March 28, 2024, 05:58:12 pm
Welcome,
Guest
. Please
login
or
register
.
1 Hour
1 Day
Forever
Login with username, password and session length
News
: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6676461.stm
Home
Help
Arcade
Gallery
Links
Staff List
Calendar
Login
Register
Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
Atlantis Online
>
Forum
>
the Unexplained
>
the Unexplained
>
Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
Pages: [
1
]
Go Down
« previous
next »
Print
Author
Topic: Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture (Read 317 times)
0 Members and 84 Guests are viewing this topic.
Shana
Sr. Member
Posts: 64
Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
«
on:
November 25, 2014, 01:01:50 am »
Utah Cave Full of Children’s Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
Posted by Blake de Pastino on November 17, 2014 in anthropology, archaeology, artifacts, bison, caves, clothes and clothing, family, food, footwear, Fremont, human migration, hunting, Indians, middens, moccasins, Native Americans, news, prehistoric, Promontory Caves, Promontory Culture, Recent, science, Southwestern Archaeology, Utah | 32429 Views | 4 Responses
Archaeologists on the trail of a little-known ancient culture have found a cache of clues that may help unlock its secrets: a cave containing hundreds of children’s moccasins.
The cave, on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, was first excavated in the 1930s, but the artifacts found there — and the questions that they raised — were largely forgotten until recently.
Dr. Jack Ives of the University of Alberta and his colleagues resumed excavations in the cave in 2011 to better understand its occupants, some of whom Ives believes may have been part of one of the greatest human migrations in the continent’s history.
Promontory Cave UtahThe view from Promontory Cave 1 in Utah, where excavations in the 1930s and again in the 2010s turned up “exceedingly abundant” deposits of artifacts. (Courtesy Dr. Jack Ives)
The site — part of a complex of natural shelters known as the Promontory Caves — contains “exceedingly abundant” artifacts numbering in the thousands, Ives said, marking a human occupation that began rather suddenly about 850 years ago.
This wealth of artifacts may go a long way in demystifying the distinctive, little-researched populations often referred to as the Promontory Culture.
“The beauty of the Promontory Culture is, probably 99 percent of the material culture that the people used was perishable,” Ives said in an interview.
“So, normally in the archaeological record, we only see the durable items — the pottery, the stone tools, the animal bones.
“[But] we have, with the Promontory Culture, spectacularly, more material culture, so we can see all aspects of daily life, together with nuances likely to reflect different cultural identities.”
Large piles of butchered bison and elk bones, for example, suggest that the Promontory lifestyle was based, almost exclusively and quite successfully, on big-game hunting, while other groups around them were farming and foraging.
Scant ceramic sherds and basket fragments, meanwhile, bear strong signs of influence from other Great Basin cultures, including the Fremont.
But it was the staggering amount of footwear in the caves that captured the attention of archaeologists, past and present.
With soles made from a single piece of bison leather, lined with fur, and sewn together at the heel, the moccasins are made in a style typical of the Canadian Subarctic, Ives said, a fashion his team describes as being “decidedly out of place in the eastern Great Basin.”
These moccasins and other cues have led some experts to theorize that the caves’ inhabitants were part of a great migration from the far north, a wave of people who moved into the Great Basin in the 12th and 13th centuries, and eventually gave rise to cultures that include the Apache and the Navajo.
To better understand the role that the Promontory may have played in this event, Ives and his colleagues used the moccasins to gauge the size and makeup of their population.
The team studied 207 pieces of footwear excavated from the cave, both in the 1930s and the 2010s, using the moccasins’ lengths to estimate the age and stature of their owners, based on known anatomical ratios.
The results showed that the vast majority of the moccasins — just over 82 percent — were worn by children of ages 12 and under.
Promontory-Cave-MoccasinsTwo typical Promontory moccasins recovered in may 2013, with the bottom row showing their patched soles. (Courtesy Jack Ives)
“One of our [paper’s] reviewers said, this isn’t like a normal family ratio — this is more like an elementary school ratio,” Ives said in an interview.
Because the moccasins were likely “cast offs” that accumulated over several decades, these figures don’t reflect the exact demographics of the Promontory community, Ives explained, but they do provide valuable insights into its general proportions.
“These numerous moccasins are telling us about the structure of the population, not necessarily specific numbers,” he said.
“But you can see that children and subadults are a very big part of the population.”
