ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
FROM SIBERIA across the Bering Straits, through what is now Alaska and the Great Northwest, across the North American continent to Virginia. Archaeologists believe Ice Age Indians of what is known as the Clovis culture made such a migration 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.
Shoot, they were late-comers. These folks were unworthy, it appears, to be counted among Virginia's first families.
Archaeologists recently have found evidence of human beings who lived almost 14,000 years ago near Saltville, on the border of Smyth and Washington counties in Southwest Virginia.
Artifacts and fossils were preserved over the centuries in a mud flat. Such a find would be of great scientific interest in any event, but it is of special significance because, if similarly dated sites are found to confirm the age, it is the earliest human habitation found in the Western Hemisphere - so far.
Archaeologists expect to uncover earlier sites. After all, scientists say, people coming from Asia didn't arrive in Virginia first. There are sure to be undiscovered sites across the continent.
For now, though, it looks like Virginians will be able to indulge that American passion for primacy. Not only are we Mother of Presidents - we're the grandmother of American civilization. What's more, the find is truly exciting for all it can add to the body of knowledge about humans - how they lived long before they began recording history.
Scientists will learn more when studies continue next summer. Most of the site is under water, the result of local flooding, and will have to be pumped out. But the dig already has revealed that humans killed and cooked a mastodon there.
Mastodon - you know, that big elephant-like mammal? Makes you wonder whether archaeologists and paleontologists, once the water recedes, will find evidence that these people were part of the earliest Byrd machine.
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