A golf-ball-sized nodule of hematite, found at Buttermilk Creek and rubbed flat on several sides, was probably thousands of years ago used by ancestors of Native Americans to make paint; hematite when mixed with plant and animal oils produces ochre, a reddish paint used by stone age people all over the world to decorate weapons, clothing and human skin.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
This flint artifact is a broken spear point not quite finished in manufacture; it was found with thousands of other human tools and artifacts at an archaeological site about 15,500 years old northwest of Austin, Texas.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Razor-sharp flint bladelets like this one, inlaid into antler or bone hafts, would have made formidable edges in a manufactured spear point or knife.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
At first glance the stone in archaeologist Michael Waters' hand looks like little more than a flake of pale yellow flint; but ancient Americans manufactured it as a sophisticated cutting tool, with edges on both sides meticulously shaped and sharpened by human hands; Waters' dig team found it at a dig site north of Austin, in soil layers dating as old as 15,500 years ago. This and thousands of other flint pieces are going to rewrite human history in the Americas, Waters said.
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It may not look pretty, but it was sharp and useful; this flint cutting blade, sharpened on both sides by hunters thousands of years ago, would have taken only minutes to make, and would have been as handy as a butcher's blade in cutting hide and meat on a hunt.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
A crude cutting tool from the Buttermilk Creek site in central Texas. Because flint shatters into razor-sharp blades, edges deliberately made like this one, including the gouged-out concave at the bottom, would have made excellent cutting and grooving blades for making bone or wooden tools, or for cutting hides and meat.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
This flint cutting blade, sharpened on both sides by hunters thousands of years ago, would have taken only minutes to make, and would have been as handy as a butcher's blade in cutting hide and meat on a hunt.
Link to image
Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
A golf-ball-sized nodule of hematite, found at Buttermilk Creek and rubbed flat on several sides, was probably thousands of years ago used by ancestors of Native Americans to make paint; hematite when mixed with plant and animal oils produces ochre, a reddish paint used by stone age people all over the world to decorate weapons, clothing and human skin.
Link to image
Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
At first glance the stone in archaeologist Michael Waters' hand looks like little more than a flake of pale yellow flint; but ancient Americans manufactured it as a sophisticated cutting tool, with edges on both sides meticulously shaped and sharpened by human hands; Waters' dig team found it at a dig site north of Austin, in soil layers dating as old as 15,500 years ago. This and thousands of other flint pieces are going to rewrite human history in the Americas, Waters said.
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Thin and lightweight flint cutting blades like the one between archaeologist Michael Waters' fingers were a staple of a Paleo Indian hunter's tool-kit in Texas 15,500 years ago; fastened between two hafts of wood (as between his fingers) and the hunter would have a durable, razor-sharp tool for butchering meat or shaping animal hide into clothing.
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At first glance the stone in archaeologist Michael Waters' hand looks like little more than a flake of pale yellow flint; but ancient Americans manufactured it as a sophisticated cutting tool, with edges on both sides meticulously shaped and sharpened by human hands; Waters' dig team found it at a dig site north of Austin, in soil layers dating as old as 15,500 years ago. This and thousands of other flint pieces are going to rewrite human history in the Americas, Waters said.
Link to image
Thin and lightweight flint cutting blades like the one between archaeologist Michael Waters' fingers were a staple of a Paleo Indian hunter's tool-kit in Texas 15,500 years ago; fastened between two hafts of wood (as between his fingers) and the hunter would have a durable, razor-sharp tool for butchering meat or shaping animal hide into clothing.
Link to image
At first glance the stone in archaeologist Michael Waters' hand looks like little more than a flake of pale yellow flint; but ancient Americans manufactured it as a sophisticated cutting tool, with edges on both sides meticulously shaped and sharpened by human hands; Waters' dig team found it at a dig site north of Austin, in soil layers dating as old as 15,500 years ago. This and thousands of other flint pieces are going to rewrite human history in the Americas, Waters said.
