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13,000 Year-Old Human Footprints Found on BC Island

March 29, 2018

Big feet. Little feet. A heel here. A toe there. A digitally enhanced photo of a footprint found at Calvert Island, British Columbia that researchers dated to 13,000 years old. Credit Duncan McLaren Stamped across the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia, are 13,000-year-old human footprints that archaeologists believe to be the earliest found so far in North America. The finding, which was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, adds support to the idea that some ancient humans from Asia ventured into North America by hugging the Pacific coastline, rather than by traveling through the interior. “This provides evidence that people were inhabiting the region at the end of the last ice age,” said Duncan McLaren, an anthropologist at the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria in British Columbia and lead author of the study. “It is possible that the coast was one of the means by which people entered the Americas at that time.” Dr. McLaren and his colleagues stumbled upon the footprints while digging for sediments beneath Calvert Island’s beach sands. Today, the area is covered with thick bogs and dense forests that the team, which included representatives from the Heiltsuk First Nation and Wuikinuxv First Nation, could only access by boat. At the close of the last ice age, from 11,000 to 14,000 years ago, the sea level was six to ten feet lower. The footprints were most likely left in an area that was just above the high tide line. “As this island would only have been accessible by watercraft 13,000 years ago,” Dr. McLaren said, “it implies that the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around, gather and hunt for food and live and explore the islands.” They found their first footprint in 2014. While digging about two feet beneath the surface in a 20-square-inch hole, they saw an impression of something foot-shaped in the light brown clay. In 2015 and 2016, they returned and expanded the muddy pit. They discovered several more steps preserved in the sediment. The prints were of different sizes and pointed in different directions. Most were right feet. When the team was finished they had counted 29 in total, possibly belonging to two adults and a child. Each was barefoot. The researchers think that after the people left their footprints on the clay, their impressions were filled in by sand, thick gravel and then another layer of clay, which may have preserved them. Using radiocarbon dating on sediment from the base of some footprint impressions, as well as two pieces of preserved wood found in the first footprint, Dr. McLaren and his team found them to be 13,000 years old. That would make them the oldest preserved human footprints in North America. “It’s not only the footprints themselves that are spectacular and so rare in archaeological context, but also the age of the site,” said Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany who edited the paper for PLOS One but was not involved in the work. “It suggests an early entrance into the Americas.” Dr. Petraglia said the footprints also provided strong evidence for the coastal movement hypothesis and he added that they may have traveled the so-called “Kelp Highway,” a hypothesis that underwater kelp forests supported ecosystems down the North Pacific coast that helped ancient seafaring people hunt, develop and migrate. “The work is important because it shows the ‘real’ people, not just artifacts or skeletal remains,” said Steve Webb, a biological archaeologist at Bond University in Australia. “However, the footprints are limited in number and don’t shed light on activities or movement that tell us very much.” He added that future hunts for footprints should keep in mind that not everyone from this time period walked around barefoot. If anthropologists are too busy searching for soles, toes and arches, they might miss clues from those who wore animal skin shoes. Reprinted from New York Times – Earliest Known Human Footprints in North America Found on Canadian Island By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR, March 28, 2018

The Cerutti Mastodon Site – A Bretz Type Controversy of Our Time

May 3, 2018

In March, while visiting San Diego, I went to the San Diego Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park and toured the remarkable Cerutti Mastodon Site exhibit. This controversial exhibit of a mastodon site is notable for its claim that the mastodon’s bones were broken by humans 130,000 years ago, making it far older than any other such site in North America. The signs at the beginning of the exhibit read as follows; “The Cerutti Mastodon discovery. A San Diego find reveals the earliest evidence of of human life in North America. In 1992, paleontologists from the San Diego Natural History Museum were surveying a highway construction site to identify and salvage any fossils that might be unearthed. “Field paleontologist Richard Cerutti spotted some bones and tusks. Exploring further, the team discovered that these were bones of a mastodon-an extinct relative of elephants. “But Richard noticed something unusual. The bones were mysteriously broken and the pieces separated. “It took 22 years for scientists to solve the riddle. Once they did, they realized that this local site is evidence of human presence on this continent 130,000 years ago-much earlier than we thought possible. “In 2014, scientists made a new discovery about the age of the Cerutti Mastodon Site. How did this happen? Scientists figured out the age of the mastodon bones using radiometric dating. It’s a way of telling how old a rock or fossil is by measuring its radioactive isotopes. “A radioactive isotope transforms into an isotope of a different element over time. If you know the rate at which the “parent” isotope transforms into its “daughter” isotope, measuring the parent-daughter ratio tells you how old the material is. “Scientists used a method that measures the ratio of the radioactive isotope uranium-234 to its daughter isotope thorium-230. Dramatic improvements in this method have made it a highly accurate means of dating very old materials- up to 500,000 years. In 2014, scientists used this method to date bones at the Cerutti Mastodon Site. “The results were clear. The bones are approximately 130,000 years old.” More than two decades after the Cerutti mastodon’s discovery in southern California in 1993, USGS scientist Dr. James Paces was sent several bones of unknown age. The specimens were important because they came from a site with abundant evidence of processing by ancient humans. Advances in analytical capabilities and the understanding of processes that incorporate natural uranium and its decay products in fossil bone provided archaeologists with a radiometric dating tool that, at least in some cases, could confidently and accurately determine ages for these older materials. After analyzing nearly 100 subsamples from multiple specimens, Dr. Paces determined that the mastodon bones—which were still fresh when someone fractured them using hammerstones and rock anvils—were covered with sediments 131,000 years ago, give or take about 9,000 years. This result indicates that some form of archaic humans arrived in the Americas more than 100,000 years earlier than scientists had thought possible. Following the dating of the bones officials at the Natural History Museum began making plans for a permanent exhibit about the discovery. The exhibit opened in 2017. It is very thorough and includes bones, alleged hammerstones, and anvil rocks from the original mastodon site as well as numerous photos and interpretive panels. When J Harlen Bretz first announced in the 1920’s his theory that the scablands of eastern Washington State had been carved out by a cataclysmic flood he met stiff opposition. What he was proposing was so far out of the mainstream of geological thinking of the time that many scientists couldn’t accept it. Schooled in uniformitarianism they believed that earth’s landforms were all created by slow gradual processes operating over time and that an event of the magnitude Bretz was proposing just wasn’t possible. They tried to come up with alternative explanations for the facts Bretz presented that fit in with their current frame of reference. Yale University geologist Richard Foster Flint famously said of certain flood features in the scablands that they presented “a picture of leisurely streams with normal discharge.” The claim by San Diego’s Natural History Museum that the Cerutti site is 130,000 years old is likewise far outside what many scientists of our time are ready to accept. Other similar sites are much younger. For example Sequim’s famous mastodon site is only 13,800 years old. If the San Diego Natural History Museum is correct it totally rewrites the history books about humans in North America. It places humans in North America during a previous interglacial period. It would establish that humans had long since been in North America during the time of the comparatively recent ice-age floods. Critics of the Natural History Museum, and there are many, point to things like what they consider to be a lack of lithics from the site. Others speculate that the signs of bone breakage observed at the site may have been caused by some other creature besides humans or by modern day construction equipment. But the Natural History Museum counters that none of the critics have provided a satisfactory alternative explanation for the evidence that they’ve presented. Cerutti and his team of researchers and the San Diego Natural History Museum remain unequivocal in their conclusion: The Cerutti Mastodon Site is a 130,000 year old archaeological site. – by Mark Sundquist, Puget Lobe Chapter “Ideas without precedent are generally looked upon with disfavor and men are shocked if their conceptions of an orderly world are challenged.” J Harlen Bretz 1928 “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – each aspect requires the strongest scrutiny,” Chris Stringer

