Divers Retrieve Prehistoric Wood from Lake Huron
ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — 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.
It's too bad there wasn't an accompanying picture to go with the news article. Maybe the flash of the camera was considered too risky for this old pole. It would be very interesting to see what they find out after studying this piece of wood that they think is almost 9,000 years old. That's pretty old.
Lake Huron is considered to be an ancient "drive lane" used by PaleoIndian hunters to drive caribou down to slaughter. This procedure is still used today by the Inuit peoples.
They are slowly but surely answering questions about this pole through their studies. They are finding clues about the environment where the pole was located before being submerged in the lake. They are finding flakes of stone and other substances embedded in the pole.
It also appears to have one rounded end and one beveled end, suggesting that these shapes were man-made and not just a coincidence of nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment