Delmarva scoop

[brandywine]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...00-years-ago/2012/02/28/gIQA4mriiR_story.html

 

[flintmel]

interesting article, thanks for sharing, will probably take years to reach a consensus, due to egos and professional speculation. Although its definitely feasible, to confirm an accurate date something other than dirt is needed

 

[Charl]

Thanks for posting. Quite a few articles out in conjunction with the publication of Stanford and Bradley's new study "Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture." This particular article at least avoided being overly sensationalistic and actually provided the views of the opponents to the Solutrean hypothesis. I highly recommend reading the book. Published in January and available for under $23 at Amazon. One item, added by Stanford just before the book went to press, is the X-ray fluorescence probe of a Solutrean style laurel leaf blade, discovered in 1971 beneath a clay chimney at a 17th century homestead at Eppes Island, Virginia, an upland terrace at the confluence of the James and AAppomattox Rivers. The probe test was done by Jeff Speakman of the Smithsonian last year and the conclusion was that it was made of Grand Pressigny flint from France. Some in the European press are having a field day with this discovery, yet Stanford rightly cautions that, although the blade, which was found broken in 2 pieces, is a Solutrean laurel leaf blade, the context of its' discovery does not make it a smoking gun for the Solutrean hypothesis since it could have been transported here by the 17th century colonist himself. Controversial theory, but the most exciting of times in the study of the peopling of the Americas.

 

[brandywine]

Good God!
Just to imagine the thought of the possibility of that is so cool. If I understand that correctly. Stone from France...made into a tool and found in Virginia? Awesome and again...cool as hell!

 

[Charl]

Good God!
Just to imagine the thought of the possibility of that is so cool. If I understand that correctly. Stone from France...made into a tool and found in Virginia? Awesome and again...cool as hell!

Brandywine, yes it is exciting. Stanford is only willing to call it "intriguing evidence". The Solutrean blade and "other artifacts" which he does not describe, were found benealth the base of the homesteads' chimney.
Stanford does make it clear he thinks it's unlikely the blade was put there by the colonist, but unless it can be ruled out he can't call it "smoking gun" evidence for the Solutrean-origins-of-Clovis theory. The Cinmar Blade, found associated with a mastadon in 75 meters of water 60 miles off Virginia is also very exciting since the mastadon dated about 22,000 years ago, and even when Clovis people reached Delmarva the site was well out to sea and under water. "Across Atlantic Ice" will provide you with much more detail and evidence then the news articles being written in conjunction with the book's publication. But, yeah, you understand it correctly, a Solutrean style blade made of French flint was found in a professional excavation in Virginia in 1971.

 

[ammo_u]

Reading the comments section shows you exactly why new theories are fought like a virus. Cant really see why its so hard to believe more than one group of people made it here over the last 50K (pre 1400). I have NA blood (father is 1/4) and I dont find it offensive or hard to believe. When I was in the USAF I had friends from the East Coast who had artifacts which would make your head shake at anyone who thinks only land bridgers from Asia made it here. Discounting the intellegence of ancient man shuts you off from reality.

 

[joshuaream]

Cinmar is interesting, but scallop trawlers drag their basket for miles. I'd guarantee they found glass bottles and metal in the same load, and probably have turned up sharks teeth millions of years old. I used to buy fossils that North Sea trawlers brought back, you could find stuff that ranged from 10 years old to millions of years old in the same basket.

It's impossible to assign any context to the Cinmar blade, it looks more Maritime Archaic to me.

I comfortable with the idea that a group of Solutreans could have made it over, but some of the evidence is at best sensationalism and at worst, poor science.