Unearthing the Secrets of Spokane Valley: A Recap of the IAFI June Jamboree

June 11, 2024

This year’s IAFI June Jamboree delved into the fascinating geological history of Spokane Valley, contrasting it with the iconic Grand Coulee and Dry Falls, explored during last year’s Jubilee. Challenging the Landscape: Unlike the open spaces of Dry Falls, Spokane Valley presented a unique challenge – showcasing evidence of Ice Age Floods within an urban environment. Our chapter tackled this brilliantly, organizing hikes and car caravans departing from convenient public parks and commercial areas. Evening Explorations: The program’s highlights included captivating lectures. Professor Emeritus Dean Kiefer shed light on J Harlen Bretz’s Spokane associates, while renowned naturalist Jack Nesbit brought the story of the first Columbian Mammoth discovered near Latah Creek in the 1800s to life. Celebrating Success: The Jamboree culminated in a relaxed gathering at Mirabeau Meadows. Registrants, leaders, and participants exchanged insights and experiences, with a resounding appreciation for the chapter’s efforts. Comparisons were drawn, highlighting how our Spokane Valley exploration continued the excellence of the Puget Lobe’s outing at Dry Falls last year. A Delicious Finale: The grand finale was a catered Longhorn Barbecue overflowing with delicious food. Everyone left satisfied, with many even taking home doggie bags to savor the flavors afterward. Check out more images from the event in this Google Photo Album. Meet the Masterminds: Linda & Mike McCollum: This dynamic professor emerita and a research geologist duo co-led tours and car caravans, sharing their latest research on the Spokane area’s Ice Age Floods, and shaping the Jamboree’s theme. Michael Hamilton: A gifted geologist, Michael led hikes and the bus trip, encouraging questions and offering honest answers. Don Chadbourne & Chris Sheeran: Don, the chapter treasurer, managed logistics with expertise, while Chris, our media and registration guru, ensured a smooth experience. Melanie Bell Gibbs: A past president and national board member, Melanie oversaw participant check-in and badge distribution. Dick Jensen: Dick handled bus transportation and provided crucial support throughout the Jamboree. Jim Fox: The chapter vice president secured speakers and offered his assistance wherever needed. We also owe a great deal to the participant volunteers who proved invaluable in assisting us in all our efforts. Through the combined efforts of many the IAFI June Jamboree was a resounding success, fostering exploration, education, and a deeper appreciation for the Spokane Valley’s unique geological heritage. Being present with so much information and conversation among such extensive expertise was to witness the scientific process in action. Meeting people from other chapters was particularly nice, putting faces with names we know. We all learned a lot.

My Hill

October 20, 2018

As a city kid in the ‘60s my family occasionally visited my grandparents in the farm country of Washington State’s Waterville plateau. My grandfather and two uncles were wheat farmers near the small town of Withrow, the future site of which had been partly hedged in by the Okanagan lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet many thousands of years ago. Sometimes my father and I would join my uncles on the dusty 15-minute drive “out in the hills” to the sagebrush-surrounded corral, well house and large cement watering trough that served the cattle herd pastured there. Overlooking the corral was a tall hill I would sometimes climb while the trough was refilling. Warned to beware of rattlesnakes, a tiring five- or ten-minute ascent would get me to the top. Astride a large boulder, I would survey the corral far below, the sound of the pump engine distantly laboring. Around me was a panorama of other hills, about whose origins it had never occurred to me to wonder. “My hill” was steep enough that even oblong rocks I tossed down its flank would often bounce and roll clear to the bottom. On occasion, this would elicit salty, muffled hollering from Dad to cease and desist. I’m a half-century older, now, but I wish I had then understood the remarkable history of my hill. How would it have felt at that young age to know that a vast ice sheet had blanketed this terrain some 12,000 years earlier and that the hill I stood on had been its progeny? That, as that glacier began to melt, streams and rivulets had formed on its immense surface? That small sinkholes and other weaknesses in the rotting ice had allowed those waters to sculpt caverns inside the glacier? That those waters carried copious quantities of sediment and rock debris captured as the glacier eroded its way hundreds of miles southward? That my hill, like an embryo within an icy womb, had begun to grow inside one of those expanding interior caverns, ultimately to be deposited on solid ground as a kame, a lasting testament to the retreating glacier? Would I have deduced that the glacier had been at least as thick upon the land as my kame was high above the corral below me? That the erratic boulder on which I sat had been deposited on that kame like a cherry atop a geological sundae? I formed an early affection for the Withrow country because of the many relatives who, not so long ago, had peopled that farmland. It’s strange to contemplate that they are mostly gone from this land now, making it seem somewhat alien to me for their absence. And yet that hill remains, a mute sentinel having witnessed the glacier that birthed it, the quiet passage of the millennia, grandpa’s construction of that watering trough in 1948, and the naive delight of a young city kid climbing its flanks in the 1960s. Dan Jordan – IAFI Wenatchee Erratics Chapter

