Archaeologica.org

From the posts here, I see that truly nice guy Brad Lepper is at it again, this time sharing with us his views on the antiquity of man in the area that is today known as the state of Ohio, along with his views on Clovis first.

Here's an introduction:
1) extend arms out from side, and turn the palms of your hands down towards the ground.
2) lower arms
3) move arms towards body until they make contact.

Complete this exercise,
then learn how to find Clovis sites in Ohio.

After that exercise is completed,
contact me for a detailed analysis on how to find very early pre-clovis in Ohio.

Brad may want to start by trying to find a few of the the toilets at the "Hopewell" ceremonial complexes in Ohio before moving on to more complex topics.

I would prefer he do some investigating on the pygmy graveyard in Cochocton, Ohio.

He has shown a trait of taking on unpopular ideas.

?

I read every page-one hit on him @ google & could find nothing to take umbrage at.

Re-dating the Serpent Mound to Fort Ancient ?

Sorry for not pointing you in the right direction, uniface.

It was Brad's (Dr. Lepper's) recent pieces in the Columbus Dispatch from the news section here at the archaeologica bbs. I have a cold and am feeling not so hot, but I suppose that is no reason to take it out on an archaeologist doing as best he can in Ohio. On the other hand, perhaps when I am feeling better I'll be able to be more succinct about the defficiencies in Dr. Lepper's "apparat".

As far as any digging at Coshocton, the ASO folks in Zanesville know more about the site and could probably do a better job on it than the OHS or OSU, in my opinion.

PS - I am serious about the toilets. That would be a great project for Dr Shield's students at OSU. Use of ground scanners, etc.

I hope this doesn't piss them off too much, as they are both nice people, and both have treated me reasonably well at different events, but frankly my evaluation of Dr. Shields and Dr. Lepper is that neither of them could find a mastodon even if I gave them driving directions to it. (Arghhh!)

So as far as any work on locating any possible Teas River sites and the possibility of very early man in Ohio, one can simply forget it.

Personally, I'd rather talk with either Pacheco or Hogge about the use of the area, as from what I've read of their work both are better archaeologists.

I am serious in my suggestion that Dr. Lepper and Dr. Shields should try to locate and excavate some of the ancient toilets at the Newark complex. Dr. Shields has a class full of students at his disposal for the job.

My thinking is that if neither of them can do that simple task, then both of them should be considering other fields to employ their talents in.

End of rant.

E.P. If pre-Clovis sites are so easy to find, and especially Clovis sites are easy to find in Ohio, maybe you could give us a clue how to find them. The only stratified datable Clovis site I know of in Ohio is Sheriden Cave. That was accidentally found by the land owner excavating a filled in sinkhole to 40 feet deep looking for an extension to a cave system that had been a commercial tour site for 60 or 70 years. And, it was only a stopover or temporary shelter that contained a handful of artifacts. Had it been a surface site, the two bone points would have disintegrated and the only remaining trace would be the small fluted point and a large scraper, and they wouldn't have garnered any scientific interest at all.

Now, there are any number of other sinkholes in the same karst formation. I suppose with unlimited funds, one could start excavating them to see if any others had been open to the surface at a time that Clovis or earlier inhabitants of the area had visited them. The Ohio Paleo Crossing Clovis site was strictly a surface find site. As extensive as it was, I don't believe they found any features datable to the Clovis area. Unless someone can come up with an identifiable pre-Clovis tool kit, the chances of finding traces in Ohio of pre-Clovis habitation sites are pretty slim, or Clovis habitation sites for that matter.

You mentioned the Teays Vally, wasn't that filled in one or two glaciers before the Wisconsin. And I think it's deeper than Sheriden was.

BTW, Brad can surely defend himself if he felt it worthwhile, but he led the excavation of the Newark Mastodon found in 1989. Did you happen to provide the directions for him?

I do follow this Forum, but rarely post. I have grown to appreciate your depth of research and knowledge of all things prehistoric, so I'm not trying to slam you. But, being interested and involved in some of the research here in N.C. Ohio, I am a little curious about your comments.

mispost - EP

dirtscratcher wrote:E.P. If pre-Clovis sites are so easy to find, and especially Clovis sites are easy to find in Ohio, maybe you could give us a clue how to find them.

In as much as neither Brad nor Dick can find clovis, hoping for them to find pre-clovis is pretty much an empty hope.

As far as mastodons go, I sell a little pamphlet for $5 on the Newark area - that's all the clues I want to share with the public. Clovis fetches $1,000 per inch, and not everyone is ethical. As a matter of fact, Brad wanted to "borrow" a local Newark field collector's clovis points for "examination" in the OHS lab in Columbus. I don't think that is going to happen.

Now if either Brad or Dick will find me some "Hopewell" toilets at the ring or Octagon golf course, I'll be happy to sit down over a cup of coffee with them and give them driving directions.