 

[Charl]

Good point, Joshua, but the trawler captain did pinpoint on his chart where the blade and bones were dredged up from. He did so specifically because he thought it was an unusual assemblage. Also, there is no doubt the Maritime Archaic peoples were deep sea hunters. That much is demonstrated by the presence of swordfish remains at their campsites. As a cultural manifestation, however, the Maritime Archaic existed in the Maritime provinces and islands of far northeast Canada, and a bit into the coast of Maine. Do we have any evidence that they fished, or had any need to fish, as far south of their culture area as Virginia? But, in any event, I'm not disagreeing with the fact there is not sufficient context for the Cinmar blade. Yet, we might also bear in mind that X-ray studies of the Cinmar blade identified the material as banded meta-rhyolite from South Mountain, on the Pa-Md. border, a long, long way from the Maritime Archaic culture area, but not a long, long way from where it was dredged up, comparitively speaking. Given the rich abundance of maritime resources in the northwest Atlantic, esp. sea mammals and deep sea fish, it would seem odd that the Maritime Archaic culture zone of the northwest Atlantic would need to fish as far south as Virginia. Could have ended up there by accident, but we should still expect the lithics on board to originate from their culture area.

 

[Charl]

Just a few more thoughts on the Maritime Archaic and the Cinmar blade. A distinctive class of artifacts associated with the Maritime Archaic is ground slate implements, such as ground slate projectiles, spears, bayonets, etc. Such ground slate weapons have been found in every New England state, New York, and perhaps further south. But they've always been seen as trade goods originating from the Maritime Archaic culture area, or as an idea borrowed from that culture area. As a full blown cultural manifestation, the Maritime Archaic never extended any further south then the north coast of Maine. If the Cinmar blade originated from a Maritime Archaic deep sea hunting expedition, it would seem far more likely that any chipped stone implements used by such an expedition would be made of the lithic that, by far and away, predominates among that culture, namely the famous Ramah Chert from the far north coast of Labrador.
As a full blown cultural manifestation, the Maritime Archaic never existed in the Pa.-Md. border area, where the material of the Cinmar blade originated. Trade is possible, but if such an expedition from the far north found it necessary to put ashore in the Chesapeake Bay area to procure raw lithics, it would be a poorly planned expedition to say the least. Whatever the origin of the Cinmar blade, I don't believe it's a Maritime Archaic blade.

 

[joshuaream]

I managed our business in New Brunswick for a couple of years, and I got to see several collections of Maritime Archaic pieces. They are famous for ground slate tools and bone harpoons, but their tool kit included bifacial tools as well as core & blade technology.

My point with the Cinmar blade is that scallop trawlers skim the bottom for a mile or so and pull up their baskets. The fossil and point could have been found together or they could have been found a mile apart. And that's assuming the Captain could pick that particular load out of any of the other 10 loads he might have taken that day, or the hundreds of the loads he took that month. Trawlers bring up loads, dump them and steam on while a two or three man crew cleans the load. If they they get a lot of scallops or some cod, it might take them more than 20 minutes to clean which means another load could be dumped on top. Also even if they were found touching each other, there were rivers draining the ancient continental shelf, and like finds today in Florida, you can find an ancient fossil that has eroded out and is in the same crevice as a beer bottle and a solidly archaic point. Context in water is difficult to ascertain unless you are pulling them from the right kind of sediment. Since the scallop trawler skips along the surface, they weren't locked in sediment.

I acknowledge that this is probably too far south for Maritime Archaic, although identical gouges and slate tools are found in New England and New York which isn't too far from Maryland. But to say it's too far for them so it must be a group from Spain doesn't make much sense to me (especially since we know the Maritime Archaic hunted open ocean water in the area and we don't know if the Solutrean used boats.)

All of this ignores the simple fact that the blade only shares an basic outline with some Solutrean tools. It doesn't look particularly thin to me, I see a broad flat spot that could be surface from the original spall or it could be an outrepasse flake. If that piece was found in Spain or France, I don't think Archaeologists there would call it Solutrean. The material is from a resource that would have been significantly far inland in Solutrean times (and they were supposedly a sea going people.) There aren't a lot of Clovis points made from this material, so how does an early expedition type group located a remote lithic resource so far inland? I

Personally, I think several different groups made it here. I don't even disagree that the Solutrean could have made it here. I just think they are cherry-picking information that looks like what they want to find.

