HUNTING WHERE ANCIENTS WALKED

I ran across a story from Middle Eau Claire Lake in north-central Wisconsin in which a vacationer out for a swim in 2005 found fossilized parts (including huge antlers) of an elk that may be radiocarbon dated at ten thousand years old. Archaeologists and scientists are now studying the find, and the Barnes Area Historical Association (Barnes, Wisconsin) is trying to raise money to build a museum to display the elk in. The Daily Press in Ashland, Wisconsin recently printed details about the discovery, and you may be able to access the information through the online version of that newspaper.

The story kindled a spark from my life-long interest in archaeology. I’ve found evidence of Native-American presence in places I hunted, and I suppose the ancients were there for the same reason I was: to chase deer or other wild game.

This is a partial list of things I have observed, both in wild, inaccessible places like the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area in Minnesota and Canada, and simply “out in the woods” when hunting or hiking near places I have lived in throughout the upper Midwest.

Rocks chipped or flaked to form crude tools.
Pictographs (drawings chipped into stone).
Layers of charcoal (indicating a fire) in sandy, washed out riverbanks.
Cairns (rocks balanced to signify a path or other signs).
Very old stacked cedar poles (used seasonally for framework on temporary shelters).
Ancient mines, rock quarries, and rock gathering spots (for tool making).
Cached “pine knots” (used for cooking fires).
Fish funnels in creeks (places where fish were driven through narrows and caught in woven reed or wood nets).
Boulders stacked to line up with certain celestial markers (stars, planets, sunrise).

One of the most interesting finds with the Wisconsin elk was a flaked stone spear point apparently used by the hunter who brought the animal down. The bones also show marks created by butchering it by using stone tools. You might be surprised at how effective an edged tool made of “glassy” stone can be for cutting meat, skinning, and scraping hides.

Archaeologists studying the techniques they felt were used in this case actually had students from the Experimental Archaeology Working Group (UW-Milwaukee) butcher a deer carcass using stone tools so the marks could be compared with those on the elk.

In future blogs, I’ll detail some of the things I have seen. Telling tales of my observations around a campfire after the hunt seems especially appropriate when I know I have walked the same ground as the ancients.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008