STORY COU RTESY OF THE ST. CLOU D TIMES
STORY BY DAVID UNZE I PHOTOGRA PHS BY BRE MCGEE I GRAPHICS BY LI SA MUELLER
KNIFE LAKE - The clear, deep water
laps against the shores of Canada's Quetico
Provincial Park on one side and the edge of
northern Minnesota wilderness on the other.
The Ojibwe name for what the glaciers
created is Mookomaan Zaaga'igan, while the
French fur traders called it Lac des Couteaux,
or Lake of Knives. It's on the shores of this
remote lake, at least 15 miles from the nearest
road and in water divided by the U.S.Canada border, where Minnesota's earliest
history is being uncovered.
Those retreating glaciers left a scoured
landscape of exposed siltstone, a silica-infused
mud that hardened for millions of years into
a high-quality source for Paleo-Indian stone
toolmaking. And thousands of years after the
last siltstone was harvested from Knife Lake
quarries, researchers from St. Cloud State
University are letting that stone speak for the
first time about the earliest inhabitants of
Minnesota.
"It's rewriting the history for this area
of Minnesota. We're making a major
contribution in understanding the very
earliest cultures of humans to live in this
part of the state," said Mark Muniz, associate
professor of anthropology at St. Cloud State.
Muniz and three fellow researchers
paddled and portaged to Knife Lake in the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in
August to continue digging for evidence that
Paleo-Indians drawn to Knife Lake siltstone
were the first humans to inhabit Minnesota.
If his theory is correct - and he found
more evidence this summer to support it Paleo-Indians first inhabited far northern
Minnesota as glaciers receded ll,000-12,500
years ago. That would run contrary to the
belief that the area had not yet recovered
enough to support plants and animals after
being scoured by glaciers. It would also be
contrary to the thought that the first people
to live in the Arrowhead region arrived
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Eye-openin. D I S C 0 V E R Y
0
I
ETOU
Three archaeologist researchers from
St. Cloud State University traveled with
a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist to
Knife Lake to search for remnants of stone
toolmaking dating to 12,000 years ago.
They left Aug. 19 from Saganaga Lake
(upper right) and traveled about 15 miles
north, then west, along the U.S.-Canada
border through Ottertrack Lake to get to
Knife Lake. St. Cloud Times journalists
David Unze and Bre McGee left the same
day from Moose Lake (lower left) and
traveled about the same distance, heading
northeast through Newfound, Sucker and
Birch lakes, then east through Carp Lake
and into Knife Lake.
St. Cloud State professor Mark Muniz
believes the work he did this summer and
two previous trips could alter the timeline
of when the earliest humans were first in
northern Minnesota (see timeline at right).
co
T
From source to spear
Ill
The core can be filntknapped Into a blade
that can be used for cutting or scrapi ng.
The siltstone used by Paleo-Indians
to make stone tools is black when
fresh ly broken and turns a patina
white over time.
The core of siltston e
is made mto a biface
by chipping away, or
flintknappi ng, flakes
from the core on bot h
of its sides .
•
.,
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OUTLOOK Winter 2012
Flakes t hat are chipped
away from the core
can also be used as
tools due to their sharp
edges and because
the strength of tne
stone prevents it
from breaking.
L A VERENDRYE
PROVINCIAL ,
,•'
PARK
Flintknappong th e
core of the siltstone
can produce a nearly
fln1 shed spear point
like the broken one
found this summer
at Kni fe Lake in
th e Boundary
Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness .
FINISHED SPEAR POINT
Th1s fimshed spear point WdS
found by Canadian reseorcher
Jon Nelson at a Quet1co Provincial
Pork campsite on the Canadian
side of Kmfe Lake.
I .. - - - - - ""t
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stcloudstat~.edulnews/outlook
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. . Eye-openin. D I S C 0 V E R Y
hundreds, if not thousands, of years after Paleo-Indians
appeared in the southern part of the state.
Time, however, isn't on the side of Muiiiz. The area he is
surveying was made accessible only by a huge storm in July
1999 that led to prescribed burns in the BWCAW in 2005.
The forest regeneration is quickly covering the siltstone
quarries with new growth of sumac and jackpine, and that
growth eventually will again close those valuable sites to
exploration.
s
QU
The flintknapped siltstone artifacts Muniz has found at Knife
Lake show Paleo-Indians quarried the stone from the high
outcroppings that were visible before the forests matured and
blanketed the landscape thousands of years ago. There are
associated work sites where tools were fashioned, where people
lived and where animals were harvested and necessities of life
were made, Muniz said.
Those first inhabitants probably used those tools to hunt
caribou and possibly even mammoths and mastodons as they
lived in one of the last ice age communities in the United
States. Knife Lake served as a beacon during yearly, seasonal
migrations of Paleo-Indians, who carried away the siltstone
tools that have been found east to Thunder Bay and in eastcentral Minnesota, Muniz said.
High-tech dating techniques will narrow the time period
in which the artifacts were made, but the style of toolmaking
he's found leads Muniz to believe the prehistory of Minnesota
will be rewritten to put inhabitants on the U.S .-Canada
border far earlier than previously believed.
"It pushes back the timeline for a site in Minnesota that
has been excavated, with evidence of people living here at
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OUTLOOK Wmter 2012
such an early time," he said.
Canadian researchers in
the late 1990s noted siltstone
quarries and possible tool
manufacturing sites on the
north side of Knife Lake. It
took a natural catastrophe to
kick-start the search on the
Minnesota side of the border.
