Early Man Site
One of the more unique road signs you'll see between L.A. and Las Vegas is one that announces the nearby presence of an "Early Man Site."
[Image: The excavation pit at Calico; photo by D. Griffin].
"One of the most controversial archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere," we read, courtesy of the Calico Early Man Site website, "is located in the Mojave Desert of California, near the town of Barstow. The site, in low hills east of the Calico Mountains, displays evidence for the presence of tool-making humans in the Americas some 200,000 years ago, far earlier than any Western Hemisphere site that has been accepted by the majority of the archaeological community."
Though no human remains have ever been found there, and the stone tools themselves are suspiciously rock-like, "It is hoped that [the region] may someday reveal early human remains, becoming America's Olduvai Gorge."
"The history of this site dates back to 1942," the Bureau of Land Management explains, "when amateur archaeologists discovered what they believed to be primitive stone tools in this area. Fragments were embedded in the sediments of the shoreline of an ancient Pleistocene Era lake, called Lake Manix."
Incredibly, famed anthropologist Louis Leakey once worked at the site – though his wife, Mary, was apparently so unconvinced by its early dating that she tried to prevent Louis's excavations at Calico from being published.
[Image: A Calico Cutter – but is it a rock or a shaped tool?].
The phrase "Early Man Site," in and of itself, also interests me, in all of its politically incorrect self-assuredness. There appears to be only one other "official" Early Man Site in the world, and that's a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Indonesia. Aside from these two places, the phrase is simply used as a descriptive term for definable areas of prehistoric anthropological settlement.
But the seeming incongruity – the quasi-Ballardian nature – of seeing an Early Man Site so close to the American highway system (between L.A. and Vegas, no less) would not sound real if you had invented it.
Looking into this strange coincidence of American roadworks and ancient humanity further, I soon discovered that Caltrans – the California Department of Transportation – actually maintains a series of ongoing archaeological projects, including an official Archaeology Branch. They study landscape phenomena such as "the ruins of linear structures" (i.e. "road ruins").
There is even a Caltrans guide for how to identify a prehistoric site.
All in all, I sense a novel here.
A lonely road crew in the overwhelming heat of a remote California valley, on the shores of an ancient lake, have been working on what will someday be the street grid for a new housing development. However, while laying down that vast geometry, complete with cul-de-sacs that won't be inhabited for at least another six years, they uncover what they believe to be prehistoric stone tools.
A famous archaeologist, who has begun to fade ever so slightly into senility, is called in by the Caltrans Archaeology Branch to consult on these discoveries – and, for scientifically inexplicable reasons, he in fact confirms, sitting with an engineer in a roadside pick-up truck, that these are previously unrecognized human artifacts, and that they might date from as much as 250,000 years ago. As such, they would radically predate any known appearance of human beings on the continent – and their discovery would thus give his now-moribund career a much-needed final boost.
His wife, on the other hand, herself a well-known anthropologist who, despite her age, shows no signs of dimming, tries desperately to prevent him from ruining his career – and, by extension, her own – by going public with the theory. This only enrages him.
Out of spite, he rejoins the desert road crew, watching them lay down in dust those outlines of a coming suburbia, while he scratches through gravel looking for the origins of humankind.
[Image: The excavation pit at Calico; photo by D. Griffin]."One of the most controversial archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere," we read, courtesy of the Calico Early Man Site website, "is located in the Mojave Desert of California, near the town of Barstow. The site, in low hills east of the Calico Mountains, displays evidence for the presence of tool-making humans in the Americas some 200,000 years ago, far earlier than any Western Hemisphere site that has been accepted by the majority of the archaeological community."
Though no human remains have ever been found there, and the stone tools themselves are suspiciously rock-like, "It is hoped that [the region] may someday reveal early human remains, becoming America's Olduvai Gorge."
"The history of this site dates back to 1942," the Bureau of Land Management explains, "when amateur archaeologists discovered what they believed to be primitive stone tools in this area. Fragments were embedded in the sediments of the shoreline of an ancient Pleistocene Era lake, called Lake Manix."
Incredibly, famed anthropologist Louis Leakey once worked at the site – though his wife, Mary, was apparently so unconvinced by its early dating that she tried to prevent Louis's excavations at Calico from being published.
[Image: A Calico Cutter – but is it a rock or a shaped tool?].The phrase "Early Man Site," in and of itself, also interests me, in all of its politically incorrect self-assuredness. There appears to be only one other "official" Early Man Site in the world, and that's a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Indonesia. Aside from these two places, the phrase is simply used as a descriptive term for definable areas of prehistoric anthropological settlement.
But the seeming incongruity – the quasi-Ballardian nature – of seeing an Early Man Site so close to the American highway system (between L.A. and Vegas, no less) would not sound real if you had invented it.
Looking into this strange coincidence of American roadworks and ancient humanity further, I soon discovered that Caltrans – the California Department of Transportation – actually maintains a series of ongoing archaeological projects, including an official Archaeology Branch. They study landscape phenomena such as "the ruins of linear structures" (i.e. "road ruins").
There is even a Caltrans guide for how to identify a prehistoric site.
All in all, I sense a novel here.
A lonely road crew in the overwhelming heat of a remote California valley, on the shores of an ancient lake, have been working on what will someday be the street grid for a new housing development. However, while laying down that vast geometry, complete with cul-de-sacs that won't be inhabited for at least another six years, they uncover what they believe to be prehistoric stone tools.
A famous archaeologist, who has begun to fade ever so slightly into senility, is called in by the Caltrans Archaeology Branch to consult on these discoveries – and, for scientifically inexplicable reasons, he in fact confirms, sitting with an engineer in a roadside pick-up truck, that these are previously unrecognized human artifacts, and that they might date from as much as 250,000 years ago. As such, they would radically predate any known appearance of human beings on the continent – and their discovery would thus give his now-moribund career a much-needed final boost.
His wife, on the other hand, herself a well-known anthropologist who, despite her age, shows no signs of dimming, tries desperately to prevent him from ruining his career – and, by extension, her own – by going public with the theory. This only enrages him.
Out of spite, he rejoins the desert road crew, watching them lay down in dust those outlines of a coming suburbia, while he scratches through gravel looking for the origins of humankind.
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2 Comments:
Ha ha! But the old man has been reading some Walter Benjamin and, increasingly, he is worried that the old woman has become a positivist fanatic. Eventually his efforts are subverted by the State.
I got a degree in History from a CSU. There were a series of Public History classes where I was assigned to write the historical impact report for a proposed building project. It's a component and a parallel to an environmental impact report, it's just not nearly as sexy (history boring, environment MUST BE SAVED!)
The historical impact report had to include any pre-written historical evidence in the area, and that involved a field trip (across campus) to the local branch of the state archaeologist's office. They had maps and notes and could look at an address or map coordinates and say, "Yeah, twenty feet thataway is a rock of interest, and forty feet in the opposite direction fifteen arrowheads were found in 1975 at a depth of 10 feet..."
Shortly after I graduated, my parents decided to build a new home in an unincorporated area of California. They had to pay an archaeologist team $18,000 to come drill test holes looking for sites of prehistoric interest. Each hole was marked with a little red flag, 20 in all. After construction was complete, my mother would give the flags to people and say, "Here's a $900 gift."
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