Analysis of radiocarbon dates from the samples suggests that the most intense period of the cave’s use ranged over only one or two human generations — from about 1250 to 1290 CE.
This was a time, Ives points out, when other cultures in North America’s interior were undergoing dramatic changes, as a drying climate and shifting social landscapes forced entire communities to relocate, most notably among the Ancestral Puebloans.
[Read about two new Puebloan villages found last summer: “Twin 1,300-Year-Old Villages Discovered in Arizona Sand Dunes“]
“It’s a tumultuous time period in which this is happening,” he said.
“We know there’s a significant environmental change going on.”
And yet, the large number of children in the Promontory population — along with other clues like the abundance of burned bones of large game — suggest that the Promontory people were “thriving,” Ives said.
“That very high proportion of kids would suggest that it’s a population that’s reproducing very well,” he said.
“We can’t get more specific than that, … but it’s suggesting that there are a lot [of children] in the society, and that implies minimally that they’re doing pretty well.
“Taking it a bit farther, they’re likely a growing population.”
Moccasin-Quill-WorkA fragment of elaborate quill work recovered in May 2014, from the decorated vamp, or upper, of a moccasin. (Courtesy Jack Ives)
This period of flourishing amid otherwise hard times may have been a pivotal chapter in what Ives calls the “immense human story” of migration from the Canadian Subarctic, one that resulted in the culturally diverse Southwest that we know today.
[Read about new insights into Apache history: “Long-Hidden Sites Discovered in the Southwest May Change Views of Ancient Migrations“]
Ives and his colleagues plan to conduct more research on other artifacts from the caves, like stone tools, nets, and bows, that bear important similarities to Subarctic cultures.
A recent, large-scale genetic study may also provide molecular evidence of the migrant’s trans-continental journey.
[See sites that are changing how we think about human migration: “13 Ancient Villages Discovered in Wyoming Mountains May Redraw Map of Tribal Migrations“]
But for now, the materials found in Promontory Caves stand as rare examples of perishable goods that have survived to provide glimpses into the day-to-day life during this crucial period.
“Normally [these moccasins] would be gone, but here [in the cave] they’re present in abundance, and they’re signalling: We are typical of the north. That’s what they’re signalling.
“This is not mortality data,” he added. “Some research reaches conclusions from cemetery or burial settings.
“This is vitality data — these were living children and adults that the moccasins came from.”
Ives and his colleagues report their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Report Spam
Logged
Shana
Sr. Member
Posts: 64
Re: Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
«
Reply #1
on:
November 25, 2014, 01:02:58 am »
The view from Promontory Cave 1 in Utah, where excavations in the 1930s and again in the 2010s turned up “exceedingly abundant” deposits of artifacts. (Courtesy Dr. Jack Ives)
Report Spam
Logged
Shana
Sr. Member
Posts: 64
Re: Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
«
Reply #2
on:
November 25, 2014, 01:06:28 am »
Two typical Promontory moccasins recovered in may 2013, with the bottom row showing their patched soles. (Courtesy Jack Ives)
Report Spam
Logged
Shana
Sr. Member
Posts: 64
Re: Utah Cave Full of Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
«
Reply #3
on:
November 25, 2014, 01:07:03 am »
A fragment of elaborate quill work recovered in May 2014, from the decorated vamp, or upper, of a moccasin. (Courtesy Jack Ives)
Report Spam
Logged
Pages: [
1
]
Go Up
Print
« previous
next »
Jump to:
Please select a destination:
-----------------------------
Atlantis Online - Messages
-----------------------------
=> Messages
=> Administrative Messages
=> Commemorating Dates in History
=> Alerts & Warnings
=> Upcoming Events, Releases & Ads
=> Television: Shows & Events
-----------------------------
the Coffee Shop
-----------------------------
=> the Coffee Shop
=> Atlantis: Polls & News
=> Poltical Alerts
=> Causes & Activism
-----------------------------
Videos, Documentaries & Online Movies
-----------------------------
=> Ancient History & Lost Civilizations
=> Ghosts, UFOs & the Esoteric
