and then do it again pragmatically. Realize that some of you just declared yourselves students of history, and then said you would actually destroy an intact collection of early lithic technology by turning it into a group of individual broken flakes, cores, and bifaces for sale for next to nothing.

It is pitiful really. It makes me sad to see so many missing out on so much. There may be opportunity for the astute.

The knowledge of this stuff goes far beyond a piece of stone exhibiting bifacial and symmetrical flaking. Do not puff your cheeks and stamp your feet at me. Just think about what you will do for money.

I asked a stupid question and look what happens! A tirade happened. Not what I expected when I joined this board to learn. I maybe active in the MD section,but will not post my Ohio artifacts finds here. Read the last 2 sentences in the above quote.I apologize for asking a stupid question.

 

[11KBP]

"The problem with that idea is this drivel that some of you have posted into the public domain. How is a person to sell to an academic establishment that these ideas could work, when this thread alone exhibits such selfish and greedy thinking?

Look around you, and then do it again pragmatically. Realize that some of you just declared yourselves students of history, and then said you would actually destroy an intact collection of early lithic technology by turning it into a group of individual broken flakes, cores, and bifaces for sale for next to nothing.

It is pitiful really. It makes me sad to see so many missing out on so much. There may be opportunity for the astute.

The knowledge of this stuff goes far beyond a piece of stone exhibiting bifacial and symmetrical flaking. Do not puff your cheeks and stamp your feet at me. Just think about what you will do for money."




plehbah,

I certainly agree there is a great deal of greed and selfishness involved with artifact commercialization. However I tend to believe there is a good chance the posted drivel and greed you are referring to is primarily due to lack of understanding the rarity and the amount of knowledge which can be obtained from paleo caches. There are folks on this forum that started collecting a month ago, a year ago, three years ago, etc. Many of these folks have had little exposure to the archaeological side of collecting and may unwittingly post something you feel is improper. It does not necessarily mean they are all selfish or greedy.

11KBP

 

[newnan man]

How was it determined these were paleo and not a later period? Were true Clovis points found with them or did I miss something?

 

[GL]

Still a neat find. I have yet to find anything on my property. I live on a natural flat spot halfway up a steep north facing hill from an ancient creek.

NOTHING. Not a flake, not a broken point, nada.
Maybe the 150 years of plowing and children living on it have something to do with it.