In Sussex County, on an eolian (wind-deposited) terrace of the Nottoway River, is where you’ll find the Cactus Hill Archaeological Site. The prickly pear cacti that frequently grow on the sandy soil of the site gave the area its name. The first human occupations at Cactus Hill date to between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest and best-dated archaeological sites in the Americas. Additionally, it has one of Virginia’s best-preserved stratified prehistoric archaeological sequences. Prior to the mid-1990s discovery at Cactus Hill, the majority of academics held the view that the earliest humans entered the Americas around 13,000 years ago. They were thought to have crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia to the Americas, representing the so-called Clovis civilisation. Since Cactus Hill, researchers have changed their minds. They now suggest that people may have traveled along glaciers close to North America’s Pacific coast or over pack ice from Europe to the Atlantic coast. Researchers are looking for even ancient settlements after studies at Cactus Hill by the Nottoway River Survey and the Archeological Society of Virginia suggest that the inhabitants there may not have been the first.
What is the significance of Cactus Hill and where is it?
The archaeological site of Cactus Hill is situated on sand dunes above the Nottoway River in southeast Virginia, about 45 miles south of Richmond. The prickly pear cacti that are prevalently grown there in the sandy soil gave the place its name. One of the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas may be Cactus Hill. If confirmed to have been inhabited 16,000–20,000 years ago, it would offer proof that the Americas were inhabited before the Clavius. [1] The location has revealed many prehistoric habitation levels, including two distinct stages of early Paleoindian activity.
What startled the archaeologists when they discovered it at Cactus Hill?
5. What startled the archaeologists when they discovered it at Cactus Hill? More deeply underground than they had ever discovered before, they discovered human-made artifacts.
What are the world’s oldest ruins?
The stone wall near Theopetra Cave’s entrance in Greece is thought to be the oldest man-made building ever discovered, making it the oldest ruin in the entire globe. At the height of the last ice age, archaeologists speculate that the wall may have been constructed as a barrier to shield the inhabitants of the cave from the chilly winds.
Theopetra Cave was originally explored in 1987, and a number of items, including flint and quartz tools, animal bones, and jewelry made from deer teeth, have been discovered there.
Additionally, there is radiocarbon proof that people lived in the cave for close to 50,000 years, during which time they were present during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Pleistocene, and Holocene epochs, among other times.
What is the world’s oldest artifact?
The world’s oldest objects were discovered at Lomekwi 3, an archaeological site in Kenya. These stone tools date back to a time before Homo sapiens (humans) by around 3.3 million years.
The discovery implies that our predecessors had the mental capacity to create tools before any member of the Homo genus was even born, though researchers are unsure which of our early human relatives built the tools.
Anvils, cores, and flakes are a some of the items found at Lomekwi. The artifacts are the largest stone tools that are currently known, and experts propose classifying them as belonging to a unique tool-making culture known as Lomekwian.
What is the world’s most ancient archaeological site?
Theopetra Cave is the oldest archaeological site in the world as of 2012, when experts discovered that humans had been residing there for more than 135,000 years. This discovery came after decades of investigation and excavations.
Initially, the study team headed by Kyparissi-Apostolika believed that the cave had been inhabited by humans for at least 50,000 years. Children’s footprints, on the other hand, indicated that Theopetra was used more than 80,000 years ago.
Theopetra Cave is a rich trove of antiquities from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic eras, among others. The location is also home to one of the world’s oldest known man-made structures, a 23,000-year-old wall that was probably created to shield the cave’s inhabitants from chilly winds.
What is the earliest artifact from India?
For around 2.6 million years, humans have been creating stone tools, but about 400,000 years ago, our ancestors’ methods significantly advanced. They started creating smaller, sharper tools employing a technique known as Levallois flint knapping in favor of the cumbersome equipment of their forebears. The Middle Paleolithic epoch in Europe and western Asia, as well as the Middle Stone Age in Africa, are when Levallois technology first appeared.
The Levallois method is said to have spread to various geographical areas roughly 125,000 years ago, when people first left Africa. Levallois tools, however, have been discovered in India dating as far back as 385,000 years, as NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee writes, raising complicated concerns about the genesis of this ancient technology.
