Calico Dig

[Guest]

Thanks for your post, guest. I saw a PBS documentary about that
flood, but I didn't realize it was the same one that buried the calico material.
You say the professionals on hand were satisfied that the site was a human habitation with tools. Did you get a look at the artifacts?
Some people think they were just interesting rocks.

My friends - the geologists, archaeologists and anthropologists - all did some work in or around the Calico site. They showed me several features and artifacts, and explained how the items - or differences in the soil, and so forth - represented evidence of human working. It was as if they opened a door to another time and led me through.

[rockhound]

I've been around as long as this area has been perceived to be a mystical spot. Rockhounds have been collecting in this highly fossil filled collecting zone since the twentys. Much of the area was visited by early man. The shore of Lake Mannx was hundreds of miles vast. Artifacts are found probably everywhere in this ancient shore area. Many of these rocks have colloidal fracture physical properties. Rockhounds chip potential collecting stones to view under petinas for patterns, color, hardness, and identifications. Many misinterpreted tools are rockhound rejects. This area should be returned to the public domain. Something stronger is needed to justify this much attention.

[stan]

Guest, it seems you have divided opinions on this area. You say it was visited by early man, and many of the rocks have colloidal fractures.
Doesn't that make it a significant archaeological site?

Then you say a lot of the "artifacts" are created by modern fossil hunters.
The public would just mess it up even more, wouldn't they?

[Frank Harrist]

Guest, it seems you have divided opinions on this area. You say it was visited by early man, and many of the rocks have colloidal fractures.
Doesn't that make it a significant archaeological site?

Then you say a lot of the "artifacts" are created by modern fossil hunters.
The public would just mess it up even more, wouldn't they?

If it was public land then the state would be obliged to protect it.

[Minimalist]

the state would be obliged to protect it.

Just like they are protecting the arctic from oil drilling?

[Guest]

the state would be obliged to protect it.

Just like they are protecting the arctic from oil drilling?

I hope there's no oil at Calico.

[stan]

This area should be returned to the public domain.

OK, Guest, does "public domain" mean anybody can collect there?

I suppose that is different from "Public Land," which Frank points out, the govt. would have to manage or protect.

I am still not clear on your preference.

[Der Lange]

Some of the more detailed posts about Calico were made by me before I registered - the other "guest" weighing in near the end of the string was a DIFFERENT "guest."

However, the comments about rock hounds in the area are quite true - there are are a great many people out in the desert on vacation, for a hobby, and sometimes as a living collecting things in the vicinity.

Howevr, the immediate area around the Calico digs is much smaller and not so much an attraction for rock hounds as the greater High Desert vicinity. The Leakey family, which pioneered the Calico dig, was astute enough to differentiate between the leavings of modern souvenir hunters, rock hounds, and just plain buffs, and the ancient peoples. The kind of mistakes the other "guest" mentioned are those made by the amateurs hanging out there: "Hey, look at this! I found a Clovis point" Nahh, not so - he or she found a bit of broken stone some prior schlub left behind.

The entire High Desert is a great treasure for anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and even a few lowly historians (that would be me). A great deal of the area already IS public land, and has been since the region was brought into Federal authority. Some of it has been homesteaded, claimed for mining, or deeded to railroads, but overall more of the land is public than not. Virtually none of it besides a very small range of environmentally-sensitive area is "protected" at all. Almost all of this territory SHOULD be under an active and engaged Federal management authority, and such activities as mining, prospecting and off-road driving of all kinds should be closely regulated - although not stopped.

The High Desert is a priceless resource. Most of the world supply of "rare earth" is mined there. A great many unique and informative displays of land, flora and fauna exist alone in this region. And there's Calico, which despite Walter Knott's horrid "reconstruction" of the "ghost town" is a special gem to be treasured and studied.

[stan]

Hi, Der Lange...welcome back!

Stan

[Charlie Hatchett]

Here's some more photos of the Calico assemblage:









I don't know guys, to me the Calico artifacts have a manufactured versus

naturally occuring look to them...

[stan]

These have that look!

[Leona Conner]

I have a question and I guess this is as good a topic to ask under as any. I keep reading, here and other places, about how nature can make an ordinary old rock look like it could have been something important several thousand years ago. It seems that all the forces of nature can knock it around, wear it down and do unmentionalbe things to it. Then we come along in our innocence and think we really have something. Well if nature can make a plain old rock look good, couldn't it also make a tool that is several thousand years old, knock it around, wear it down and make it look like it could be a plain old rock?

Sorry, but I'm just curious. If it can work one way why not another?

[Beagle]

Leonna, I would say that nature can make any rock look like anything. But there are a lot of telltale markers. Flint knapping for instance would create an appearance that nature probably wouldn't in a gazillion years.

That's my simple answer, but some bona fide archaeology folks can help you more.

[Cognito]

Leona wrote:

I have a question and I guess this is as good a topic to ask under as any. I keep reading, here and other places, about how nature can make an ordinary old rock look like it could have been something important several thousand years ago. It seems that all the forces of nature can knock it around, wear it down and do unmentionalbe things to it. Then we come along in our innocence and think we really have something. Well if nature can make a plain old rock look good, couldn't it also make a tool that is several thousand years old, knock it around, wear it down and make it look like it could be a plain old rock?

If you put your question to a flint knapper, he/she will tell you that a hand made tool is easy to spot and verify versus a plain old rock. Striking chert, flint, chalcedony or other similar material to begin the process of making a tool will create a concave depression with tell-tale impact ripple marks away from the point of impact. While nature can do this to the same material under the right circumstances, nature cannot produce a well-formed bifacial hand axe with a dozen percussion strikes on each side. Since these materials are about 7.0 hardness on the Mohs scale normal erosion won't do much to them unless they are ground up in a stream with other materials of the same or greater hardness. Where there might be erosion, the depressions and form should still be evident. If it isn't, it's a Leaverite.

[Cognito]

As mentioned on a different thread, I live about an hour's drive from the Calico Early Man site. My neighbor was a San Bernardino County councilman when Leakey was visiting the site and knew him. As a matter of fact, he tagged along with Leakey when he explored the shoreline of ancient Lake Manix (which is now dry). They found evidence of occupation at different locations on the shoreline, including fire pits, tools, etc. The lake drained catastrophically about 16,000bce. This is what the lake looked like before it drained:

I looked for and found a tool site about five miles due east of the Calico location, just up from the shoreline. There are hand axes, scrapers, drills, etc. to be found where erosion has created gulleys. I don't know who was making the tools, but they weren't Clovis.