Ancient Hunters of the Alpena-Amberley Ridge: Archaeological Investigations beneath Lake Huron

在国家科学基金会的支持下，约翰·奥谢博士和密歇根大学的一个同事团队将在五大湖现代休伦湖的沃茨下的阿尔佩纳-安伯利岭进行三个季节的考古实地工作。 该团队汇集了使用遥控潜水器（Remote Operated Vehicles）和自主水下航行器（Autonomous Underwater Vehicles），水下考古学和计算机科学的专家，以确定与斯坦利湖低水位阶段曾经居住在Alpena-Amberley Ridge地区的早期狩猎群体相关的考古遗址。 在这个时候，大约九千年前，山脊存在作为一个干燥的土地走廊延伸从普雷斯克岛在密歇根州的点克拉克地区南部安大略。 这项研究建立在之前国家科学基金会支持的一项研究的基础上，该研究确定了一系列石头结构，这些结构与历史上在北极地区用于追捕驯鹿的狩猎结构非常相似。 目前研究工作的目标是确认这些结构的人类起源，并开始鉴定和描述古人类遗址和相关文物的过程。阿尔佩纳-安伯利山脊拥有与五大湖早期被占领有关的潜在信息宝库。 与该地区的其他地方不同，这里的古老景观基本上保持着最初居住者留下的样子。没有开发、土地清理或农业破坏遗址，也没有掠夺重要或有吸引力的文物。 它不仅提供了一个机会，以确定从一个时间段，是鲜为人知的土地上，它也提供了潜在的保存完好的网站，石头建筑，植物和动物遗骸，很少被保存在五大湖地区。它还将提供一个实验室，在其中调查早期居民的生活方式的五大湖，特别是从古印第安人的过渡到古印第安人的模式系统。 这些被淹没的遗址保存下来的布局和分布，也可能让我们深入了解这些早期狩猎者的文化和组织，而这种文化和组织在陆地上很少被保存下来。除了这项工作具有非凡的人类学潜力外，这项研究还有望带来一些更广泛的好处。 这项工作将提供斯坦利湖时代地形和休伦湖湖底的详细视图，并将从这一重要时期获得重要的地质，环境，植物和动物证据。 它还将提供关于中湖环境现状的数据，特别是入侵物种的影响。 最后，这项工作汇集了来自广泛部门和机构的研究人员和学生，如密歇根大学的海军建筑和海洋工程系和人类学博物馆，韦恩州立大学的计算机科学，以及来自雷霆湾国家海洋保护区的考古学家和教育工作者。 研究工作代表了现有设备，能力和专业知识的创造性组合，以解决一系列新的问题。 这项研究的“交叉培训”好处不仅在高级研究人员中分享，而且在参与研究的研究生和本科生的跨学科小组中分享。

With National Science Foundation Support, Dr. John O'Shea and a team of colleagues from the University of Michigan will conduct three seasons of archaeological field work on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, beneath the waters of modern Lake Huron in the Great Lakes. The team brings together specialists in the use of remote operated vehicles (ROV) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), underwater archaeology, and computer science in an effort to identify archaeological sites associated with early hunting groups that once inhabited the Alpena-Amberley Ridge area during the Lake Stanley low water stage. At this time, some nine thousand years ago, the ridge existed as a corridor of dry land extending from Presque Isle in Michigan to the Point Clarke region of southern Ontario. The research builds on a prior National Science Foundation supported study that identified a series of stone structures which bear a strong resemblance to hunting structured used historically in the Arctic in the pursuit of caribou. The goal of the current research effort is to confirm the human origin of these structures and to begin the process of identifying and describing the ancient human sites and associated artifacts.The Alpena-Amberley ridge holds a potential treasure trove of information relating to the early occupation of the Great Lakes. Unlike anywhere else in the region, the ancient landscape remains much as the original occupants left it. There has been no development, land clearance or farming to destroy sites, and no looting to remove important or attractive artifacts. Not only does it provide the opportunity to identify sites from a time period that is poorly known on land, it also offers the potential for the preservation of intact sites, stone constructions, and plant and animal remains that rarely are preserved in the Great Lakes region. It also will provide a laboratory in which to investigate the life ways of the early inhabitants to the Great Lakes, and particularly the transition from Paleo-Indian to Archaic patterns systems. The preserved layout and distribution of inundated sites may also provide insights into the culture and organization of these early hunters of a kind that is only rarely preserved on land.Apart for the extraordinary anthropological potential of the work, the research promises a number of broader benefits. The work will provide a detailed view of the Lake Stanley era terrain and the Lake Huron lake bottom, and will yield important geological, environmental, botanical and faunal evidence from this important time period. It will also provide data on the current conditions of the mid-Lake environment, and particularly the impact of invasive species. Finally, the work brings together researchers and students from a wide range of departments and institutions, such as the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Computer Science at Wayne State University, and archaeologists and educators from the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The research effort represents the creative combination of existing equipment, capabilities, and expertise to address a novel new range of problems. The "cross-training" benefits of the research are shared not only among the senior investigators, but by the interdisciplinary group of graduate and undergraduate students that participate in the research.