9,000 Year-old Tool Discovered in Hermansville

This week WKAR reported that this spring a 9000-year-old tool was found by Dale Kennedy while he was in his garden in Hermansville. The tool, pictured above, is not housed at the Michigan State University Museum. Bill Love, the museum’s anthropology curator, spoke with WKAR about the rare find.

Love mentions that the tool is distintive among the early time periods of the Great Lakes Region, known as the Paleo-Indian time period. He says it is one of the earliest pieces found, but very few pieces have been found in the Upper Peninsula. Love goes on to say…

“One of the things that’s important about this is that it doesn’t come from the area around Marquette, which is where almost everything else has been found. So, we had a very limited view of the kinds of environments people were adapting to as they moved into the western Upper Peninsula. It appears that what they were doing is moving between central Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, probably following migratory game such as caribou. Caribou have a very specific kind of habitat. This comes from a very different location. It comes from a more southern location, with a different environment, one that’s got more wetlands and is nearer Lake Michigan. It speaks to the fact that we have people occupying different habitats and exploiting them. We didn’t have that evidence before. It adds to the story. “

It’s an interesting and worthwhile read on the history of the Upper Peninsula. You can read more and listen to the full interview on WKAR’s website.