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The Old Copper Assemblage and Extinct Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

George I. Quimby*
Affiliation:
Chicago Natural History MuseumChicago, Illinois

Extract

There seems to be some possibility that artifacts representative of the Old Copper culture were associated with fossil animals. The evidence is inconclusive but worth noting as a stimulus for future investigations.

In his report on the geology of the Thunder Bay, Ontario, district, Tanton (1931: 83-4) mentions some interesting archaeological remains, information about which was preserved in the files of the Geological Survey of Canada. This information is as follows: in 1918, during industrial excavations, a copper spear point and about 12 mammal bones were found about 40 feet below the surface of the ground in the Kaministikwa Valley at Westfort on the edge of Fort William, Ontario.

The geological section here, according to Tanton (1931: 82) consists of bedrock and conglomerate above which is a “deposit of stratified blue clay between 60 and 90 feet thick, the surface of which has been eroded in channels, and on this uneven surface there are crossbedded sands varying from 4 to 40 feet in thickness filling up the inequalities on the clay surface and forming the plain at the present surface — 638 feet above sea level.”

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1954

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References

HOUGH, JACK L. 1953 Pleistocene Chronology of the Great Lakes Region. Office of Naval Research, Project NR-018-122. University of Illinois. Urbana.Google Scholar
TANTON, T. L. 1931 Fort William and Port Arthur, and Thunder Cape Mapareas, Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Memoir 167. Ottawa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar