Hunting Caribou Hunters Beneath Lake Huron: The Archaeology of an Ancient Submerged Landscape

by John O’Shea

Nine thousand years ago, a dry land corridor connected northern Lower Michigan with Southern Ontario. This corridor provided a natural causeway for the semi-annual migration of caribou and an equally valuable terrain for Late Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic hunters seeking to exploit the herds. Using survey techniques including side scan sonar, multibeam sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), mini remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to search for these traces of ancient hunters. The talk will describe the results of this past summer’s search, including the first direct examination and mapping of the submerged features by SCUBA trained archaeologists.