Frenchman Coulee

July 14, 2022

Frenchman Coulee Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail Frenchman Coulee is a short drive north and west from the Silica Road exit 123 off US-90, along the Old Vantage Road. It is one of the most beautiful features left behind by the great Ice Age Floods. Several of those massive floods, up to 700 ft (213 m) deep, created Frenchman Coulee, its Potholes Coulee neighbor to the north, and scoured the bizarrely eroded surface of Babcock Bench, preferentially eroding weaker rock out of the top of the Grand Ronde Member of Columbia River Basalt. Frenchman Coulee is actually a dual coulee and cataract system, Frenchman Coulee and Echo Basin, separated by a remnant rock blade that sports tall basalt columns attracting rock climbers like bees to flowers. The Feathers is probably the most popular climbing area in the region. Hiking trails, some barely discernible, lead along and atop the rock blade, affording spectacular views of both coulees. Frenchman Coulee also has a waterfall in the eastern section of the Coulee that is accessible by foot. Other hiking and biking trails explore the floor of the coulee and continue over 15 miles north along Babcock Bench, perched high above and adjacent to the Columbia River, past Potholes Coulee and on to Crescent Bar. Quick Facts Location: Old Vantage Highway, Quincy, WA 98848 A primarily destination for hikers, mountain bikers and rock climbers with the fascinating rock formations of the Gorge making for a great challenge

