#meadowcroft

[victusinveritas]

Some maps showing the probable peopling of the Americas.

[pennsylvaniacore]

Source: Heinz History Center

Meadowcroft Rockshelter & Historic Village, near Avella, PA.

At 19,000 years old, this could be the oldest human settlement yet discovered in North America.

[sylksheeeee-a]

smash or pass

whispers the tiniest , smallest " smash " while looking at the ground , because she is blushing.

[tasod]

Meadowcroft, Charleroi get grants

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission this week approved a $50,000 grant for Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village in Avella. Meadowcroft, Charleroi get grants

[archaeologicalnews]

Ancient Pa. dwelling still divides archaeologists

A fluke rainstorm at an ancient rock shelter in western Pennsylvania has brought a renowned archaeologist back to the site of where a furious debate was launched in 1973 over when the first humans came to the Americas.

As a young archaeologist, Jim Adovasio found radiocarbon evidence that humans had visited the Meadowcroft site 16,000 years ago. To archaeologists it was a stunning discovery that contradicted the so-called Clovis first theory, which dated the first settlement in the Americas to New Mexico about 13,000 years ago.

The question is important because it ties into bigger questions on how and why so many different cultures developed in the Americas, and whether they all descended from one group that came across from Asia or arrived in multiple waves. Read more.

[archaeologicalnews]

Mercyhurst team headed to storm-damaged Meadowcroft

Rain is drawing James Adovasio back to Meadowcroft Rockshelter 40 years after he led the first professional excavation there.

A July 19 storm, which dumped inches of rain on the Pittsburgh area, damaged part of the National Historic Landmark in Washington County that some believe is the oldest site of human habitation in North America.

Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst University Archaeological Institute, is headed to Meadowcroft today with a team of six that includes three students. They expect to spend at least 10 days digging in the still-wet sediment at the rock overhang where he first found 16,000-year-old burnt firewood in 1973.

"We'll be very carefully excavating the damaged area," Adovasio said. Read more.