The Adams County Paleo-Indian District is an
archaeological site near
Sandy Springs in
Green Township,
Adams County,
Ohio,
United States.
Excavation
Approximately 10,000 years
BP, the site was repeatedly occupied by groups of
Paleo-Indians, who took advantage of its location near salt springs to hunt local wildlife.
Artifacts found at the site are concentrated in multiple small
midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...
s that are believed to represent individual campsites. Among these artifacts are
gravers,
scrapers, and
projectile points.
[Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 1.]
Within a few years of the site's discovery, a 1982 report noted that it had yielded more than seventy fluted points
[Seeman, Mark F., and Olaf H. Prufer. ]
An Updated Distribution of Ohio Fluted Points
, '' Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology'' 7.2 (1982): 155-169. (elsewhere identified as
Clovis points), which the report's authors declared made it an example of "unusual size and complexity".
Other researchers have designated them as Gainey Points.
[Bennett, Jim, and Nils Nilsson., "Practical Observations about the Sandy Springs Paleo Site", Central States Archaeological Journal, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 21–24, 2018] Such large sites as Adams County, or "Sandy Springs" as it is also known, are rare among Paleo-Indian sites; most discoveries related to the people are isolated finds,
although a comparable archaeological district known as the
Welling site has been discovered in
Coshocton County, Ohio. It appears that southern Adams County was highly significant for such primitive peoples because of its geology:
one of Ohio's few regions with combined
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
and
limestone bedrock, the Sandy Springs area is geologically similar to the
Kentucky Bluegrass, making it a natural migration route for herds of animals roaming the Bluegrass.
As a result, Paleo-Indian hunters learned to use the area to watch for and ambush large herds of animals, which would have been travelling slowly due to the large river.
Recognition
The Adams County Paleo-Indian Archeological District is particularly valuable as a well-preserved example of the Paleo-Indian period. It is believed that the portion of the site that has been excavated is smaller than the portion that has not yet been excavated.
In recognition of its archaeological significance, the site was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Approximately is included in the landmarked area.
See also
*
Paleo Crossing site
References
{{National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places in Adams County, Ohio
Archaeological sites in Ohio
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
Paleo-Indian archaeological sites in the United States