A collection of stone tools from the archaeological site Attirampakkam in southern India was examined by archaeologists at the Sharma Center for Heritage Education. The oldest items discovered there date back 1.5 million years and were created in Early Stone Age Acheulian forms. In contrast, 7,000 or more artifacts have also been found by archaeologists that were manufactured using the Levallois method, according to a recent publication in the journal Nature.
Researchers found that the Levallois artifacts were made between 385,000 and 172,000 years ago using luminescence dating. According to Kate Wong of Scientific American, assuming their analysis is accurate, the Attirampakkam tools are more than 200,000 years older than other Middle Paleolithic tools discovered in India.
The study’s authors claim that these results are noteworthy because they may indicate that an early group of humans—possibly even Homo sapiens—left Africa considerably earlier than previously thought, taking their technology for creating tools with them.
However, not all scientists concur with the team’s analysis. According to Wong, Michael Petraglia of the German Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History disagrees that the Attirampakkam artifacts should be categorized as Middle Paleolithic. He explains, “At best, I think of them as lying between between the Acheulean and the Middle Paleolithic. “They might perhaps fall into the Late Acheulean category.
Additionally, there are other explanations for the technological advancements seen among the artifacts at Attirampakkam besides an early migration from overseas. It’s plausible that primitive humans in India evolved advanced skills independently of African influences.
In any case, the study’s issues need deeper research into early human activity in India, a region that is “frequently disregarded,” according to Shanti Pappu, one of the study’s main archaeologists, in an interview with Rachel Becker of the Verge.
Which American relic is the oldest?
The earliest known artifact in the Americas, a scraper-like tool discovered in a cave in Oregon by archaeologists, is thought to date back 14,230 years.
Archaeologist Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon in Eugene believes the artifact demonstrates that people were residing in North America well before the widely dispersed Clovis culture, which dates back between 12,900 and 12,400 years.
The age of the bone was determined using sediment and radiocarbon studies. Jenkins announced the discovery at a speech at the University of Oregon late last month.
In one of several caverns close to the town of Paisley in south-central Oregon, his crew discovered the instrument in a rock shelter overlooking a lake.
The team member who found the artifact, Kevin Smith, recalls making the find. The familiar ring and sensation of a trowel striking bone can be heard and felt, according to Smith, a master’s student at California State University, Los Angeles. “We had banged into a lot of extinct horse, bison, and camel bone,” Smith recalls. “I changed to using a brush. I soon saw this enormous bone emerge, and I could see its sharp edge. I retreated and said, “Hey everyone, we have something here.”
It is unknown if the cave inhabitants belonged to an earlier civilisation or the Clovis people. The distinctive fluted spear and arrow points used by the Clovis people have not been discovered in the cave.
According to Jon Erlandson, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon who wasn’t involved in the study, “They can’t yet rule out the Paisley Cave people weren’t Clovis.”
The age of Monte Verde in Chile, the only other American archaeological site older than Clovis, is roughly 13,900 years.
Jenkins and coworkers announced last year that coprolites from Paisley Cave, or fossilized human feces, age to between 14,000 and 14,270 years ago1. That study recognized the Paisley Caves as a significant location for American archaeology.
Ancient DNA testing identified the coprolites as human. However, in July, a different group asserted that the coprolites may be more recent than the sediments they were found in2.
Because no artifacts had been discovered in the vital sediments, this team, led by Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, questioned the 2008 findings as well. The Oregon squad vehemently refuted the accusations3.
These questions might be answered by the date of the bone tool and the discovery that the sediments encasing it range in age from 11,930 to 14,480 years. Jenkins told the Oregon meeting that the stratigraphy “couldn’t be better dated.”
According to Todd Surovell, an archaeologist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie who was not involved in the research, “They have obviously made their argument even stronger.”
The coprolites suggested that the cave’s inhabitants were primarily vegetarian, although other experts questioned this4. (Editor’s note: The authors of this reference provide commentary on the importance of their work in the article’s comments section.) Jenkins mentioned more evidence in his most recent talk that points to a diet low in meat but high in edible plants like the fernleaf biscuitroot Lomatium dissectum.
A team of archaeologists who specialize in the history of the Americas met with government representatives and a member of the neighborhood Klamath tribe in late September to assess the findings at Paisley Caves. The experts looked at the tool, examined the sediments, and evaluated other plant and animal evidence over the course of two days.
Archaeologist David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, who attended the seminar, thinks it was an amazing presentation. “This is undoubtedly a significant location, but additional tests must be conducted to complete the transaction.” He claims that knowing how the samples came to the cave is one of the solutions.
What role does Western Pennsylvania’s Meadowcroft Rockshelter play?
A National Historic Landmark, the Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a fascinating archaeological site that provides evidence of the existence of prehistoric people in Western Pennsylvania for at least the past 19,000 years.
The Contemporary Enclosure
The 2008 opening of this visitor-friendly enclosure improves the site visitation experience. This enclosure offers the best perspective of the dig, safeguards the archaeological resource, and permits ongoing scientific research. Even if there were no archaeological site nearby, it would still be worthwhile to visit to see this edifice, as noted by renowned archaeologist James M. Adovasio on numerous occasions.
9. A group of fireplaces
On the excavation’s eastern face, there is a collection of old firepits stacked on top of one another that are covered in ash, charcoal, and the telltale reddish tint of sandstone fragments that have been heated by fire. This is concrete proof of the campfires constructed by ancient visitors to the location up until a significant rock fall that took place some 1,500 years ago forced a change in the center of activity under the rock overhang.
8. There are about a million plant remnants
A total of 1.4 million plant remnants, including pollen, seeds, and nut hulls, were found during the archaeological dig. In some cases, this information reveals what the site’s users were eating as well as details about the plants that have been growing here over the past 19,000 years.
7. There Are Nearly a Million Animal Remains
The Meadowcroft excavation turned up 956,000 animal remains. As a result of hawks and owls regurgitating pellets containing small mammal bones, over 90% of these remains are still present. However, some bones from animals like elk, deer, and turkey exhibit cut marks that reveal the animals were killed by humans. A freshwater snail shell that was left in the firepit and a few deer bones that are now visible in the excavation walls are two examples of animal remains that are still found there.
20,000 Artifacts
Artifacts are things that people have created or altered. 20,000 objects were found during the Meadowcroft excavation. These include tools made of stone and bone, pottery shards, basketry pieces, and all the tiny flakes of stone that are left over after cutting or resharpening projectile points and blades made of stone. The Miller Lanceolate Point, which was found at the site and dates to a level that was there 12,000 years ago, is one of the most significant artifacts from the area.
5. Terrible Roof Collisions
Rock of all sizes is scattered around the excavation site and the surrounding hillside. Granite fragments fell to the ground when the cliff face and rock overhang crumbled over thousands of years. Two instances of catastrophic collapses, in which incredibly enormous rocks loosened and fell to the Rockshelter’s floor, can be found inside the current enclosure. One of these occurrences happened roughly 12,000 years ago, and the other occurred between 300 and 600 AD.
4. The Actual Rock Feature
An outstanding geological feature is the Rockshelter. Over tens of millions of years, the Cross Creek flows eroded the Morgantown-Connellsville sandstone. This led to the formation of the substantial overhang, which offered prehistoric people protection and a great location for camping.
Ice Age Fire Pit 3.
The partially excavated remnants of a firepit from the end of the last ice age are located in the site’s center. Although the glaciers never came any closer to Meadowcroft than 50 miles to the north, the glacial front had already moved north past the current border between Pennsylvania and New York by the time people arrived at Meadowcroft 19,000 years ago.
The Groundhog 2.
On November 12, 1955, Meadowcroft discoverer Albert Miller unearthed artifacts dug up by a groundhog at the location’s back rock wall. Miller spent the following 18 years looking for an interested professional because, as an amateur archaeologist, he felt his finding needed to be professionally explored. The first field school excavation was carried out in 1973 by Dr. James Adovasio of the University of Pittsburgh. By 1974, everyone was aware of how unique this location was.
1. Amazingness!
The overwhelming sense you get when you stare down at Cross Creek and realize that some of the very first people to set foot on the North American continent were standing here 19,000 years ago is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter’s top feature (drumroll, please). And the proof of their travels is still here, only a few feet away, beneath the same rock overhang you are standing under.
Take a look around the Rockshelter on an Insider Tour led by James M. Adovasio, Ph.D., who won recognition for his 1973 archeological excavation of the site. On Sunday, October 14 at 1 p.m. and Saturday, November 3 at 10 a.m., Dr. Adovasio will deliver a lecture and offer a special tour of the location. Register online if possible.
The First Peoples Archaeology project and a gigapan of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter both allow you to explore the Rockshelter.