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Located in the tiny almost non-existent town of Martin, SC, the Topper site is an outcropping of chert above the Savannah River. Headed each year by Dr. Al Goodyear of SCIAA (SC Inst. of Arch & Anth), individuals from all over gather to solve one of the most intriguing mysteries of the day... How old are Americans really? (Click for video!) | |
| The earliest known humans arrived here about 12,000 years ago. We know this because of sites found in areas such as Clovis, New Mexico. Large fluted points can be found at each of the Clovis sites, along with other evidence of human existence dating back to this time period. Interestly, around this time the same lithic, or stone, technology was being made in Asia. This led archaeologists to believe that humans migrated from Asia to the Americas by land bridge or even canoe/boat/raft. |
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The story of the discovery of the Topper site is like many other sites, but on a greater scale. Dr. Goodyear has been studying Paleoindian activity in South Carolina, in particular sources of chert (a type of flint), a popular material used to create tools. In 1981, a man named Topper approached Goodyear with a possible site which turned out to be a prehistoric chert quarry. The area was tested in 1985-86 and large numbers of Clovis tools were found in different stages of creation. The excavation of units was never deeper than 80-100 centimeters, as Clovis was widely held to be the deepest human activity could be found. In 1998, Dr. Goodyear heard of discoveries in Monteverde, Chile and Cactus Hill, Virginia, claiming to have found Pre-Clovis technology. Intrigued by these sites and the idea of PreClovis, he decided to investigate on his own site. That year, he dug 40 centimeters deeper, through a layer of red soil, barren of any human activity. At the next level, strange things started showing up. | |
| At first a disbeliever in PreClovis, Goodyear studied the many tiny chert and rock fragments. "Much smaller than the tools typically used by Clovis people, the micro blades, small flakes and other artifacts were found at depths of six to nine feet. The lower level, exposed at 28 square meters, yielded some 1,000 waste flakes, 15 micro tools (mostly micro blades) and a pile of 20 chert pebbles, plus four possible quartz pebble hammer stones. Most famous from the site and generally well known is the famed "Topper Chopper" which was found in 2002. | ||
| The 2003 field season began with moving the backdirt from an area we were planning to excavate and screening the dirt. We found a bird point, some small points, pieces of tools, bladelets, and some other artifacts. |
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The soils in the area cannot be dated through radio-carbon methods, as the acidity as so high it dissolves all organic materials very quickly. Two other techniques are being used to date the lithics... thermo-luminescence and simple stratigraphy. The evidence for PreClovis peoples was brought to an amazing height this year, with the arrival of Scientific American and their filmmakers. The day they arrived, a cluster of large and small rocks were being uncovered. It was not until the day after they left that we got a good look at the whole group. | |
| While Tony Pickering was supervising the PreClovis pit the last week, I was over in the Clovis area, supervising two units chock-full of artifacts. Compared to other sites I had excavated at, this seemed like heaven. The levels were only five centimeters deep each, but in the last few, diggers were pulling up all kinds of lithics. There were a variety of cores, preforms and blanks, along with scrapers, endscrapers, sidescrapers, bifaces, unifaces, large flakes (thinning, core, some retouched or worked), burins, autre-passes, blades big and small, and an oddball Taylor point (belonging in the Archaic but possibly migrating through bioturbation). I had a level containing 25 artifacts, followed by a level of fifteen, followed by a level of six artifacts. Simply amazing and wonderful. While basking in the glory of such a successful find, I had no idea what was going on in Tony's region. At the end of the day I wandered over and found a few people working like crazy in the hot May sun, brushing sand away with toothbrushes and small brooms. Though their faces were flushed from the heat and tired from a long day, they refused to leave until the very last minute. Tony, at one point, went absolutely crazy with excitement as he announced he had found a fragment which he believed was a retouched uniface. And it sure did look like one. |
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Besides the uniface, which was proof enough for many at the site, there was one more discovery that was completely amazing, and anyone, laymen or not, who understands the laws of gravity can appreciate. There was a small boulder in the center of the cluster that was cracked and broken on several sides. Picture three other broken fragments on a slope right next to the boulder. Two are on the higher side of the slope, next to and almost under the rock. The other is laying farther down the slope, but still close. I picked up one of the fragments to examine it and clean it off (Tony had noticed this earlier) and placed it on top of the boulder, on the down slope side. It fit. There is no way possible, especially in sand as soft as this, that a rock could have rolled down the hill and broken even by water currents or force of nature, and landed like that. The piece was too close to the rock to have broken off before the boulder rolled to its resting place. It was either placed there by human hands, or by magic. Eliminating something like a large Prehistoric animal with the strength to pick that up, break it, and rearrange the pieces, it was amazing. I'm not totally convinced, but that sure was a good reason to be. | |
| Now all this may get you excited, but there is another side to the story. As with any new theory, "Pre-Clovis" habitation in the Americas is met with great resistance by archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as other scientists all over the world. The idea of a micro blade is laughable to many. Who in their right mind, primitive or not, would use tiny little blades to hunt huge animals? Were they crazy? Or maybe they were hunting tiny animals. Someone I worked with in Florida laughed and commented that they were probably "Micro-people"... Tiny tools for tiny people. |
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But it has been shown that even today there are some peoples who use micro blades, not on the end of a stick like an arrow or spear, but in rows, creating something like a serrated edge to the stick. So in essence they were creating the first known steak knives. These could have been used for cutting hides, or other types of work, even creating other larger tools. The debate roars. Someday it will be solved but not soon. For now all we can do is wait and see. Or you can volunteer to join the expedition and see for yourself! |
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Information from Hardcopy:
"The Earliest South Carolinians"
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Area Maps
Web Resources
Topper Site 2002 Fieldwork Summary
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