I hope Ken Tankersley's health is holding up, and the formal publication of Sheriden Cave comes out soon.

dirtscratcher wrote:Unless someone can come up with an identifiable pre-Clovis tool kit, the chances of finding traces in Ohio of pre-Clovis habitation sites are pretty slim, or Clovis habitation sites for that matter. You mentioned the Teays Valley, wasn't that filled in one or two glaciers before the Wisconsin?

If we have pre-clovis along the Atlantic Ocean, then it got there somehow, and it was not from Europe (sorry uniface).

Climate (and glaciers) vary over time.
Hint 2: Certain geological features do not.

dirtscratcher wrote: BTW, Brad can surely defend himself if he felt it worthwhile, but he led the excavation of the Newark Mastodon found in 1989. Did you happen to provide the directions for him?

The Rte 13 golf course folks found it, Brad excavated it. The "Newark Mastodon" now sits in Tokyo, and I'll be f*cked if the next one ends up anywhere but in Newark. By the way, Marietta wants Rufus Putnam's clothes back from OHS, and Lancaster wants their artifacts back as well.

dirtscratcher wrote: I do follow this Forum, but rarely post. I have grown to appreciate your depth of research and knowledge of all things prehistoric, so I'm not trying to slam you. But, being interested and involved in some of the research here in N.C. Ohio, I am a little curious about your comments.

Brad thinks I'm crazy, going around talking about impact and the first people's memories of them. Dick is much the same, but it has to be said that both are polite about it.

Neither one of them know as much about Native peoples as Cyrus Thomas did.
Neither of them know Shawnee.

If I only had a dollar, for each time I've been given cr*p about recent impacts.
It would be a real treat if someone ever said, "You were right, and I was wrong."

Right now, I've had a stroke and I need some help with some Mayan writings, but has any one good helped?
No.
Has just about every obstacle been put in my way in getting to them to work the problems?
Yes.
Anyone send me money to go to the Mayan Seminar in Texas?
No.

Is my work being ripped off and used by various cranks and con men?
Yes.
(Brad has my sympathy for showing up in "Ancient Aliens".)

Did the MacArthur folks send me any money?
No.

You know, I'd rather be on Crete or in Spain or Vicksburg right now, but Tony DeRegnacourt told me I'd end up having to work through paleo and clovis.

I suppose I just have to keep in mind that I only have a few more months of this sh*t to go through.

The present generation will not [fly], and no practical engineer would devote himself to the problem now. — Worby Beaumont, engineer, when asked if man will fly in the next century, 12 January 1900.

There is no basis for the ardent hopes and positive statements made as to the safe and successful use of the dirigible balloon or flying machine, or both, for commercial transportation or as weapons of war. — Rear-Admiral George Melville, Engineer-in-Chief USN, 'North American Review,' December 1901.

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. — widely attributed to Simon Newcomb, 1902, but with no source information

Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never be able to cope. . . . The example of the bird does not prove that man can fly. Imagine the proud possessor of the aeroplane darting through the air at a speed of several hundred feet per second. It is the speed alone that sustains him. How is he ever going to stop? — Simon Newcomb, in The Independent: A Weekly Magazine, 22 October 1903.

We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money involved in further airship experiments. Life is short, and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly. . . . For students and investigators of the Langley type, there are more useful employments. — New York Times editorial page of 10 December 1903.

It is complete nonsense to believe flying machines will ever work.— Sir Stanley Mosley, 1905.

The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration of any physical fact to be. — Simon Newcomb, professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science, 1906

Note the dates for some of the comments. So even though the world wide layer of impactites from the Holocene Start Impact Event has been demonstrated (with duplication), there is still plenty of time left for anyone who wishes to to publicly make their own contribution to the "distinguished expert"'s list that has been accumulated so far.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas (2005 - 2006)

Hi Dirtscratcher,
Xlnt name btw. I think one of the problems about finding pre-Clovis evidence is that archaeologists are generally unfamiliar with the by-products of non-Clovis techs, especially bipolar flaking, and block-on-block flaking to some extent. Cactus Hill, VA and possibly the site in TX, had some evidence of a pre-Clovis approach to regular percussion flaking. But it might be a wise thing to begin breaking rocks with the bipolar technique to get a grasp of this other class of artifacts, flakes and chunks that look very strange to the un-initiated; but there is also a lot of overlapping forms between percussion and bipolar. Only an idea. You usually find bipolar in pebble and cobble industries. Don't know what you have in Ohio, but if there are old quartzite assemblages it might be a good place to look for bipolar flaking.
This is an old website I posted years ago as an intro to bipolar.
http://earthmeasure.com/bipolar/index_bipolar.html

http://science.time.com/2012/12/04/anci ... picks=true

So if Brad or Dick can find any one of the ancient toilets used at the Newark Complex or for that matter at any ancient "Hopewell" complex,

Fame, the PNAS, and TIME magazine await.

In this article, they say that the sterols can be used to locate ancient toilets. That's the first time I've heard that , and I don't know how that technique works.