Model for a Missoula Flood

October 12, 2019

ICYMI (in case you missed it) — Floodwaters rise more than 1,000 feet as they slam into the Columbia River Gorge from the east. The torrent blasts through the narrows at 60 mph, carrying truck-size boulders and house-size icebergs. Reaching Portland, water loaded with gravel and dirt roils to a depth of 400 feet, leaving tiny islands at the summits of Mount Tabor and Rocky Butte. Geologists have spent decades piecing together evidence to tell the story of the great Missoula floods that reshaped much of Oregon and Washington between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago. Now scientists have found a way to travel back in time to watch the megafloods unfold, in a virtual bird’s eye view. Their computer simulation displays the likely timing and play-by-play action, starting with the collapse of an ice dam and outpouring of a lake 200 miles across and 2,100 feet deep. The computer model, developed by Roger Denlinger with the U.S. Geological Survey in Vancouver and Colorado-based geophysicist Daniel O’Connell, is filling gaps in scientific explanations of the floods and the baffling landforms they left, including the fabled Channeled Scablands — scars hundreds of miles long cut into the bedrock of eastern Washington and visible from outer space. The simulations also may help settle a lingering scientific controversy about what caused the repeating ice-age catastrophes. “It’s just really powerful visualization that gives a sense of the scale of the floods, how they came down through the channel system and backed up the big tributary valleys,” said Jim O’Connor, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Portland who has written extensively on the Missoula floods. He said the modeling work provides the first “really good information” on the timing of events. During the last ice age, a continent-spanning ice sheet built from massively expanded glaciers descended from the Canadian Rocky Mountains to reach deep into Washington, Idaho and Montana. Glacial Lake Missoula formed behind a miles-long dam of ice across what is now the valley of the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille rivers running from Montana to northeast Washington. The dam formed and collapsed dozens of times over a span of three thousand years. In the simulation of one of the largest possible floods, raging water quickly overwhelms the hills near Spokane and races overland to the south and west. The intense, overland flows carve the miles-long scars of the scablands between Spokane and Pasco, Wash. Thirty-eight hours later, swirling, mud-darkened waters converge at the narrowing of the Columbia at Wallula Gap, where the backed-up flow rises 850 feet above river level (1,150 feet above sea level). An immense volume of water blasts through the narrows at fire-hose velocity. Flow exceeds 1.3 billion gallons per second — a thousand times greater than the Columbia’s average flows today. Lake Missoula’s water, all 550 cubic miles of it, drains in 55 hours — less than three days — according to the model. At that time, the flood surge peaks in the Columbia Gorge at The Dalles, rising 950 feet above river level (1,000 feet above sea level), spilling over the gorge walls in places, and flooding the valleys of tributaries for miles upstream. Inundation of the Willamette Valley peaks on the seventh day after dam burst, in the simulation. Flooding reaches as far south as Eugene. Loaded with mud and gravel, the flood dumps sediment across the entire valley. Repeated floods build a layer 100 feet thick in Woodburn. Such a vast inundation, far greater than anything ever witnessed in historical time, seemed impossible to geologists in the 1920s, when J Harlen Bretz proposed that the scablands resulted from a catastrophic flood, not eons of gradual erosion. The idea didn’t gain mainstream acceptance until the 1960s. Since then, geologists have found evidence that Lake Missoula emptied catastrophically dozens of times during the last ice age. But controversy persists. A few scientists assert that the cataclysmic floods must have had multiple sources, not just an outburst from Lake Missoula. John Shaw of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, for instance, has proposed that an enormous reservoir beneath the ice sheet over much of central British Columbia boosted the flooding. The new simulation suggests that discharge from Lake Missoula alone would have been powerful enough. The simulated flood reaches peak stages all along its route that match the evidence visible today in sediment, with one big exception: At Wallula Gap, water levels in the simulation fell short by as much as 130 feet. “It’s pretty clear, if Lake Missoula is enough to hit all the other high water marks, you don’t need another source of water,” Denlinger said. Calculating the convoluted paths of such a massive flood requires an immense amount of number crunching. Simulating one flood requires more than 8 months of computer time, Denlinger said. But the computer simulation isn’t likely to end the debate. The fact that it can’t reproduce the maximum flooding at Wallula Gap leaves room for doubts. And some experts say there is direct evidence for an additional source of flood waters from beneath the ice sheet that covered the Okanagan Valley. “It is conceivable that other valleys in southern British Columbia contributed water to the scablands but the field evidence necessary to test these possibilities has not been fully documented,” said earth scientist Jerome-Etienne Lesemann at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. “There are a number of unanswered questions,” he said. “That makes the whole Channeled Scablands story a really interesting and intriguing geological puzzle.” Reprinted from The Oregonian, original article by Joe Rojas-Burke, 2010

