Medicine Hat (archaeological site)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Medicine Hat is, in addition to the name of a city in the southeast of the Canadian province of Alberta , about 300 km southeast of Calgary , an archaeological site on the South Saskatchewan River . It is about 80 km from the Taber site . Only two artefacts can be safely interpreted as a trace of human presence, whereas the site is of considerable importance for natural history .

The South Saskatchewan at Medicine Hat

On the South Saskatchewan in 2011 twelve Fund places were known by those of Medicine Hat places west Surprise Bluff and reservoir Gulley chert fragments provided, as well north of Medicine Hat Evil Smelling band and 9 kilometers north of Medicine Hat Mitchell Bluffs and Iceland Bluff .

In 1968 and 1969 excavations took place in Mitchell Bluffs, under the direction of Ronald M. Getty, WJ Elliot and Colin Poole, and in 1970 in Reservoir Gulley, which were primarily intended to search for paleontological species. Since the so-called artifact band was 94 m below the surface of the earth, this mass of till and sand was removed with bulldozers , so that this work only ended about 60 cm above the band. In this volume one found mammoths , horses and donkeys, camels and caribou, elk, bison and antelopes from the last glacial period (Wisconsin glaciation). In Reservoir Gulley, under three meters of sand and above another 50 meters of tilt, in addition to mammoths, donkeys and camels, Canis dirus , a wolf species that became extinct about 10,000 years ago and is called dire wolf in Canada , and saber-toothed tiger were found in Reservoir Gulley .

But now the excavations came to a standstill in the face of apparently human artifacts, plus bones, which geologists and paleobotanists complained about.

Artefacts from the time around 2500 BC can only be identified typologically from the overburden. Date approximately to BC. A total of about 8000 fragments of Cherts were found . Since they were very similar in both sites, they were examined as a single sample. Only a single fragment could be identified as a complete tool, measuring 2.5 x 2.5 x 0.5 cm. All the others were fragments and splinters. There was also only one tool made of quartzite , not chert like the others. Statistical investigations and comparisons showed that the "chert fragments" were not human artifacts, but were created naturally, through pressure, friction and rotation, but also through weather influences. Human bones were also not found.

Remarks

  1. ↑ This and the following according to BOK Reeves: Fractured Cherts from Pleistocene Fossiliferous Beds at Medicine Hat, Alberta , in: David L. Browman (Ed.): Early Native Americans , de Gruyter, 2011, pp. 83-98.
  2. ↑ A MacS. Stalker: Indications of Wisconsin and Earlier Man from the Southwest Canadian Prairies , in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 288 (1977) 119-136, here: p. 119.

Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 24 ″  N , 110 ° 42 ′ 0 ″  W.