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Melting ice in Yukon reveals ancient hunting artifacts
cbc.ca ^ | Jan. 13, 2004 | CBC Staff

Posted on 01/13/2004 7:57:49 PM PST by SteveH

Melting ice in Yukon reveals ancient hunting artifacts

Last Updated Tue Jan 13 12:14:37 2004

WHITEHORSE-- Archeologists working in the Yukon's melting snow fields say they've found some of the oldest evidence of human habitation in the territory.

Last year's warm summer further melted the territory's alpine snowfields, which have become a rich source of artifacts from the territory's pre-history.

Scientists say tools such as this spear shaft and point are among the oldest evidence of humans in Yukon

The sites have been the subject of worldwide attention since scientists discovered the snowfields were once favourite summer hunting grounds. In 1997, a sheep hunter found the first artifacts near caribou droppings that had melted out of the ice in an alpine meadow.

The ancient weapons, tools and equipment used by the hunters still litter the sites, perfectly preserved by the ice.

Yukon researcher Greg Hare keeps one of the last field season's most fragile treasures – an ornately sewn, small leather bag – in a small plastic tub. It was found frozen in a bed of rocks and muck, below one of the high mountain ice patches.

"To find worked leather, you know it's very rare to find something like this in Canadian archaeology," he says. "We just got the radio carbon dates back and it's 1,400 years old."

Another object, a 1,200-year-old carved wooden piece, has scientists stumped as to its purpose.

"We've never seen anything like it, don't know what it is, but we're pleased to have found it on a new ice patch," says Hare.

This year's prize is a wooden dart dated at just over 9,000 years old.

"So these are very ancient artifacts and provide an insight into what the years immediately after the ice age were like," he says. "Very quickly people and caribou had moved into the alpine and established a pattern of co-existence that existed right up until the time of the gold rush."

Eighteen similar sites have now been identified across the southern Yukon.

American scientists are exploring two more sites just discovered near Alaska's Denali Park last summer.

Written by CBC News Online staff


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: alaska; archaeology; canada; clovis; denali; economic; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; preclovis; yukon
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1 posted on 01/13/2004 7:57:50 PM PST by SteveH
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To: blam
FYI
2 posted on 01/13/2004 8:04:11 PM PST by petuniasevan (Eliminate government waste - No matter how much it costs!)
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To: SteveH
Another object, a 1,200-year-old carved wooden piece, has scientists stumped as to its purpose.

Probably the base of a tree.

3 posted on 01/13/2004 8:04:41 PM PST by explodingspleen
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To: petuniasevan
Thanks for the ping. Will we find some of Kennewick Man's ancestors?
4 posted on 01/13/2004 8:08:31 PM PST by blam
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To: explodingspleen
Or the stock of a 30.06? : )
5 posted on 01/13/2004 8:12:09 PM PST by TheFrog
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To: SteveH
Let's see ... Global Warming ... melting ice ... revealing ... previously unknown human habitation from thousands of years ago ... so ... it must have been warm back then, just like it is now .... so ... Global Warming of the Earth's climate is part of the natural fluctuation of the output of the Sun. No reason to suspect human causation.
6 posted on 01/13/2004 8:19:51 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (France delenda est)
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To: SteveH
Last year's warm summer further melted the territory's alpine snowfields, which have become a rich source of artifacts from the territory's pre-history.

Global warming is causing the warmest time in history, which is causing all-year ice in the Yukon to melt exposing places where people lived when there was no all-year ice. The logic is inescapable.

7 posted on 01/13/2004 8:19:57 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Proud member - Neoconservative Power Vortex)
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To: SteveH
This year's prize is a wooden dart dated at just over 9,000 years old

What 9,000 and a day? a week? month? less than 9001? I wonder how people date stamped things back in 7000 BC?

8 posted on 01/13/2004 8:31:17 PM PST by Theophilus (Save little liberals - Stop Abortion!!!)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Quit being so logical.
9 posted on 01/13/2004 8:32:47 PM PST by ican'tbelieveit
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To: SteveH
thank goodness for global warming or we wouldn't have seen these.
10 posted on 01/13/2004 9:04:03 PM PST by The UnVeiled Lady
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To: SteveH
Cool, Bump!
11 posted on 01/13/2004 9:39:24 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi Mac ...... FoR California Propositions/Initiatives info.. Check Muh Profile.. Developing)
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To: SteveH
It's just stuff from the gift shop, strategically placed by pranksters.
12 posted on 01/13/2004 9:41:19 PM PST by Hank Rearden (Dick Gephardt. Before he dicks you.)
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To: SteveH; *Gods, Graves, Glyphs; A.J.Armitage; abner; Alas Babylon!; ameribbean expat; Andyman; ...
Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.

13 posted on 01/13/2004 9:45:52 PM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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To: farmfriend
btt
14 posted on 01/13/2004 11:00:14 PM PST by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: SteveH
So, my only question is why, at almost the height of the ice age, did they find relics at this place?
Standard theories of the ice age are wrong. There is no reason for the ice cap to be on the Hudson Bay, unless the poles were different then.
Mammoths, who eat 5-7 hundered pounds of bark and grass a day in Siberia at any time in the past with current models?

I don't think so, Tim.
15 posted on 01/14/2004 1:40:39 AM PST by djf
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To: djf
unless the poles were different then.

Uh, you did put on your flame-suit, right?

16 posted on 01/14/2004 3:17:52 AM PST by Ff--150 (What is Is)
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To: farmfriend
btt
17 posted on 01/14/2004 4:15:24 AM PST by expat_panama
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To: blam
Will we find some of Kennewick Man's ancestors

With the ages given in this article,they might be Kennewick man's descendants.

18 posted on 01/14/2004 6:44:29 AM PST by ThanhPhero (Ong lam hanh huong di La Vang)
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To: djf
No, the Poles weren't different then. They still liked kielbasa.
19 posted on 01/14/2004 11:06:17 AM PST by colorado tanker ("There are but two parties now, Traitors and Patriots")
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To: ThanhPhero; blam
If you follow blams arguments, which make sense to me, the migration was from east to west. I don't buy into the Southeast Asia argument.
20 posted on 01/14/2004 11:30:00 AM PST by Little Bill (The pain of being a Red Sox Fan.)
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