Link to image
A crude cutting tool from the Buttermilk Creek site in central Texas. Because flint shatters into razor-sharp blades, edges deliberately made like this one, including the gouged-out concave at the bottom, would have made excellent cutting and grooving blades for making bone or wooden tools, or for cutting hides and meat.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Using tools the size and shape of toothbrushes or dental picks, diggers at the Texas site patiently remove dirt a few grains at a time in a soil layer where the oldest confirmed artifacts of human occupation have been found in North or South America: 15,500-year-old flint scrapers, chisels, carving tools, knife blades and more have been found.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
A dig-team surveyor, taking measurements near one of the tent-covered excavation blocks on a terrace just above Buttermilk Creek, about 50 miles northwest of Austin, Texas; the archaeological teams that worked the site (sheltered from the Texas heat under tent fabrics in the summer) have found tools and artifacts that push back the time of human colonization of North and South America to 15,500 years ago.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
This one-meter-by-one-meter square in the dirt is one of the excavation units at the Debra L. Friedkin archaeological site north of Austin, Texas; scientists since 2006 found 15,000 human artifacts in the site, tools or stone waste chips left over from the stone-age manufacture by Paleo Indians, probable ancestors of Native Americans 15,500 years ago.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Tent-covered excavation blocks on a terrace just above Buttermilk Creek, about 50 miles northwest of Austin, Texas; the archaeological teams that worked the site (sheltered from the Texas heat under tent fabrics in the summer) have found tools and artifacts that push back the time of human colonization of North and South America to 15,500 years ago.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Michael Waters, at the Debra L. Friedkin dig site north of Austin that he and other archaeologists say will rewrite American history about the first people to colonize North and South America. He and his team found human artifacts in soils that can be accurately dated to about 15,500 years ago.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Under two of their favorite banners, diggers at the Texas site patiently remove dirt a few grains at a time in a soil layer where the oldest confirmed artifacts of human occupation have been found in North or South America: 15,500-year-old flint scrapers, chisels, carving tools, knife blades and more have been found.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Using tools the size and shape of toothbrushes or dental picks, diggers at the Texas site patiently remove dirt a few grains at a time in a soil layer where the oldest confirmed artifacts of human occupation have been found in North or South America: 15,500-year-old flint scrapers, chisels, carving tools, knife blades and more have been found.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Rolfe Mandel looks closely at prehistoric mammoth and camel bones dug out of a cutbank near Kanarado in June 2003. Mandel, a geoarchaeologist from the University of Kansas, is hoping to prove that humans roamed the plains of Kansas prior to 12,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Using tools the size and shape of toothbrushes or dental picks, diggers at the Texas site patiently remove dirt a few grains at a time in a soil layer where the oldest confirmed artifacts of human occupation have been found in North or South America: 15,500-year-old flint scrapers, chisels, carving tools, knife blades and more have been found.
Link to image
Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Using tools the size and shape of toothbrushes or dental picks, diggers at the Texas site patiently remove dirt a few grains at a time in a soil layer where the oldest confirmed artifacts of human occupation have been found in North or South America: 15,500-year-old flint scrapers, chisels, carving tools, knife blades and more have been found.
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Michael Waters / Courtesy photo
Rolfe Mandel talks with fellow archaeologists at a dig site near Kanarado in June, 2003. Mandel is hoping to find signs that humans lived in the Americas prior to 13,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Rolfe Mandel looks at approaching weather while he and two University of Kansas students dig into a cutbank near Kanarado in June 2003. Mandel, a geoarchaeologist from the University of Kansas, is hoping to prove that humans were walking the plains of Kansas prior to 13,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Archaeologist Michael Waters on Monday morning, giving an interview to German public radio, from his office at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. After science writers learned what he was about to reveal, from an archaeological discovery involving ancient Americans north of Austin, Waters was taking calls from journalists all over the world.
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Geoarchaeologist Rolfe Mandel digs into the side of a cutbank on Mill Creek near Paxico in 2003 to collect soil samples. Mandel is searching for signs of human life in Kansas prior to 13,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Rolfe Mandel listens to Joe Kramer as the two walk across the high plains near Kanarado in June. Kramer, who is from Wichita, has given an endowment to five universities, including KU, that instructs those universities to try to find proof that humans lived in the Americas prior to 12,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Working from a small boat, Rolfe Mandel searches cutbanks along Mill Creek near Paxico looking for signs of Paleo Indian life. Mandel is one of five geoarchaeologists in the U.S. who have been give a $5 million endowment by former Wichitan Joe Kramer to try to prove that humans live in the Americas prior to 12,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Rolfe Mandel, a geoarchaeologist from the University of Kansas, digs into "buried soil" on a cutbank near Kanarado. Mandel was looking for signs of Paleo Indians in the area during the Ice Age. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
University of Kansas geoarchaeologist Rolfe Mandel looks closely at a pile of mussel shells sticking out of an exposed cutbank on Mill Creek near Paxico in 2003. The shells were likely part of a trash heap used by Indians 9,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Rolfe Mandel listens to Joe Kramer as the two walk across the high plains near Kanarado in June. Kramer, who is from Wichita, has given an endowment to five universities, including KU, that instructs those universities to try to find proof that humans lived in the Americas prior to 12,000 years ago. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Rolfe Mandel talks about a cross section of soil he exposed on a cut bank near Kanarado in 2003. Carol Eckles of Nebraska listens closely. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Dick Eckles of Nebraska uses a dirt strainer to look for pieces of flint that might be hidden in the soil of a cutbank near Kanarado in 2003. Eckels, who was at this dig site helping KU geoarchaeologist Rolfe Mandel, has aquired in his lifetime an impressive collection of Paleo Indian spear points. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Dick Eckles found this Paleo Indian spear point in north central Kansas in 1969. The point comes from Indians who roamed the Great Plains after the Ice Age. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
Dick Eckles has spent a lifetime searching creek beds and cutbanks for Paleo Indian spear points. (2003)
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Travis Heying / The Wichita Eagle
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