Sheridan Cave is a Paleo-Indian archaeological site from the late

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 gre ...

Wyandot County, Ohio Wyandot County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,900. Its county seat is Upper Sandusky. It was named for the Wyandot Indians, who lived here before and after ...

. Glacial deposits sealed off the cave more than 10,000 years ago. Sheriden Cave is a karst

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

on a

dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...

ridge that crosses

Hancock Hancock may refer to: Places in the United States * Hancock, Iowa * Hancock, Maine * Hancock, Maryland * Hancock, Massachusetts * Hancock, Michigan * Hancock, Minnesota * Hancock, Missouri * Hancock, New Hampshire ** Hancock (CDP), New Hampshir ...

and Wyandot Counties. It is associated with the Indian Trail Caverns that opened in 1927. Sheriden Cave was discovered in 1989. The cave is unique because in addition to stone tools, there were also bone tools, remains of extinct animals, and organic matter found in the cave. Radiocarbon dating of artifacts indicate that they were used 11,000 and 12,000 years ago.

Excavation

By 1995, the opening to the cave was exposed by a bulldozer. There was an initial study of the site due to the

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

remains, but a 1995 discovery found evidence of human occupation of the cave. Kenneth Tankersley of

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in ...

led the excavation of the site, with his colleagues and the support of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

, beginning about 1997 and for about three years.

Findings

Rare bone spear points, a

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

hide-scraper, and a fluted spear point were found in the cave, radiocarbon dated to 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. The artifacts found include

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 a ...

material. Along with the artifacts were remains of the now-extinct Late Pleistocene epoch animals, including the giant short-faced bear, stag moose,

flat-headed peccary ''Platygonus compressus'', the flat-headed peccary, is an extinct mammal species from the Tayassuidae family, that lived in North-America during the Pleistocene. It was first described in 1848 by John L. Leconte. Description The flat-heade ...

, and the giant beaver. The material in the cave was well-preserved, with organic material like gourds and human feces. There was also a layer of wood charcoal. Because well-preserved material from the Paleo-Indian period is unique in the eastern United States, little is known about how Paleo-Indians lived. This site is important to understanding how early humans lived in Ohio and how that compares to other early people who crossed the Bering Strait to enter the Americas. Life restoration cervalces scotti

archaeology professor Ken Tankersley found that people occupied the cave about 11,500 years ago, at a time where there was significant climate and environmental change. A historic marker marks the area near the cave, where the entrance is fenced off. Other Paleo-Indian sites in Ohio include

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 ...

in Medina County,

Nobles Pond site Nobles Pond site is a 25-acre archaeological site near Canton in Stark County, Ohio, and is a historical site with The Ohio Historical Society. It is one of the largest Clovis culture sites in North America. At the end of the Ice age, about 10,500 ...

in Stark County, and the

Welling site The Welling site is an archaeological site of the Paleo-Indian period, meaning the time of the earliest humans. Located in Coshocton County, Ohio, it was a site for quarrying stone in the Upper Mercer chert source area. Based upon the microwear ...

in Coshocton County.

References

* Redmond, B. G. 2000. Sheriden Cave: Opening the Time Capsule. Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Explorer Magazine, Spring 2000, pp. 4–6, 14. * Redmond, B.G. and K.B. Tankersley. 2005. Evidence of Early Paleoindian Bone Modification and Use at the Sheriden Cave Site (33WY252), Wyandot County, Ohio. American Antiquity 70(3):503-526. * Redmond, B.G. 2005. Sheriden Cave, Wyandot County: Opening a Time Capsule. In Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures, by Bradley T. Lepper, pp. 48–49. Orange Frazer Press, Wilmington, Ohio and Voyageur Media Group, Inc. * Redmond, B.G. 2007. Bone Points from Sheriden Cave. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Explorer Magazine, Spring 2007, p. 7. * Tankersley, K.B. and B.G. Redmond. 1999. Radiocarbon Dating of a Paleoindian Projectile Point from Sheriden Cave, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene. 16: 76–77. * Tankersley, K. B. and B. G. Redmond. 2000. Ice Age Ohio: A Deep Cave Yields Evidence of Paleoindians, Climate Change, and the Demise of the Megamammals. Archaeology, November/December 2000, pp. 42–46. * * Tankersley, K. B., B. G. Redmond, and T. E. Grove. 2002. Radiocarbon Dates Associated with a Single-beveled Bone Projectile Point from Sheriden Cave, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:62-64. * Waters, Michael R., Thomas W. Stafford, Brian G. Redmond, and Kenneth B. Tankersley. (2009) "The Age of the Paleoindian Assemblage at Sheriden Cave, Ohio." ''American Antiquity'' 74(1): 107–11. doi:10.2307/25470540.

External links

Indian Trail Caverns and Sheriden Cave
(video) {{Native Americans in Ohio Archaeological sites in Ohio Pre-Columbian archaeological sites Pre-statehood history of Ohio Paleo-Indian period Wyandot County, Ohio Late Pleistocene Geology of Ohio

Excavation

Findings

References

Further reading

External links