Muniz returned to Knife
Lake in 2010, and this
summer he and two graduate
students went back along
with Lee Johnson, a Buffalo
native and Superior National
Forest archaeologist.
They excavated a site they
previously had surveyed and
they took another walking
tour of a site they had
discovered on a previous trip.
They also took a fresh look at a new site that yielded even
more promising results.
"We're on the edge of what could be a massive site,"
Johnson said. "This is one of a kind, untouched and
preserved, a quarry and workshop sites around us. It really is
an important site for the history of Minnesota."
TEP PR CES
The group members do three types of exploration. First, they
walk the terrain and look for artifacts laying on the surface.
If they find enough, they might do a shovel test to see what's
below the surface. If that shovel test reveals more artifacts
below the surface, they might do a full excavation of a unit.
The work is done under the watchful eye of Johnson, who
is responsible for about 2.3 million acres of forest, including
developing preservation strategies and projects for things such
as erosion stabilization.
He also consults with Ojibwe tribes to determine which
areas have sacred significance for tribes, such as wild rice
stands and sites where medicinal herbs are collected.
"One of the reasons I'm here is to determine whether there
are significant things here that haven't been disturbed and
how we might better protect them," Johnson said.
Graduate students Tyler Olsen and Jennifer Rovanpera
finished excavating a 1-meter-by-1-meter unit that had been
started on a previous trip. They and Johnson and Muniz
walked through the new site, looking for surface artifacts that
might support further exploration.
And Muiiiz and Johnson did a shovel test at a separate
location by digging a foot-wide hole and carefully removing
and sifting its contents 10 centimeters at a time until they
were 40 centimeters deep.
They removed some flakes that were discovered during the sifting, then they
replaced the soil to refill the hole.
Muniz used a GPS device to mark the locations of artifacts they found.
There were siltstone chunks that had been flintknapped on one side (unifaces)
and on both sides (bifaces). They found cores that likely would be shaped there
or transported elsewhere and be shaped later. And they found layers and layers
of siltstone flakes, the telltale sign that humans had used flintknapping to shape
the razor-sharp stone into spear points, scrapers and blades.
"There are so many artifacts here that you can't stop finding it," Muniz said.
And although he had found Knife Lake siltstone flakes and bifaces in
previous trips that showed the style of human habitation dating to the glacial
period, the August trip showed that Knife Lake was more than just a source of
the valued stone.
"Now we're establishing a complex of sites, rather than just one spot," he
said. "A complex of sites like that hasn't been found anywhere in the state to my
knowledge."
What he didn't find, and what he hopes one day to see there, is a finished
spear point. It's the equivalent of the Holy Grail for an anthropologist.
"I would like to find the unequivocal smoking gun," he said.
E T A
0
Muniz is confident the style of the tools being made gives him a good idea of
the time period in which they were made. But he knows there are better ways to
narrow the dating, and that starts in the lab.
Part of the $56,000 Legacy Amendment grant that helped pay for the 2010
trip also bought a high-powered microscope that he uses to analyze how the
artifacts were used. The microscope can tell if the stone cut grass, scraped hide
or chopped wood, for example, he said.
Soil samples also will help Muniz close some of the gaps in his research and
bring him closer to presenting his conclusions for peer review, an important step
in gaining broader acceptance for his theory and his conclusions.
He and his fellow researchers in August also collected soil they hope to test.
That collection was done under skies lit only by the moon and stars. Wearing
headlamps that shined red light, they collected two samples of soil they hope to
test with a method called optically stimulated luminescence.
OSL testing uses ultraviolet light to shine onto irradiated samples of sand
that have been buried and not exposed to light for thousands of years. Being
buried locks within the sand grains the age at which the soil was last exposed to
light. OSL testing can measure how long the soil has been buried. It helps date
the artifacts that are found suspended in the buried soil.Having an OSL date
"would help tremendously," Muniz said. "That's a real key thing."
So is time.
The area the blowdown and burn uncovered is regenerating so fast that
access to the quarries and work sites is gradually fading. As Muniz and Johnson
crisscrossed the worksites, they dodged sumac and jackpine, stepped alongside
blueberry and raspberry plants and flushed partridge - all signs of a forest
recovering from a fire.
Within three years, it could be so dense that Muniz can't get to the spots he
wants to explore. The artifacts he is finding once again will be locked in place.
And that's the way it should be, Johnson said.
"We get a little sample of what's here and then we let it be," Johnson said.
'~nd that's a good thing."
jENNIFER RovANPERA
Graduate studen t in St. Cloud Sta te's Cultural
Resource Management Archaeology master's
progra m, Rovanpera is from Walnut Cree, Calif.
and her master s them focuses on the types of
stone-tool technology that were used at the
BWCAW excavatron sr tes.
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TYLER OLSEN
Graduate student in St, Cloud State's Cultural
Resource M a ndg~me nt Archaeology master's
progrdm, Ols~ n is fr om Oshkosh, Wis, and his
master's thesis focuses on the effrciency of two
different shovel tcstrng methodologies.
MARK MUNIZ
Assocrate prof ;sor rn the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology at St Cloud State;
director of the ultural Resources Man gement
Archdeology gra duate pro gra m, Muniz has
made three tnps to the BWCAW to research
the stone-making of the Pa leo-lndrans. His
focus as a researcher is on cultural resource
managem ent, preh r,torr c lithiC technology, the
Paleo- lndran pe rrod, hunter-gatherer socie tr~>
and g~ograp hy ,
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