=> Music, Entertainment & the Arts
=> Conspiracies & Suppressed Knowledge
=> Documentary & Videos
-----------------------------
Ages of the Earth
-----------------------------
=> The Early Earth, Geology & Fossils
=> Dinosaurs
=> Catastrophes & Mass Extinctions
=> Ice Age
=> Humanity's Origins & Civilization's First Steps
-----------------------------
Mythology & Heroic Sagas of Culture & Myth
-----------------------------
=> Mythology
=> Greek Mythology
=> Arthurian Myth
=> Quest for King Arthur
-----------------------------
Atlantis
-----------------------------
=> Atlantis & the Atlantic Ocean
=> Atlantis: Theories & Speculation
=> Plato's Atlantis
=> the Scientific Atlantis
=> Geology & Atlantis
=> Atlantis & the New Age
=> Atlantis in the Media
-----------------------------
Satellite Discoveries & Alternate Archaeology
-----------------------------
=> Alternate Archaeology
=> Satellite Discoveries & Aerial Archaeology
=> the Bock Saga
-----------------------------
Maps, Explorers & Adventurers
-----------------------------
=> the Oceans
=> Islands
=> the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba & the West Indies
=> Explorers & Adventurers
=> Maps, Cartographers & Cartography
-----------------------------
Egypt & the Pyramids
-----------------------------
=> Gods of Egypt
=> Egypt & the Pyramids
=> the Giza Complex
=> the Dynasties of Egypt
=> Egypt: Latest Discoveries
-----------------------------
the Guanches, Basques, Berbers & Sea People
-----------------------------
=> Guanches, Basques & Berbers
=> Pirates, Phantom Islands & Stories of the Sea
=> the Sea People
-----------------------------
the Ancient World
-----------------------------
=> Neolithic Europe
=> Stonehenge & the Druids
=> the Library of Alexandria, Ancient Historians & Philosophers
=> Ancient Warfare
=> the Spartans
-----------------------------
the Dawn of Civilization
-----------------------------
=> Africa, the Cradle of Life
=> China & the Asian Empires
=> Eastern Mysticism, India, & the Ancient Far East
=> Zoroastrianism, Arabia & the Near East
=> the Sumerians
=> Ancient Asia Minor
=> Hawaii, Australia, Alaska & the Pacific Rim
-----------------------------
Ancient Mediterranean Cultures
-----------------------------
=> Minoan Crete
=> Phoenicians & Carthage
=> Mediterranean Islands
=> Israelities & the Kabbalah
=> Etruscans
=> Ancient Greece
=> Rome: Empire & Republic
-----------------------------
Ancient European Cultures
-----------------------------
=> The Picts & Celts
=> Ireland: History & Myths
=> Balkan History
=> Italy & Magna Graecia
=> the Vikings & Scandinavia
=> Germanic History
-----------------------------
Timelines of Ancient Europe
-----------------------------
=> History of Britain
=> Scotland: in History & Lore
=> Continental Europe: Past & Present
=> the Dark Ages
=> the Medieval World
=> The Renaissance
-----------------------------
the Ancient Americas
-----------------------------
=> the Ancient Americas
=> Peru: Mysteries & Prehistory
=> Mesoamerican & South American Cultures
===> Aztec
===> Incan
===> Olmec
===> Toltec & Teotihuacan
=> Mayan
=> Native American
=> Canada: Past & Present
-----------------------------
The Crusades, Templars & the Holy Grail
-----------------------------
=> the Crusades
=> the Knights Templar
=> The Holy Grail & Christian artifacts
=> The Sacred Feminine, the Cathars & Gnosticism
=> the Da Vinci Code
-----------------------------
Ancient Mysteries
-----------------------------
=> Philosophy
=> Ancient Mysteries
=> Lemuria, Mu & other sunken civilizations
=> Easter Island
=> Oak Island
-----------------------------
Archaeology & Anthropology
-----------------------------
=> Museums & Universities
=> Archaeology
=> Ancient Languages
=> Archaeological News
=> Underwater Archaeology
-----------------------------
Ancient Knowledge, Mysticism & Sacred Beliefs
-----------------------------
=> Ley Lines, Ancient Astronomy & Archeoastronomy
=> Prophecy, 2012, End Times & the End of the World
=> Sacred Symbols
=> The Ancient Arts: Astrology, Alchemy, the Tarot, Arcane Recondite Practices & the I Ching
-----------------------------
Search for the Sacred
-----------------------------
=> Angels & Angelology
=> Goddess Worship
=> Search for the Sacred
=> World Religions
=> the Urantia Book
=> Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism & Ritual Magic
-----------------------------
Health & Healing
-----------------------------
