"Like, grunt, man."
Posted on 12/20/2006 7:21:07 AM PST by aculeus
SPOKANE, Wash. -- A new archaeological dig shows the Spokane area to be one of the oldest areas of continuous human habitation in the state.
According to evidence verified by radiocarbon dating, people may have lived at the confluence of the Spokane River and Latah Creek for some 8,000 years, said Stanley C. Gough, archaeology director at Eastern Washington University in nearby Cheney.
"This documents for the first time people actually living here at this age," said Gough, who has been excavating a 25-by-60-foot site downstream from Spokane Falls.
The oldest known habitation site in Washington is thought to be the Marmes Rockshelter at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse rivers, where evidence was found that it had been used for shelter, storage, and burials for more than 11,000 years, according to Washington State University documents. The site was flooded when the reservoir behind Lower Monumental Dam filled in the late 1960s.
The Spokane River findings are no surprise to Indian tribes in the area, whose oral history says ancient peoples fished along the river thousands of years ago.
"We've known that all our lives," said Buzz Gutierrez, a Spokane Indian tribal member who was born and raised just upstream from the traditional encampment. "We can say to the Europeans, 'We've been here longer than you thought.'"
Gough led a five-month dig in the alluvial delta downstream from the falls. He said his team found 60,000 artifacts, including spear tips known as Cascade points that were in use throughout the region as far back as 8,000 years ago.
Radioactive carbon dating also showed three samples of charcoal 4 to 7 feet below the surface were 8,000 years old, he said.
"Every excavation yields new things," Gough said. "This one was a particularly information-rich site."
The $430,000 dig was the result of a state order to install overflow tanks for sewer and stormwater lines for the city.
The vast majority of the artifacts consisted of broken animal bone and rock chips, but there was also an arrow point made of obsidian, or volcanic glass, from eastern Oregon and an ax blade made of nephrite, a type of jade, from the Wenatchee area.
Also found was an oven hearth lined with river mussel shells, showing how food was cooked and eaten, said Sara Walker, another archaeologist on the dig.
The dig uncovered rocks fashioned into weights for fishing nets at a layer indicating they were about 3,500 years old.
The weights indicate an effort to increase the fish catch, either for drying and storage, or possibly for use in trading, Gough said.
No evidence of winter shelters was found, and the presence of bones from mammals that hibernate during the winter, such as marmots, also indicated that humans were present only during warm-weather months, he said.
---
Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesmanreview.com
Ping
Ok, so they lived there 8000 years ago, but were buried there 11,000 years ago?
Were the inhabitants homosexual?
Buzz Gutierrez .... has a nice Native American ring to it, doesn't it.
Anybody who gives "oral history" any credence has obviously fogotten playing the game "Telephone" as a child. Please...
I mean, I'm really sorry your people never got around to inventing writing, but I'm just not buying "Purple monkey shoeshine."
Why does the person have to make a blatantly dumb political statement and ruin a cool discovery?
They uncovered a body of a white european dating back 10,000 years which blew the entire Indian here first theory - guess that is why they are interviewing indians here.
"Like, grunt, man."
Half a million dollars worth of nothing.
The 11K number is for another site....flooded to make a reservoir.
You might even say "well Spokane"...
Considering that the cradle of humanity was in Mesopotamia then where did his people come from in the first place?? The arrogance!
There are lots of examples of travel over the oceans from one continent to the other, but not by our so called "native americans". Seems they didn't have the cajones to do that, heap big smoke, no fire.
It still is, isn't it?
No evidence of winter shelters was found... indicated that humans were present only during warm-weather months
Not exactly continuous habitation. Time shares?
An oral tradition isn't worth the paper it's written on.
[...where did his people come from in the first place??...]
Just waiting for North America to be "Palestined". One day soon, they will build a mosque and say it has always been here and that the native Americans are really Arabs...
Oh wait. They already did that.
The Native Anericans/American Indans with the Mongoloid anscestry that we know today arrived in North America about 6,000 years ago. There were other people here before them.
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.