Nobles Pond site is a 25-acre archaeological site near
Canton in
Stark County, Ohio
Stark County is a county located in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 374,853. Its county seat is Canton. The county was created in 1808 and organized the next year. It is named for John Stark, an officer in th ...
, and is a historical site with The Ohio Historical Society. It is one of the largest
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...
sites in North America. At the end of the
Ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
, about 10,500 to 11,500 years ago, a large number of
Paleo-Indians, the first people to live in Ohio, camped at the site. Artifacts on the site, primarily excavated by volunteers, provide insight into how they made and used tools, obtained materials, and how they lived.
It is an important site because it is one of the early Paleo-Indian sites in the Midwest.
There is a historical marker at the site by
The Ohio Historical Society. since 1992. Nobles Pond is now in a park for a residential area in
North Canton, Ohio
North Canton is a city in central Stark County, Ohio, United States. The population was 17,842 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Canton–Massillon metropolitan area.
History
In 1831, the Community of North Canton first began as the Villag ...
.
Excavation
An emergency excavation on the site began in 1988 and was estimated to be completed in 1990. Dr. Mark Seeman led an investigation of the site with students and volunteers before a housing development was built on the site.
In nine places near Nobles Pond, they found stone tools grouped in clusters and an area that indicated either areas for specific activities or house floors of a structure. Artifacts found at the site were analyzed and curated.
Analysis
A study of the ways in which the stone tools were made was published by Michael J. Shott and Mark F. Seeman. The source and variety of the stone for tools can tell a lot about a group, whether it is sedentary with base camps or travels from place-to-place to find food. It could also identify whether a group of people engages with other groups of people.
Brian Patrick Kooyman states that “The Noble Pond occupants were undoubtedly mobile foragers and the lithic material is wholly dominated by non-local lithic material, conforming to the expected pattern of use of non-local material by mobile groups.
People of the Clovis culture are generally thought to be big game hunters, but analysis of eight Clovis points stained with blood have down that the Paleo-Indians of the Nobles Pond site hunted a wide range of animals. They were found to have hunted
elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
,
caribou
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
,
deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
,
bison
Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.
Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...
,
bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...
, and
rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
.
Some points had more blood stains from multiple animals. While there is some surprise that Paleo-Indians ate rabbit, the
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
people from northern Ontario who have a diet that relies to a great extent on rabbit, as noted by anthropologist Bruce Winterhalder.
Large congregation sites
Another Paleo-Indian site in northern Ohio,
Paleo Crossing site
Paleo Crossing site, also known as the Old Dague Farm site, is an archaeological site near Sharon Center, Ohio in Medina County where Clovis artifacts dated to 13,000 years ago were found. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History conducted an ex ...
, had evidence of a congregation site for groups of people. The Nobles Pond site had a larger congregation site for nomadic groups. Other sites with large-scale Paleo-Indian occupation include the
Vail site
The Vail site is a prehistoric Native American archaeological site in the remote north of Oxford County, Maine. It is located along an ancient course of the Magalloway River in an area that is occasionally under the waters of the man-made Azisc ...
in Maine,
DEDIC/Sugarloaf Site in Massachusetts, and in Ontario—
Udora site
Udora is a small rural community in Ontario, Canada. It has a population estimated to be around 500 and is situated in the most south-eastern part of Georgina, split between York Region and Durham Region. The town was originally known as Snoddon ...
,
Parkhill site, and Fisher.
References
Further reading
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External links
Nobles Pond site
{{Prehistoric technology
Archaeological sites in Ohio
Stark County, Ohio
Pre-statehood history of Ohio
Paleo-Indian period
Ohio History Connection