Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Listening Point - General Discussion ::
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L.T.sully |
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Kevlar |
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wetcanoedog |
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prewar70 |
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bojibob |
Here is Walt's email response: (posted with his permission) From: Walt Okstad [mailto:wokstad@fs.fed.us] Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 9:03 AM To: Robert Doane Subject: Re: Request for Information. I think your write up was pretty inclusive of what we know to date. Norm Saari was a close friend of mine for about 45 years and you are right -He would have been very excited about the quarry finds. Except for one creationist author, the neanderthal angle has been debunked. It is enough to know that people were living up here 10,000 years ago and probably spent 3000 years working the quarries.-small groups every so often, over a very long period of time. We have recorded over 3,000 sites on the Superior (about 1200 prehistoric sites) and a high % of those sites demonstrate people were using the Knife Lake material either by going there and getting it or finding cobbles in the glacial til.--We are hoping to get some graduate theses generated in relation to these sites - which will result in good accurate information to the public on the back side. The risk of putting out to much info, too soon, is that it might encourage visitors who may intentionally or unintentionally damage the sites before they can be properly studied and recorded. ********************************************************** Walt Okstad Historian/Heritage Program Manager Superior National Forest 8901 Grand Avenue Place Duluth MN 55808 Ph# 218-626-4321 Fax# 218-626-4398 Email: wokstad@fs.fed.us "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."- Albert Einstein |
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Landstryker |
A couple months ago I was regaling my father with tales of my trip last summer to Knife Lake when he told me of an interesting story he had written about when he was a reporter for the Duluth News-Tribune back in the 70s. In '67, Norm Saari was camped on Gold Island in the South Arm of Knife Lake when he discovered some human remains partially exposed at his campsite. He carefully packed the bones out and gave them to the U of M to study. The results were inconclusive - the remains were very old (5 - 6 thousand years) and some thought they resembled Neanderthals more than modern humans...which was highly problematic given that Neanderthal remains have never been found in the Western Hemisphere. A few more surveys were conducted, and some similar sites were found elsewhere in the region, but little is known about paleoindian cultures from that far back. A couple weeks later my father attended a lecture by Lee Johnson and Billy Clayton of the Superior National Forest Heritage Program about some very recent work on Knife Lake. I haven't found any info from them online, so here's my dad's summary of the lecture. I can also post my dad's original articles about the Saari find if anyone's interested. "On Monday night, Dianne and I attended a lecture in Superior where the u.s. forest service disclosed that it had found five new stone-age stone quarry sites and stone-toolmaking-workshops on Thunder Point between the north and south arms of knife lake. One of the quarries is four acres in size and caches of stone blanks for adzes and knifes were found in caches. Stone chips from working the blanks into finished implements and spear points were found at numerous workship sites between the Thunder Point ridge top and the water line of the lake. No excavations have been done yet, only a preliminary walking survey. Dating the site has not been done either and will be very difficult to do because of the thinness of soils in the area, but the forest service archeaologist think the site is the work of paleo-indians and is very old by northern minnesota terms. Because of the remote area where they were found, the sites are literally untouched since the forest claimed them thousands of years ago. The new discoveries wered credited to Norm Saari's find, arch. work nearby in Canada and the 1999 blowdown in the BWCA. In 1975 the Cannucks did a survey of the border route looking for signs of indians and voyageurs but they also found four stone quarries on the canadian side of the north arm of knife lake. Additional work uncovered 11 more sites in 1977 and 20 in 1992. The rocks on knife lake apparently drew paleo indians because it provides exceptional material for making stone implements that isn't found anywhere else near by. The rock is called siltstone or graywacke. It was formed when rock from a volcanic range in canada eroded and formed siltbeds in lakes around knife lake. In time the silt became shale and was in turn metamorphised into flint or chert like rock by the heat from a granitic intrusion near Saganaga lake. The rock can be easily worked by a process called knaping that produces excellent sharp edges for knifes, spears, scrapers, and adzes. The forest service was aware of the canadians' work and norm saari's find but a water line survey of the u.s. side of knife lake turned up only one stone quarry prior to 1999. The blowdown and the subsequent prescribed burns to get rid of the forest fire fuel it left changed all that. Surveys of burn units done between 2002-09 uncovered 78 prehistoric sites of various kinds, including many in the Knife Lake area. a burn on thunder point in 2005 was particularly hot and removed 50 to 90 percent of the ground cover, opening up a vast area for easy inspection. In september the fs formed an interagency team of archs. to canoe into knife lake and do a walking survey of thunder point, concentrating on the area away from the lake that had never been looked at. The eight members walked the area and rapidly found five new stone quarry sites along the south facing edge of the ridge top of thunder point. one was four acres in size and had associated caches of 'blanks' for later working into knifes, spearpoints, etc. and areas where stone chips indicated the final work was done. The site is rapidly being reforested so the the window for excavation is rapidly closing. The fs will probably try to organize more work there next summer. they are looking for volunteers and I plan to do so. I've found the newspaper article i wrote about norm saari's find and will send you a copy soon. Norm died at 67 on June 20, 2008, so he'll never know what the result was." |
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Beemer01 |
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wetcanoedog |
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Ozarker |
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marsonite |
A while back there was a thread on this forum about "what do you think about on portages" and I think about that find just about every portage. |
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Red Beard |
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