Early Man in Washington County, PA

This is the "not even close to being as famous as it ought to be" Meadowcroft Rockshelter

My recent bout of Pennsylvania-based tourism ended with a long-awaited visit to Meadowcroft Rockshelter three miles outside of Avella, Pennsylvania.

A couple of years ago, I was watching a lecture video on pre-Inca civilizations in South America because ... well, I'm the compleat nerd and that's the sort of thing I do for entertainment. The lecturer was talking about the exciting new archaeological excavations taking place in the northern Peruvian desert that are re-writing the history of how man arrived in the New World.  For years, the prevailing theory was that when the land bridge over the Bering Strait connecting Kamchatka (for you Risk takers) to Alaska, the predecessors of the American Indian crossed the land bridge and raced down to Clovis, New Mexico. Corroboration for this theory was provided by the fact that "Clovis points," spear tips found in the Clovis area, was the earliest verifiable sign that man had entered into the New World.

The lecturer said that there was new evidence disputing that Clovis was the oldest sign of human habitation in the New World, mentioning, specifically, Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania.

Meadowcroft?  Pennsylvania?  I had never heard of it.  So I google-mapped it and holy [moly], Meadowcroft is only about 30 miles or so from where I grew up in Beaver Falls, PA.  Yes, the earliest sign of human habitation in the entire two-continent New World is a few miles from where I grew up.  And I never knew about it.

It's a recent discovery made in the late 1970s that has turned the archaeological world on its head.  Meadowcroft offers proof of a human presence in the New World going back at least 16,000 years, possibly as many as 19,000 years.

Welcome to Meadowcroft in Washington County, PA!

Off to the Visitors Center to pay my admission fee.

I learned that the next tour of the actual Meadowcroft Rockshelter was at 2:00PM, so I had some time to kill.  That means I had time to explore first the "modern" areas of Meadowcroft.

A Monongahela Indian Village from the 1570s and a Pioneer Village from the 1770s.  Not just modern, but ultra-ultra modern.  Relatively speaking.

Let's first take a stroll through the woods to the 1570s Monongahela Indian Village.

This is the inside of their home.  Spartan, but it's plush luxury compared to life in the rockshelter 16,000 years ago.

Not sure of the reason one is a dome and the other is lightbulb-shaped.

This fake deer is for target practice.  You use an atlatl and try to throw a spear at the deer.  So the whole tribe can eat protein for supper.  I made three attempts.  I hope my tribe is vegetarian.

I had better luck in the Pioneer Village circa 1770s:

Yes, I did in fact hit the target with my first axe throw.  (Full disclosure:  it was the lighter axe.)  I should've stopped there.  The second, third and fourth throws were beyond pathetic.

And, with that, it was Rockshelter time!

First a video movie.  The movie was a "talkie," so I know this was technology from after the first settlement at Meadowcroft.

Then a self-drive and self-park down at the Rockshelter to climb some stairs.

Nice view, which must be part of the reason Early Man liked it so much.  Cross Creek is at the base of the rockshelter.  Then our small group from all over the world (the U.K., Las Vegas, and New Jersey) got to hear the inside story of Meadowcroft Rockshelter.

Albert Miller found the first set of artifacts here in 1955.  He must have had an inkling that there was some significance to his find.  He kept the place a secret, however, because he did not want to see it looted.  He searched for an archaeologist who would conduct a proper excavation.  It took almost two decades, but he found James Adavasio, then of the University of Pittsburgh,

This was not a village.  It was literally, a rockshelter, a shelter made of rock.  Nomadic groups who stay here for a few days moving from one site that has disappeared into the ravages of time, to some other equally lost-in-time site.

Look closely and you can see tags.  The tags indicate the multitude of layers, each one going back thousands of years.

The erosion of the rock roof buried the artifacts and signs of these nomads who visited the site over thousands of year.  The artifacts were then perfectly preserved.

A more solid modern roof protects the excavation from the elements.  Also, you will note, the right side of the rockshelter has not been excavated.  All the secrets that Meadowcroft can reveal with current archaeological tools has been unearthed and revealed.  The remainder is preserved for future generations who may have better tools.

And here is me:

Meadowcroft has been listed as a National Historic Landmark only since 2005.

Amazingly, it was so close to where I grew up, yet its secrets were still secret when I graduated high school in 1978.