Thermoluminescence (TL) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Dating of Two Burned Clovis Wyandotte Chert Lithic Specimens from Paleo Crossing (33ME274), Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT

Paleo Crossing (33ME274), a Clovis site in Medina County, Northeast Ohio, USA, has played an important role in debates on the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas given its published, and assumed accurate, age of 10,980 ± 75 BP (12,717–13,020 calibrated BP, median age 12,854 cal BP). However, there are still questions surrounding the radiocarbon ages from the site. We aimed to bypass using the association of charcoal with features or artifacts, and instead date the Clovis artifacts directly via luminescence dating. The chronometric results of 9.14 ± 2.18 kya and 8.92 ± 3.03 kya suggest one of two possibilities: (1) there was a fire at Paleo Crossing sometime during the Early Archaic period or, more likely, (2) the inner parts of the lithics were partially bleached, reducing the signal, while they were exposed on the surface.

KEYWORDS:

• Stone tools
• thermoluminescence dating

Acknowledgements

We would like to especially express our thanks to John King and the Terri-John Management and Development Company for preserving the Paleo Crossing site for the past two decades and for their continued cooperation and support of this internationally significant scientific and historical landmark.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Metin I. Eren is Director of Archaeology and an assistant professor of anthropology at Kent State University, and a research associate at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Briggs Buchanan is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Tulsa.

Brian G. Redmond is Curator and John Otis Hower Chair of Archaeology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

James K. Feathers is a research associate professor at the University of Washington.

G. Logan Miller is an assistant professor of anthropology at Illinois State University.

Brian N. Andrews is an assistant professor of social science at Rogers State University.

Notes

1 At 14,000 cal BP, Lake Erie was approximately 54 meters below modern levels with only the Eastern Basin filled; the ice was well north of the basin by then (Bolsenga & Herdendorf, 1993; Herdendorf, 2013). Paleo Crossing would have remained high, dry, and very habitable.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by a University of Tulsa Faculty Research Grant awarded to BB and MIE. MIE is supported by the Kent State University College of Arts and Sciences, MIE and BB are supported by the National Science Foundation (Award ID 1649395). Research on Paleo Crossing is also supported by the QUEST Archaeological Endowment at Southern Methodist University.