Inside the chemistry lab at Sunrise, an abandoned company mining town now owned by John Voight.Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily
Posted on 07/08/2024 8:48:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists are nearing the bottom of their current dig site at Sunrise, Wyoming, a former company mining town...
Not only is Sunrise home to one of the largest red ochre mines in North America, but some of the oldest Paleoindian artifacts on the continent have also been found there.
Some of those artifacts date back 14,000 years, predating Clovis man, who lived from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago...
George Zeimans, the Wyoming archaeologist who has been heading up activities at the site, said he has already dug a few test sites that have found evidence of other artifacts.
"We know there's a main camp here somewhere," he said. "It's just figuring out where it is."
Technology, like ground penetrating radar, is not useful at Sunrise because there are too many iron deposits, as well as iron scraps and artifacts that have been left lying around.
"You would get too many false readings," Zeimens said. "It would take forever. So that just won't work in this kind of situation."
That's going to mean a lot of digging to figure out exactly where the main camp site might be.
"That's all right," Zeimens said, with a smile. "If we knew all this stuff and had all the information, we're after, then archaeology would be really boring."...
Historical photographs show them blading off and smoothing the surface of the mining town they were going to build. That soil was used as fill dirt in areas surrounding Sunrise...
"It's just like over in Europe and those old Roman sites where they're digging things up to put in a different facility, and finding things there," Zeimens said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cowboystatedaily.com ...
Inside the chemistry lab at Sunrise, an abandoned company mining town now owned by John Voight.Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily
[singing] Everybody's talkin' at me, I can't hear a word they're sayin', I'm just drivin' 'round in Jon Voight's car...
That’s relatively near the famous buffalo jump site, isn’t it?
I missed the part about how they dated the site.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
