HomeMy WebLinkAboutLucknow Sentinel, 2009-07-08, Page 9Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - Page 9
Researchers believe
BY ROB
GOWAN
Sun Media
Deep in the mid-
dle of Lake Huron,
researchers in
Michigan have
made a discovery
that could help
shine new light on
people who roamed
the Grey -Bruce
area . about 9,000
years ago.
Anthropologist
John " O'Shea and
physical oceanog-
rapher Guy
Meadows of the
University of
Michigan in Ann
Arbor think they
:have found lines of
stones called drive :
lanes that paleo-
Indian hunters used
to direct caribou
along a path toward
an'ambush site. The
features - aft on a
ridge that stretches
between what is.
now Presque Isle,
Mich., and, Point
ClaiA"a•"� e th-:
wes . tip of
. Bruce County.
At both ends of
the lines on the 16 -
kilometre wide and
160 -kilometre long
ridge are :larger
boulders. that may
have bee n used as
blinds. The rock
formations - probe-
bly date topaleo-
Indian people who
lived iu the area
about 9,000 years
'ago. A paper abort
the findings was
published in tote
Proceedings of the
National Academy
of Sciences.
"Our three sites
are on the U.S.
side, but close to
the U.S.-Canadian
border. The site that
most of the things
in this article per-
tain to is ` the one
closest to the
Canadian : border,"
Meadows said June
15 in, an interview
fmin the university
in Ann Arbor, "1
have strong opinion
that similar things
Would" exist on your
side of : the line as
well:"
Bill Fitzgerald,
an archeologist,
who taught at
Wilfrid Laurier
University and
more recently has
been working with
the Chippewa of
Saugeen and
Nawash First
Nations in Bruce
County, said it ' is
interesting to see
they are finding
some archeologi 1
formations from
what is known as
the Lake Stanley
phase in history, a
when lake .
levels were signifk-
cantly lower ,than
they are, today...
Fitzgerald said
there have . ` been
some archeological
fins from the Lake
Algonquin phase,
when lakes Huron
and Michigan were
higher than they are
today, which dates
e
•
can track history on the ocean floor
Archeologist Bili
he suspects were
es under i.aks.
and Point Ciarik
back to a
11,000 years ago,
and more recent
material. from
6,000 to 7,000
years ago when
Lake Stanley rose
back up . to .what is
called the
Nipissing-Great
Lakes period.
Because the people
tended : to follow
shorelines,
' the
remains of much of
what happened in
the Lake Stanley
phase is now under
water. Mbst of the
site Fitzgerald has
worked" on are
much more recent,
from the 15th and
16th centuries.
• "We came moss
one site that proba-
bly dates to that
really early Lake
Algonquin period,
before Lake
Photo by Willy Waterton
at Point Clark, holds pieces of chert
glacier from a ridge dist stretch. -
is now Presque lsIe, Mich.,
of Oruce County
sae how it is
"Up at
Cape Croker we
got a huge spear
point from that
period."
Fitzgerald said it
would be interest-
ing to extend the
work. being done by
the Michigan
researchers to find
out more aboUt a
time anad people
about which very
little has been
found.
"They are on the
American side at id
it would be inter-
esting to pursue it
on the Canadian
side as well,"
Fitzgerald said.
"Some 'of the pho-
tographs are pretty
impressive of struc-
tures they do .have.
It would be inter-
esting to get down
presetved."
Fitzgerald plans
to get in contact
with O'Shea
because in his wodc
he hasfoundalot
of . chert — a raw
material that occurs
in much
like flint occurs in
chalk, that native
Cultures used to
fashion tools and
spear points -- that
is not native to
Bruce County: He
said there is a pos-
sibility glaciers
picked up the mate-
rial he is finding off
the escarpment the
University of
Michigan
researchers have
been studying on
the lake bottom.
"If the glacier is
coming in from the
northwest it is just
going to scrape
across the face of
the escarpment
there and every-
thing is going to be
dumped right in
Bruce Township
and Kincarditie in
particular," said
Fitzgerald. "Thede
is the material we
are getting in the
till around here, but
there are also some
atcheologloal sites
we ate working on
that have some
obvious connec-
tions with people,
over in Michigan."
Fitzgerald . said
there is a
connec-
tion between
Michigan and
Grey -Bruce that
goes back thou-
sands
and thou-
sands of years,
mainly : because
people followed
shorelines and dur-
ing the Lake
Stanley phase there
was a shortcut
across Lake Huron
that led right to
what is Bruce
County and south-
western Ontario
today.
"A lot of the raw
material that we get
on sites like= at
Inverhuron and all
the other ' sites we
are; working on in
Bruce and Grey
here, a good - por-
tion of it comes
from Michigan,"
Fitzgerald said.
"The connections
between what is
now Michigan and
this part of Ontario
were probably
established back
then and once the
water levels rose up
again there warstiil
the on ".
Fi _ sial`
said
tzit d a d
the findings at the
bottom of the lake
reinforce what sci-
entists have been.
saying for a long
time that , the
connections
between the two
areas go way back.
The most recent
example are the
Potawatomi, who
came over from
Michigan in the
1840s.
"There has
always been- more
connection
Between Michigan
and this part of
Ontario than there
ever was be ween
this part of Ontario
and the Toronto=
Hamilton area,"
Fitzgerald said.
"The shorelines
were the highways
and there were no
international
boundaries."
Photo 'by Guy Meadows
Anthropologist John O'Shea and graduate strident Eric Rupley
show the side scan sonar that was used to map the Lake Huron
floor.
We're LOCAL Li:k�NoIo
1
•
EIsel
LOCAL Community News * LOCAL Government News * LOCAL Community Leaders
* LOCAL Clubs & Organizations *Loci. Obituaries * LOCAL Birth Announcements
* LOCAL Sale Prices * LOCAL Business News * LOCAL Sports
* LOCAL Educati�n News "' LOCAL Weddings
Ye: ... We're LOCAL like nobody alis!
Where LOCAL Pepe find LOCA ews 52 weeks a year
619 Campbell Street Lucknow - 519-528-2822
i Year�
Subscription
s�o
(+OSj