OSU Archaeologists Find Oldest Known Projectile Points in the Americas

December 27, 2022

Oregon State University archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons. The 13 full and fragmentary projectile points, razor sharp and ranging from about half an inch to 2 inches long, are from roughly 15,700 years ago, according to carbon-14 dating. That’s about 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than the points previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site along the Salmon River in present-day Idaho. “From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeologic al record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” said Loren Davis, an anthropology professor at OSU and head of the group that found the points. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago;’ it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind.” Previously, Davis and other researchers working the Cooper’s Ferry site had found simple flakes and pieces of bone that indicated human presence about 16,000 years ago. But the discovery of projectile points reveals new insights into the way the first Americans expressed complex thoughts through technology at that time, Davis said. The Salmon River site where the points were found is on traditional Nez Perce land, known to the tribe as the ancient village of Nipéhe. The land is currently held in public ownership by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The points are revelatory not just in their age, but in their similarity to projectile points found in Hokkaido, Japan, dating to 16,000-20,000 years ago, Davis said. Their presence in Idaho adds more detail to the hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural connections between the ice age peoples of Northeast Asia and North America. “The earliest peoples of North America possessed cultural knowledge that they used to survive and thrive over time. Some of this knowledge can be seen in the way people made stone tools, such as the projectile points found at the Cooper’s Ferry site,” Davis said. “By comparing these points with other sites of the same age and older, we can infer the spatial extents of social networks where this technological knowledge was shared between peoples.” These slender projectile points are characterized by two distinct ends, one sharpened and one stemmed, as well as a symmetrical beveled shape if looked at head-on. They were likely attached to darts, rather than arrows or spears, and despite the small size, they were deadly weapons, Davis said. “There’s an assumption that early projectile points had to be big to kill large game; however, smaller projectile points mounted on darts will penetrate deeply and cause tremendous internal damage,” he said. “You can hunt any animal we know about with weapons like these.” These discoveries add to the emerging picture of early human life in the Pacific Northwest, Davis said. “Finding a site where people made pits and stored complete and broken projectile points nearly 16,000 years ago gives us valuable details about the lives of our region’s earliest inhabitants.” The newly discovered pits are part of the larger Cooper’s Ferry record, where Davis and colleagues have previously reported a 14,200-year-old fire pit and a food-processing area containing the remains of an extinct horse. All told, they found and mapped more than 65,000 items, recording their locations to the millimeter for precise documentation. The projectile points were uncovered over multiple summers between 2012 and 2017, with work supported by a funding partnership held between OSU and the BLM. All excavation work has been completed and the site is now covered. The BLM installed interpretive panels and a kiosk at the site to describe the work. Davis has been studying the Cooper’s Ferry site since the 1990s when he was an archaeologist with the BLM. Now, he partners with the BLM to bring undergraduate and graduate students from OSU to work the site in the summer. The team also works closely with the Nez Perce tribe to provide field opportunities for tribal youth and to communicate all findings. The findings were published in the journal Science Advances. Reprinted from Oregon State University Newsroom, STORY BY: Molly Rosbach, SOURCE: Loren Davis

Asteroid That Decimated the Dinosaurs May Have Struck in Spring

February 23, 2022

Spring may have been when a roughly seven-mile-wide asteroid struck the Earth, immediately triggering the mass extinction that would wipe out 76 percent of known species. That key piece of timing doesn’t come from dinosaurs, but from the fish that swam in the waters dinosaurs drank from. By studying the fossil bones of these fish and comparing them to their modern counterparts, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam paleontologist Melanie During and colleagues have come to the conclusion that the impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs most likely occurred in the spring. Like their modern counterparts, ancient sturgeons and paddlefish of the Hell Creek Formation, found in the “Tanis” fossil site in North Dakota, grew in cycles. Those researchers proposed that this place contains critical clues about the first minutes and hours of what transpired after impact—including well-preserved fossil fish that contain asteroid impact debris in their gills. During warmer months when food was plentiful, the ancient fish grew and added more bone tissue just as their modern relatives do. During cooler, harsher months, however, their growth slowed and left a line—called a line of arrested growth, or LAG—in their bones. In addition, the bones of these fish contained signatures from oxygen and carbon isotopes. The geochemical signals in these isotopes were influenced by what the fish were eating and the waters they swam in, a natural phenomenon that has been used by paleontologists to study everything from when early whales took to the seas to what plants ancient herbivores ate. Details of the prehistoric sturgeon and paddlefish bones indicate that these fish had not yet hit the peak of their annual growth spurt, which would be expected during the warmest parts of the year. The carbon isotope ratios in the paddlefish bones also match up with this pattern. If these ancient fish lived according to a similar annual cycle as their living relatives, then the signatures in their bones hint that they perished in spring. The fact that tiny spherules thrown into the air during the impact were found in their gills places the time of death within minutes or hours of the end-Cretaceous impact. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that the impact took place while the Northern Hemisphere was in spring and the Southern Hemisphere was still in winter. Read more in the Smithsonian Magazine article by Riley Black that this was taken from, or a Science Alert article that also recaps the paper published in Nature.

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The Cerutti Mastodon Site – A Bretz Type Controversy of Our Time

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