According to this technological definition of Clovis (Llano complex), wherever these two major reductive strategies are found, Clovis exists. Here I wish to affirm the presence of Clovis in northern interior Maine by providing photographs of Clovis artifacts from the Windy City Paleo-American workshop, Piscataquis County and by referencing the little-known work of James Payne whose Masters dissertation focused upon the Windy City lithic assemblage. In my opinion evidence of Clovis presence east of Ohio and north of Pennsylvania is crystal clear although at the moment we can only speculate about what may have been the diet and seasonal round of early populations.

Robson Bonnichsen and
the Munsungan Project

     Reported initially in October, 1979, and designated site #154-16 in the University of Maine at Orono Archaeological Site Survey Record, Windy City was explored in 1982 and 1983 by Professor Bonnichsen, his students, and volunteers from Earthwatch. Windy City occupies a terrace elevated 10-15 m above the current level of Munsungan and Chase Lakes (Figure 1). These undeveloped large lakes are connected by a stream locally known as the Thoroughfare, which is bordered by numerous archaeological sites.

   The paramount attractions for ancient occupants of the Thoroughfare undoubtedly were nearby outcrops of Cambro- Ordovician chert ("Munsungan chert") associated with a series of volcanic and sedimentary rocks (Pollock et al. 1999). Distinctive Munsungan chert, often multi-colored and rich in fossil radiolarians, has been observed on prehistoric sites throughout New England. It is a common raw material at the monumental Bull Brook fluted point site near Ipswich, Massachusetts, and it dominates the lithic assemblages of the Wheeler Dam Clovis sites, northern Oxford County, Western Maine Highlands (Gramly 2005). The distance between Munsungan Lake and Wheeler Dam is a full 200-km over broken terrain. Possible occurrences of Munsungan chert at Paleo-American sites have been noted in New Hampshire and Vermont, and perhaps as far afield as the Hudson River valley.

   The excavation of the Windy City site and other Paleo-American manifestations at Musungan/Chase Lakes culminated in a series of unpublished working papers issued under Robson Bonnichsen’s direction and now on file at the Maine State Museum, Augusta. Technical papers about soil chemistry of the Munsungan sites (Konrad et al. 1983) and environmental reconstruction (Bonnichsen et al. 1985) have appeared; however, their impacts appear to have been negligible upon the archaeological community. Also a disappointment is the fact that a dissertation by James Payne -- former graduate student of Robson Bonnichsen at the now-defunct Institute of Quaternary Studies, University of Maine at Orono – dealing with the Windy City lithic assemblage has gone unpublished. Payne’s work, "Windy City (154-16): A Paleo-Indian Lithic Workshop in Northern Maine," is noteworthy for an elegant analysis of refitted flakes and matching bifaces and cores. Several "lithic reduction events" were recognized within the Windy City assemblage.

   Nowhere, even in general review articles such as one written for "Prehistoric Archaeology in the Maritime Provinces" (1991, see essay by Bonnichsen, Keenlyside and Turnmire) is the cultural identity of the Windy City site or that of other Munsungan/Chase Lakes Paleo-American encampments emphasized. The question: Are these sites, in fact, Clovis? is never posed and, therefore, never answered. It is no wonder, then, that Clovis culture is thought not to have existed in New England. Archaeologists have succeeded in keeping the light of knowledge "under a bushel."

"REFERENCES"

Bonnichsen, Robson, George L. Jacobson, Jr., Ronald B. Davis, and Harold W. Borns, Jr.
        1985 "The environmental setting for human colonization of northern New England and adjacent Canada in Late Pleistocene time." pp. 151-59 in Harold W Borns, Jr., Pierre LaSalle and Woodrow B. Thompson (eds.) Late Pleistocene History of Northeastern New England and Adjacent Quebec. Geological Society of America Special Paper 197. Boulder, Colorado.

Bonnichsen, Robson, David Keenlyside, and Karen Turnmire
        1991, "Paleoindian patterns in Maine and the Maritimes." pp. 1-28 in Michael Deal and Susan Blair (eds.) Prehistoric Archaeology in the Maritime Provinces. New Brunswick Archaeological Services, Cultural Affairs, Department of Municipalities, Culture and Housing Reports in Archaeology 8. Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Collins, Michael B. (and Marvin Kay)
      1999, "Clovis Blade Technology." University of Texas Pres. Austin.

Funk, Robert E.
       1973, "The West Athens Hill site" (Cox 7). pp. 9-36 in William A. Ritchie and Robert E. Funk, "Aboriginal Settlement Patterns in the Northeast," New York State Museum and Science Service Memoir 20. Albany.
       2004, "An Ice Age Quarry-Workshop: The West Athens Hill site Revisited." New York State Museum Bulletin 504. Albany.

Gramly, Richard Michael
       2004, "The Upper/Lower Wheeler Dam sites: Clovis in the Upper Magalloway River Valley, NW Maine." The Amateur Archaeologist 11 (1): pp. 25-46.

Haynes, C. Vance
       1980, "The Clovis Culture." Canadian Journal of Anthropology 1 (1): pp. 115-121.

Konrad, Victor A., Robson Bonnichsen, and Vickie Clay
       1983, "Soil Chemical Identification of Ten Thousand Years of Prehistoric Human Activity Areas At the Munsungan Lake Thoroughfare, Maine." Journal of Archaeological Science 10: pp. 13-28.

Payne, James
       1987, "Windy City (154-16): A Paleoindian Lithic Workshop in Maine." M.A. thesis. Institute for Quaternary Studies, University of Maine, Orono.

Pollock, Stephen G., Nathan D. Hamilton and Robson Bonnichsen
       1999, "Chert From the Munsungan Lake Fromation (Maine) in Paleoamerican Archaeological Sites in Northeastern North America: Recognition of its Occurrence and Distribution." Journal of Archaeological Science 26: pp. 269-93.

Warnica, James M.
       1966, "New Discoveries at the Clovis Site," American Antiquity 31: pp. 345-57.

Richard Michael Gramly
American Society for Amateur Archaeology
P.O. Box 821
North Andover, MA 01845
(asaa-persimmonpress.com)
February 28, 2006

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