The Mesa's Treasures: Mike's Grand Discovery

In 1978, Mike Kunz was conducting what he believed would be a fairly routine archaeological survey within Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. To prospective oil and gas developers, the Mesa you see pictured here looked like a good source of ordinary crushed stone for an airstrip they were planning to build nearby. To Mike's trained eye, however, the Mesa's eroded surfaces presented nothing even remotely ordinary: the "crushed stone" turned out to be stone sharpening tools, spear points, throwing stick darts and chips - the distinctive work of humans, and apparently well-armed humans at that.

As his future research would show, Mike was actually standing in a prehistoric hunters' campsite and lookout, once occupied by Paleoindians - the first known human settlers of North America. And he was about to embark on the archaeological ride of his life.

So what about the oil and gas guys' plans for the Mesa? Well, they became history, so to speak, eclipsed by something pretty intriguing: pre history.

Sifting Through The Past

Mike eagerly assembled a team of professionals and volunteers to evaluate the setting and start excavation of the site. They established a permanent reference point, subdivided four localities into 4' x 4' units, and delineated the units on the ground with short, wooden stakes. The arrangement of the units was then mapped on paper; as each individual artifact was revealed, its exact location within its unit was plotted on the map as well. Where evidence of old campfires - "hearths" - was discovered, the units were enlarged somewhat, since the hearths often straddle two or more units.

To avoid damaging what they unearth, the team members use only hand trowels to dig at the Mesa. As is typical of the Arctic, the soil in this area is thin - only 5 to 35 centimeters deep - so generally, excavations extend straight through to the underlying bedrock. At the end of each dig season, the team members fill in the resultant hole using stockpiled soil. (Any incompletely excavated units are covered with weighted plastic to await commencement of the next season's work.)

Excavated Mesa artifacts are never washed, because doing so might obliterate information not perceptible to the naked eye. For example, analysis of microscopic protein residues - from old blood or hide - on a spear-point edge might give clues as to what animal had been injured or killed with that weapon. (Or maybe just tell us that Paleoindian hunters weren't beyond nicking themselves occasionally, too.)

Just How Old is Old?

The stone (mostly chert) implements at the Mesa site were found to be mixed in with charcoal fragments from the ancient hunters' campfires - a stroke of good luck for Mike's team. The age of the charcoal was easily determined by chemists using a technique called carbon-14, or radiocarbon, dating; since the tools had been discovered within that charcoal, their ages were then established as well. So how old is old? The Mesa site was determined to have been used by Paleoindians, on and off, for a 2,000-year period - between 11,700 and 9,700 years ago, or to put it more scientifically, "before present" ("BP").

Projectile point from the Mesa Site

Hunting from the Heights

According to Mike and his research partner, Richard Reanier, the Mesa Paleoindians were nomadic big-game-hunters, who used the site as a lookout. Its 200-foot elevation provided an unobstructed, panoramic view of the surrounding 50 square miles of sparsely-vegetated tundra and the game animals that wandered across, including the now-extinct giant bison and woolly mammoth. After scouting the valleys, hunting parties could descend with their spears and lances at the optimal time for a successful kill. While atop the Mesa, the hunters also crafted, sharpened and repaired the tools needed to bring down such large beasts. Their skill with stone crafting is evident: large numbers of the well-made weapon heads have survived intact.

Bridging the Gaps

Archaeologists know that human beings evolved in the Old World (Africa, Europe and Asia), and that they likely first came to the New World (the Americas) around 12,000 years BP. They also theorize how humans eventually made their way here: at the time - the last Ice Age - a "Land Bridge" connected eastern Siberia (Old World) with Alaska (New World). So, to put it simply, the would-be immigrants probably just walked over. (Incidentally, that bridge, in the location of the present-day Bering Strait, is now under 150 feet of icy seawater.) Though evidence of more ancient New World-ers exists from sites in Pennsylvania, Chile and Brazil, concerns over dating methodology have prevented its general acceptance.

What happened after the Paleoindians arrived in Alaska has been the subject of great debate. Which way did they migrate once they'd crossed the bridge into Alaska? East? South? Across water - say, a finger of the Pacific Ocean - or over land? Through decades of searching, frustrated archaeologists could find little scientifically solid evidence of the Paleoindians' lives and movements in Alaska - until Mike's discovery at the Mesa galvanized the archaeological world. The Mesa site has yielded significant clues about how the Western Hemisphere was initially populated by humans, and where and when "classic" Paleoindian cultures might first have developed in North America.

But clues are still only clues, after all, and many questions remain to be answered: Was there only one Paleoindian cultural group that developed? Or more than one? Why haven't we found equivalent evidence of them - spear points, tools, campfires - in Siberia? How did Paleoindians give rise to more modern North American tribes?

Excavation is meticulous, painstaking work; only about 90 of the Mesa site units have been marked and excavated so far. As you read this, Mike and his team are once more hard at work for a five-week session there, braving the mosquitos, gathering prehistoric clues, following their archaeologist dreams. In the future, they hope to have answers to all these questions, and even some that haven't yet been asked.

Can We See What They've Found?

Nope, we can't see Mike's finds in person just yet - additional archaeological and chemical lab analysis has to be performed, and the theoretical implications of the discovery further refined and expanded upon.

But once every conceivable bit of information has been squeezed from these mute tools and weapons, all of the recovered artifacts will be placed on display in a public museum. There, Mike's treasures will tell their story to the generations to come.