SUBMITTED PHOTO Bob Van Buren, a Savannah River Archeological Research Program volunteer, holds an Early Archaic point that was used in a residue study.
Posted on 07/04/2014 5:45:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Blood residue on spear points and other ancient stone tools made by American Indians thousands of years ago is providing scientists based at the Savannah River Site with... interesting information that indicates what animals those early people hunted and when huge Pleistocene creatures such as mammoths and mastodons might have ceased to exist...
The tools they looked at were made anywhere from 13,000 to 500 or 600 years ago. They were found at a Carolina bay at the Savannah River Site known as Flamingo Bay, at other locations in the CSRA and in the Fort Bragg area in eastern North Carolina...
All were sent to the University of Calgary in Canada to be analyzed using a technique called crossover electrophoresis...
“It appears that when hunter-gatherers made a tool by flaking, it produced numerous microfractures in the rock,” said Moore... “Those microfractures apparently absorb blood protein or blood residue during any kind of butchery or cutting or scraping activity. The cracks in the rocks are like tiny caves that protect the residue from the elements, and it is preserved.”
...residue was discovered on about 20 percent of the tools, according to Moore...
On the oldest tools from the Paleo-Indian Period, testing revealed traces of deer, rabbit, cat and bison, which were quite common.
There was no elephant residue, which would have indicated that American Indians in the Carolinas were hunting mammoths and/or mastodons...
Testing done on the tools from the Early Archaic Period, which was from 11,500 to about 9,000 years ago, revealed residue results similar to the findings on Paleo-Indian Period tools. Traces of doglike mammals also turned up.
(Excerpt) Read more at aikenstandard.com ...
SUBMITTED PHOTO Bob Van Buren, a Savannah River Archeological Research Program volunteer, holds an Early Archaic point that was used in a residue study.
Have told my wife it often seems as if the task will never get done until I bleed a bit.
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