Discoveries might reveal origins of first inhabitants in Southeastern North Carolina

[L. Coyote]

Discoveries might reveal origins of first inhabitants in Southeastern North Carolina

Read more at: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2010/05/discoveries-might-reveal-origins-of.html

A local captain and his crew have discovered a unique rock and nearby artifacts that might help reveal how the first people came to Southeastern North Carolina thousands of years ago. Geologists said the rock, called black chert or novaculite, was previously thought to only be available in vast quantities in the mountains of Arkansas. Zulu Discovery, a local underwater exploration company, found a very dense version of the rock dozens of feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Wrightsville Beach. Chert was used by the first people in North America, called Paleo-Indians, to create the stone tools they needed to survive. Zulu Discovery owner Jim Batey holds a piece of North Carolina black chert that his crew found off the North Carolina coast The discovery of black chert off local shores could rewrite America's prehistory by supporting a theory that Paleo-Indians might have come to the continent via a coastal route rather than by land, said Phil Garwood, a geology instructor at Cape Fear Community College who first identified the local rock as chert. The exact route Paleo-Indians followed will always remain a mystery, but clues have come in the form of the tools they left behind. “This is a piece of the puzzle,” Garwood said.

[bluedigger]

1. I think this is the most overstated discovery I've seen in a long time.

Apparently they found a chert source off the coast. And some artifacts.