 

[Charl]

Joshua, according to the information in Across Atlantic Ice, the captain of the Cinmar, Thurston Shawn, indicated the Cinmar "dredged all these specimens at the same time". I defer to your knowledge of such trawling, I have no knowledge of trawling operations whatsoever. The authors go on to state: "From Shawn's bathometric information it is clear the remains came from the LGM(Last Glacial Maximum) shore of the James Peninsula, adjacent to the South Lagoon of the ice age Chesapeake Bay".(p. 100, Across Atlantic Ice). Further, and just to provide more info on the blade: "The laurel leaf is 188mm long, 55 wide, and 6 in maximum thickness. It exhibits well-controlled percussion-thinning flaking on both faces. Use-wear studies demonstrate that it was a hafted knife, and non-invasive retouch along its distal margins resulted from resharpened dulled edges. The use-wear traces are consistent with those found on prehistoric knives recovered from mammoth and mastodon butchering sites, as well as those seen on stone knives used during butchering experiments conducted on modern elephants......Although there is NO DEFINITIVE PROOF(my caps-Charl) that the knife and the mastodon are part of the same archaeological assemblage, we contend that the clues from context in which they were deposited and the relatively undamaged condition of the knife overwhelmingly support their association. The edges of the blade are sharp, and there are micro-traces of knife use-wear on the distal surfaces and haft wear on the proximal end. The survival of these use-wear micro-traces indicates that the artifact remained in its primary context until disturbed by the dredge. Thus it was not tumbled, abraded, polished, or damaged by fluvial transport, wave action, or water transport of any kind until brought on board the Cinmar"(pp. 101-102, Across Atlantic Ice). None of this addresses the points you raised regarding the nature of dredging operation, of course!

Now, MY main point was not to support the Solutrean hypothesis but to suggest I felt it unlikely the piece was Maritime Archaic. So I do need to emphasise the following: At no time did I ever suggest, nor would I ever suggest, that because it's too far from the Maritime Archaic culture zone, then therefore it must have originated with a group from Spain!! I have a logical mind, and such an assertion is so illogical I recoil from the idea I would ever say something so foolish. My mind does not work that way!

I also want to say that I am no Solutrean hypothesis apologist. If people want to know more about the theory, they can read the book for themselves and judge for themselves. And they can also put to the test the thoughts of those scholars who are very much in opposition to the Solutrean hypothesis. Here is what I believe remains the best available on-line rebuttal of the Solutrean hypothesis:

http://projectpast.org/gvogel/Resources/z_straus_dwd.pdf

I don't know if Stanford and Bradley are practicing good science or bad science. My personal opinion on good science/bad science in general: looking for evidence that supports one's theories is not bad science. Bad science is ignoring evidence that undermines one's theories.

In any event, my main point involved the Maritime Archaic association. The Cinmar blade occupies all of 4 pages in the book. And the cover illustration of course. For all I really know, it could be a late archaic blade from a fishing expedition based in the Delmarva area.

Clarifying further, I also never said the Delmarva area was too far south for the capabilities of the Maritime Archaic. I simply asked if we had evidence they fished/hunted that far south? And I wondered aloud why they would do so if their resource adaptation was in their own area of the northwest Atlantic, and there were resources aplenty there to meet their needs. If they could journey a day out from Canada, I imagine they could journey a week out, and for all I really know, maybe they could circumnavigate the globe if they were a mind too. I am not questioning their abilities on the open ocean.

 

[Charl]

I just found this image of both sides of the Cinmar blade, which can be enlarged quite a bit, although the resolution could be better. Still, forum members who haven't seen it can at least get a good look. I agree that there's nothing about it that really broadcasts "Solutrean", IMHO........

http://gwynnsislandmuseum.org/biface.jpg