REISTERSTOWN, Md. — Near a churchyard in Reisterstown, a road project revealed tools made out of chalcedony. It's a special stone favored by ancient people to make tools like stone points and scrapers for animal hydes.
Now, state scientists are using modern tools to learn how Clovis people (Stone Age people) lived and survived in our region.
Zach Singer and Rebecca Kavage Adams were the kind of kids who loved digging around in the dirt. To them, a rock is not just a rock.
Rebecca is an Environmental Geologist for the state of Maryland.
"Every day, when I go in the field, and I’m mapping, I’m surprised by something that I see, that I didn't expect," Rebecca said.
Zachary Singer is the state terrestrial archaeologist.
“I have always been interested in in being outside and thinking about how people walked on the same landscape as me through time. So throughout all of time,” said Zachary.
Two rock hounds…one goal: dig out the secrets of the past. Rebecca tells us about their current rock hunt, “We are looking for the source of the chalcedony that Clovis age people were using for tools in the Reisterstown area."
In Zac’s role as state terrestrial archaeologist, he picked up where earlier archaeologists left off with finds from what they call the Piney Grove site.
It’s near Reisterstown and was found during a routine road survey back in the early 2000s. Now, he and his team of volunteers are working to learn the extent of the archaeological find.
It might prove to be a portal to life in the Stone Age.
"What's really interesting in the archaeological record is that these first people in Maryland, these Clovis people, when we find the archaeological sites, they're using very high-quality stones. So they seem to be very good geologists," Zachary said.
The Clovis people are named for the location of Clovis, New Mexico, where evidence of these people were first found. Zac elaborates on their movements into what he today call Maryland, “When they come onto the landscape and are colonizing Maryland around 13,000 years ago, we immediately see that they're finding high quality crypto crystalline cherts and chalcedonies and making stone tools out of them.
He gave us an example of one of those tools. It has a specific fluted area that Clovis people would create to affix the stone point to make a projectile, possibly a dart. This specific cutting is part of how archaeologists like Zac identify a find as being from the Stone Age.
Examples have been found in Harford, Caroline, Frederick, Dorchester and Calvert counties. Zac believes the Piney Grove site outside of Reisterstown is where Clovis people in this region found and made their tools. But he must prove it. Here enters our current day geologist.
Rebecca is enlisting the tools at her disposal, "a couple of the ways that we might be able to figure out where a rock is from is of course we go to the area and look. That's the most important thing. That's why we map."
Through mapping, state geologists like Rebecca can track how specific rocks got there through time.
In this case, Rebecca and her team are looking for a very specific chalcedony called Weathered Amber Chalcedony.
“Chalcedony can actually occur in a lot of different geologic settings, but a common way that chalcedony can form is through hot fluids that are moving through an area," Rebecca said.
She says as it cools and moves through an area the material can pick up other minerals in the area, becoming the stuff of Stone Age dreams. Geologists also look deeper to the microscopic level.
They cut the rock down to a hair thin piece called a billet. Cutting it out of the center of the rock untouched by environmental factors since the stone’s creation. Under the microscope, geologists look for unique minerals it may have picked up while being formed. Another key to this mystery that unlocks it's origin.
By comparing it to samples from nearby areas they can pin point the stone’s origin. From there, Zac will continue to build on the picture of how these people lived. Maybe even what ancient creatures they hunted.
He is currently raising funds to send a sample to another scientist who may be able to identify animal proteins caught in the crevices of a tool when a Clovis hunter was looking for a meal, and Zac hopes to, “learn more about the different, the range of activities that occurred at this site."
If you have an interest in getting involved in archaeology in the state, you can sign up for the 54th Annual Field Session with the Archaeology Society of Maryland!
This year, the team will be investigating what they believe is a colonial site from as early as the late 17th century. The dig will take place from May 23rd to June 10th.
For information and signup for the Field Session click on this link.
And for more information about volunteering with the Maryland Historical Trust click here.
