On the Presumed Clovis-Age Structure at the Paleo Crossing Site, Ohio

ABSTRACT

Recent field re-investigations at the Paleo Crossing site, Ohio—a site first excavated by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the early 1990s—were aimed at relocating and expanding the original checkerboard of excavation units. It was in these that postmolds were found and inferred to be from a Clovis-age structure. Yet, unexcavated units in the checkerboard made it impossible to determine if there were additional postmolds or if they aligned or formed a pattern that would warrant the inference of a structure. To resolve these matters, we undertook new excavations at the site. Our field investigations re-located the checkerboard and expanded the original excavation. We found several additional postmolds, but their radiocarbon ages fall within just the last several centuries. Nor were we able to replicate the site’s previously-reported late Pleistocene radiocarbon ages or find other evidence to support the onetime presence of a Clovis-age structure. Claims for a Clovis age structure at Paleo Crossing are therefore not supported.

KEYWORDS:

• Clovis
• North America
• Paleoindian
• postmold
• Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to John King and the Terri-Jon Management and Development Company for their permission, interest, and encouragement of our research at Paleo Crossing, for their preservation of the site for the past quarter century, and for their continued stewardship of the site. For three field seasons at the site, Bill and Connie Dague generously allowed us the use of their barn for field equipment storage, their driveway for parking, and their water for water-screening. It was a great help in our fieldwork. We are also grateful to the field crew, especially Brian N. Andrews, Michelle R. Bebber, Ryan Breslawski, Anne Parfitt, and Ashley Rutkoski. We thank Brian Andrews, Ryan Breslawski, and Anne Parfitt for information on various aspects of the excavation, Michelle R. Bebber for making the casts of postmolds, and Matt Boulanger for his ArcGIS skills that made it possible to overlay site grids from fieldwork done 25 years apart. Finally, we appreciate the comments of the reviewers, one of whom—Henry Wright—kindly offered detailed notes and comments on the manuscript.

Notes

1 These artifact counts will be updated and increased in due course as a result of the 2016–2018 excavations.

2 There is a small, spatially-separate Archaic component at the site (Brose 1994; Eren and Kollecker 2004), but the diagnostic elements of that component are made of Flint Ridge chalcedony and Upper Mercer chert, not Wyandotte chert, the latter appearing to be limited to the site’s Clovis component (Boulanger et al. 2015).

3 See also Freeman and Hajic 1994.

4 In the text of his 1994 article, Brose consistently identifies the unit as 17-35 (Brose 1994, 63, 65). That is incorrect: the unit is 18-35, as is confirmed by his figure 4.6 and the original field forms for those units.

5 Brose (1994, 63) puts the excavation of these units early in the 1992 season. That is incorrect, based on the dated field forms.

6 Waters, Stafford, and Carlson (2020, 6) state: “Radiocarbon ages reported on charcoal from the Paleo Crossing site, Ohio, seemed to provide credible and reliable chronological control for the site (5, 29). However, recent excavations show that the reported radiocarbon ages do not accurately date the Clovis horizon (30). Most of the dated samples were collected from post-hole infillings that were described to be part of a prehistoric structure. Subsequent work at the site shows that the postmolds are part of a historic structure (30). Furthermore, the original [CMNH] dates were reported to be on charcoal but were actually on bulk sediments that were a mixture of different strata of different ages. On the basis of this new understanding of the site, all previously reported ages for Paleo Crossing are disregarded and the site is defined as undated.” These comments are problematic and disappointing in several respects. The Waters, Stafford, and Carlson (2020) citation 30 is to a presentation by Eren and colleagues (2018c) at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). However, all that was stated in the presentation was “We dated every postmold and our hearth … every date came back dating to the 1700 and 1800s a.d.” (Eren et al. 2018c, 6). Nowhere in that presentation was there any mention of “bulk sediments that were a mixture of different strata of different ages.” As noted in the text, the original CMNH radiocarbon ages are on charcoal, not bulk sediment. The Eren and colleagues (2018c) presentation did not present the results of the 2018 fieldwork, as that fieldwork took place after the conference. Finally, we gave no permission to cite this presentation and the new data contained within it, nor did Waters, Stafford, and Carlson (2020) ask for permission. While some may consider conference papers part of the public record and fair game for citation/published discussion, the comments made by Waters, Stafford, and Carlson (2020) are inaccurate and apparently based—inappropriately and, again, without the courtesy of asking permission—on a private, informal hallway conversation between Eren and Waters at the meeting regarding unpublished data and results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David J. Meltzer

David J. Meltzer (Ph.D. 1984, University of Washington) is the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. His research interests include the people, climate, and environments of late Pleistocene North America, ancient genomics and human population history, and the history of archaeology.

Brian G. Redmond

Brian G. Redmond (Ph.D. 1990, Indiana University) is the John Otis Hower Chair and Curator of Archaeology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. His research interests include Paleoindian bone modification, the development of settled village life and community organization in the lower Great Lakes, and Woodland ceremonialism in northern Ohio.

Metin I. Eren

Metin I. Eren (Ph.D. 2011, Southern Methodist University) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University and a Research Associate of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His research interests include experimental archaeology, stone tools, and hunter-gatherer archaeology.