=> Health, Healing & Medical News
=> Human Biology
=> Love & Relationships
=> Women's Studies
-----------------------------
Science & Technology
-----------------------------
=> Science, Physics & Technology
=> History of Science
=> Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
=> Human Genetics
-----------------------------
Earth Changes
-----------------------------
=> Earth Changes
=> Global Warming
=> Botany & Plant Life
===> Plants of the Americas that Changed the World
=> Antarctica & the Arctic
-----------------------------
Space
-----------------------------
=> NASA
=> Mars, the Red Planet
=> Life on Other Worlds
=> the Universe
=> Images from Space
-----------------------------
UFOs, Aliens & Future Science
-----------------------------
=> UFO's
=> Aliens & Alien Abduction
=> UFO Evidence & in the Media
=> Alternate History & Multiverses
=> Future Science
=> Time Travel
-----------------------------
the Occult
-----------------------------
=> Ghosts & Apparitions
=> Communicating with the Dead
=> Paranormal Events, Reincarnation & Near Death Experiences
=> the Enchanted World
=> the Supernatural
=> the Occult
-----------------------------
the Unexplained
-----------------------------
=> Cryptozoology
=> Bigfoot Sightings
=> the Unexplained
=> the Hollow Earth, Crop Circles, Strange Structures & Devices
=> Vanishings & Unsolved Murders
-----------------------------
Science Fiction & Fantasy
-----------------------------
=> Lord of the Rings
=> Science Fiction
=> King Kong, Gigantopithecus & the Mountain Gorilla
=> Godzilla, King of Monsters
=> Comic Books
===> Comic Book Creators
===> Videogames & Toys
-----------------------------
Halloween & Seasonal
-----------------------------
=> Halloween
=> Seasonal
=> Monsters of Myth, Movies & Folklore
=> Ghost Stories
=> the Zombie Apocalypse
-----------------------------
Genres of Film & Literature
-----------------------------
=> Universal Horror
=> H. P. Lovecraft
=> Horror
=> Dark Shadows
=> Twin Peaks
=> Online Horror Movies Sci-Fi & TV Series
-----------------------------
Arts & Literature
-----------------------------
=> Online Books & Research Papers
=> Classical Literature & Book Reviews
=> Art History
=> Architecture
=> Sculpture & Statuary
=> the Great Masters
=> Music
-----------------------------
Media & Film
-----------------------------
=> Cinema
=> the History of Film
=> Marilyn Monroe
=> Actresses & Models
=> Entertainment News
-----------------------------
Modern Historical Mysteries
-----------------------------
=> American History
===> Presidents of the United States
=> the World Wars
===> the Great Depression
=> the Holocaust
=> the Middle East: Past & Present
=> Modern History
===> the Industrial Age
===> Civil Rights
=> Great Cities of the World
=> the Kennedys: Their History & Assasinations
=> New York City: Then & Now
-----------------------------
September 11th, 2001
-----------------------------
=> September 11th: Conspiracies, Cover-ups & Remembrance
=> The World Trade Center Remembered
===> Life of the Twin Towers
=> Modern Warfare
=> Environmental Disasters & Mass Tragedies
-----------------------------
Suppressed Knowledge
-----------------------------
=> New World Order
=> Conspiracies
=> Suppressed Knowledge
=> Media Matters
-----------------------------
Politics
-----------------------------
=> the Barack Obama Administration
=> Conservatives, Trump, & Republican Politics
=> Joe Biden, Democratic Politics & News
=> Tea Party, Constitution, Libertarian Parties & Ron Paul
=> Politics & News
-----------------------------
Current Events
-----------------------------
=> Current Events & Odd Stories
=> The World Today
=> Financial News & the Economy
===> The History of Labor
=> Breaking News
-----------------------------
General Category
-----------------------------
=> Opinions & Editorials
=> Cartoons, Humor & Comic Strips
=> Ecology, Pets & the Animal Kingdom
=> General & Miscellaneous
=> Sports
=> Computers & the Internet
-----------------------------
Art, Graphics & Creative Writing
-----------------------------
=> Fantasy Art & Graphics
=> Creative Writing
===> Horror Fiction
=> Poetry
=> Photography & Models
=> Earth Images
-----------------------------
Past Events
-----------------------------
=> Case for Bush Impeachment/War Crimes
===> Bush Administration Torture Scandal
=> Campaign 2008
=> Atlantis Online - Memorial & Biography
===> Atlantis Online - Old Posts
Powered by
EzPortal
Loading...