Topper sits on a Carolina Bay rim. Goodyear dug below the Clovis layer and reported material possibly 50,000 years old — pre-Clovis, and barely researched since. 🪨
Topper site, on a Carolina Bay rim, reported artifacts possibly 50,000 years old
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Site mentioned
Key facts
- Clovis-period people camped on the elevated rims of Carolina bays and worked a chert source near the Savannah River for atlatl point production
- Topper is a site in South Carolina located on the rim of a Carolina bay, excavated below the Clovis layer by Albert Goodyear with a team connected to the Savannah River Site
- Goodyear reported finding older material, possibly as old as 50,000 years, i.e. pre-Clovis
- The video notes the pre-Clovis claim at Topper did not gain wide acceptance and that little further research has been done at the site since
- The speakers argue these early occupations on bay rims conflict with the idea that the bays were formed as recently as the Younger Dryas, about 13,000 years ago
- Gastroliths, or smooth gizzard stones, are the most common find in Carolina bay sediments and are attributed to Clovis people processing waterfowl, with few fossils preserved in the sandy sediment
Sources
The Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Topper Site, Allendale ...researchgate.net
pieces, the Topper site has been referred to as microlithic (Goodyear a). It also has a heavy industry in the form of large choppers, ...
Topper Site Revisited: Exploring Spatial Organization of ...tandfonline.com
by AM Smallwood · 2023 · Cited by 6 — The scale of excavation and the extent of the site vicinity – covering 629 m2 and spanning multiple topographic features – offer an unprecedented opportunity to…
50,000 Year Old South Carolina Indigenous Pre-Clovis ...firsttribenation.com
The Topper excavation site is on the bank of the Savannah River on property owned by Clariant Corp., a chemical corporation headquartered near ...
ETV Classics | They Were Here: Ice Age Humans in SC (2002)pbs.org
The Topper site is one of the three most important sites in the United States that is yielding evidence that ancient humans were here during ...
Topper Site South Carolina, Ancient History Mysterysctravelguide.com
The excavations at the site were led by Albert Goodyear, who has spent decades studying early human activity in the Southeast. When work began ...
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