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Subject: [Mound] 10,000 year old site found in Vermont
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 19:01:43 -0500 (CDT)

Wed Sep 10 10:27:49 2003 Pacific Time
      Archaeologists Discover Rare Paleoindian Hunting Camp
  
     BURLINGTON, Vt., Sept. 10 (AScribe News) -- University of
Vermont archaeologists have identified what is unequivocally the first
Late Paleoindian site 10,000-9,000 B.P.) in the state-and one of very
few known to exist in the eastern United States-near Sunderland Brook in
Colchester. The site was discovered last week during an archaeological
investigation of property that will be impacted by the construction of
an off-ramp for the proposed Chittenden County Circumferential Highway.
       Preliminary analysis suggests the site was a hunting
camp where Native Americans removed and replaced spear points broken
during hunts. Other tools recovered suggest that animals may have been
butchered and their hides prepared at the site, according to John G.
Crock, director of UVM's Consulting Archaeology Program and research
assistant professor of anthropology.
       "The general lack of Late Paleoindian sites once
caused archaeologists to hypothesize that people left what is now
Vermont for roughly 1,000 years between the end of the Early Paleoindian
Period (10,000 B.P.) and the beginning of the Early Archaic period
(9,000-7,500 B.P.)," Crock explained.
       But recovered at the Colchester site (christened the
Mazza site, after landowner Sam Mazza) were fragments of several
parallel-flaked spear point bases known as Agate Basin points. These
were used during the Late Paleoindian period-not only by inhabitants of
Vermont and the broader Northeast where this period is poorly
understood, but by people who roamed areas from the High Plains to the
Mississippi Valley and beyond. In fact, the points were named by
archaeologists after the site of a bison kill in Wyoming.
       "The Mazza site and its artifacts indicate not only
that people were in Vermont during this period, but also that they
shared unifying cultural traits with other groups across North America,"
Crock said.
       Much of the stone material recovered in Colchester
came from Mount Jasper in what is now Berlin, N.H. This suggests trade
or direct travel across the Green Mountains and White Mountains,
probably over a route not too different from what is now U.S. Route 2,
Crock said. The Mazza site is located next to a tributary of Sunderland
Brook, which in turn flows into the Winooski River, which enters Lake
Champlain south of Colchester point.
       "Native Americans used drainages like this one as
natural travel corridors and because they contained concentrations of
useful plants and animals," Crock said.
       Artifacts and other materials from the Mazza site
will be processed, analyzed, catalogued and temporarily displayed at
UVM's archaeology laboratory. Most of the site has been salvaged, Crock
noted, but remaining portions are likely to be destroyed when the
Circumferential Highway is developed. It is standard practice in
regulatory archaeology to excavate only a sample of significant sites,
with the level of effort determined through negotiations between the
State Historic Preservation Office, project managers and archaeologists,
he said.
       UVM's Consulting Archaeology Program provides
archaeological consulting services to businesses and individuals,
non-profit groups, local governments, and state and federal agencies by
helping to identify, evaluate and develop management plans for
prehistoric and historic sites that may be affected by various types of
construction.






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