Paisley Caves
42.761634 - 120.553665Koordinaten: 42 ° 45 '42 " N, 120 ° 33' 13 " W
The Paisley Caves (English " Paisley Caves " or " Paisley Five Mile Point Caves " or " Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves " ) are eight caves and rock shelters in the basin of Summer Lake 8 km (5 miles) north of the town Paisley, Lake County in the U.S. state of Oregon. Archaeological finds in the caves from the years 2002/ 03, which were analyzed in 2007 and published in 2008, confirm the thesis on the early settlement of America, the beginning push but by about 1,500 years before the previously expected date. They are evidence of pre - Clovis Paleo- Indians. 2011, the well-known period of the colonization of America by Buttermilk Creek Complex finds in Texas, the bis to 15,500 12,300 years BP be dated, moved further forward.
Excavations
First introduced in 1938, Luther Cressman Sheeleigh excavations in the Paisley Caves by. It human and animal bones, tools and hearths were found.
The caves were formed by wave action of the prehistoric Lake Chewaucan that covered large parts of Central Oregon at the end of the last ice age, which saw the emergence of the modern Summer Lake. When, after the ice age, the lake level fell significantly, silt, sand and fine gravel by the wind were entered into the caves. Organic material such as bones, feces, plant parts and artifacts were introduced by humans and animals. Among the artifacts of organic material cords made of animal sinew and plant fibers, animal fur, wicker and wooden pegs were found. Because of the climate of the region with extreme drought, the organic components were in excellent condition. In addition, a few stone tools and deductions were discovered from the manufacture of stone blades. The stratigraphy was undisturbed and was dated using traditional methods to the transitional period between the Pleistocene and Holocene.
Since 2002, the University of Oregon uses the den for training excavations. During the excavations in the winter 2002/ 03 14 coprolites were found in the lowest layers, which originate from human feces of an early settlement of the cave. The excrement should calibrated 14C dates about 14,300 years old. In the finds human DNA could be identified. The mitochondrial DNA could after examination at the University of Copenhagen - with confirmation by the University of Leipzig and University of Uppsala - are assigned to haplogroups A2 and B2, which belongs to Indian native Americans. Contamination of the findings by the excavators was excluded because no one of them bears the specific genetic characteristics of indigenous peoples. A transfer of DNA from higher, more recent layers could also be excluded, because in the coprolites the DNA of the desert bush rat ( Neotoma lepida ) was missing, which is widely used in younger strata. The analyzes were published in 2008 in the journal Science.
The age of the finds is at least 1000 years before the archaeological evidence of the Clovis culture, which is considered the earliest areally widespread human culture in America. Since about 2000, the existence of Paleo- Indians pre- Clovis ( Clovis ago ) was considered as a scientific doctrine, however, were up to the publication of the finds from the Paisley Caves not directly dated human remains before. The finds from Oregon are also locally in the assumed settlement development. Accordingly, the first inhabitants of America came at the end of the last ice age over the still existing Beringia land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. The finds in Oregon suggest that they put on the Pacific coast to the south and not as an alternative believed to have used an ice-free gap between the Laurentide ice sheet and the glaciers of the Coast Mountains in the northern Yukon, Canada.
In the Paisly caves also the oldest clearly identifiable tool marks were found. The bone of a mountain goat and an unspecified identifiable ungulate show cut marks, probably from a stone tool. The bones were dated to 13,688 and 14,933 Before Present, up by 700 to 1,500 years before Clovis and match the coprolite - finds.