Divers examining boulders at the bottom of Lake Huron that served as caribou drive lanes for prehistoric hunters. (Credit: Photo courtesy of John O'Shea, U-M)
Posted on 12/15/2011 9:38:43 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Under the cold clear waters of Lake Huron, University of Michigan researchers have found a five-and-a-half foot-long, pole-shaped piece of wood that is 8,900 years old. The wood, which is tapered and beveled on one side in a way that looks deliberate, may provide important clues to a mysterious period in North American prehistory.
"This was the stage when humans gradually shifted from hunting large mammals like mastodon and caribou to fishing, gathering and agriculture," said anthropologist John O'Shea. "But because most of the places in this area that prehistoric people lived are now under water, we don't have good evidence of this important shift itself- just clues from before and after the change.
"One of the enduring questions is the way the land went under water. Many people think it must have been a violent event, but finding this large wood object just sitting on the bottom wedged between a few boulders suggests that the inundation happened quickly but rather gently. And this in turn suggests that we'll find more intact evidence of human activity in the area."
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), O'Shea and U-M colleague Guy Meadows began exploring the area in the middle of modern Lake Huron several years ago. In 2009 they reported finding a series of stone features that they believe were "drive lanes" used by ancient PaleoIndian hunters to funnel caribou to slaughter, a technique still used today by the Inuit. These drive lanes were located on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, a land connection across the middle of modern Lake Huron that linked northern Michigan with central Ontario during the low-water periods of the Pleistocene and early Holocene ages.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Divers examining boulders at the bottom of Lake Huron that served as caribou drive lanes for prehistoric hunters. (Credit: Photo courtesy of John O'Shea, U-M)
Ron Jeremy was out swimming in THIS weather?
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:’)
So if I go down to the NY/Penn border, grab a 200 year old piece of wood, carve a totem pole, I have a 200 year old totem pole. Of course, I'd age it a bit first by burying it.
Aren’t trees kinda “pole-shaped” to begin with?
Rather amusing isn’t it....Imagine that...A tree that’s shaped like a pole......like the 20,000 utility poles in our city.
I like the photo of the divers fins. Nice to see same model I have been using for 40 years is still good technology.
However, I would have preferred a picture of the piece of wood of which the article is about!
It’s a supercomputer....or maybe a space shuttle.....or maybe a stick.....I don’t know.
Great....now that Wayne Carrini guy will put on a wet suit and see if the woody is a Ford or Chevy and then he’ll take it to that auction in Pebble Beach and he’ll get you all excited saying it’s in the program for $250,000 and then it’ll sell for 37 cents and a gum wrapper and then you feel bad. Damnit, Wayne! Make some money, will you!
Global Warming....Did they find any PREHISTORIC SUVs there? /s
Must be tough getting wood in that cold water.
It was found next to what appears to be a 8,900 year old pool table.
Yeah, and then I threw the irons in too, one at a time, and the bag after it. And then I took up mastodon hunting. It’s easier than golf.
I remember visiting a museum somewhere in the South about 20 years ago. In their shop they displayed a “Chippendale” chair (replica) that was carved out of wood that had been found at the bottom of Lake Michigan. The chair was very beautiful and the historic material made it even more so. The price was stratospheric, but it was an interesting concept — using wood salvaged from ca 1800 era shipwrecks.
The origin of billiards.
Yeah, that’s a nice photo and all, but a bit of a nonsequitur that it was the one they provided.
Is the government going to send the same SWAT teams to take their wood like they did to Gibson Guitar?
I wonder what Hef was doing in Lake Huron?
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