FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA—Francis Smiley has built a collection of more than 900 epoxy resin lithic artifact casts at the lithic casting lab at Northern Arizona University. The casting processes uses grains of eroded rock to mold 3-D replicas of artifacts from North America, Europe, South America, and North Africa so that students can handle and study them. “The original artifacts are locked away in museums or private collections that are almost entirely inaccessible to students. The lithic casting process gives students and researchers hands-on experience with exact, museum-quality replicas of artifacts,” he explained in a press release. Some of the duplicated artifacts are more than two million years old, but Smiley focuses on replicating Clovis artifacts, which date back some 13,000 years. “Here, we get to experience all lithic technologies from every time period from around the world. Not only that, but we get to see actual data preserved in the casted stone. It’s pretty amazing,” commented graduate student Tim Murphy. To read about early peoples who may have predated Clovis, go to "Migrating Away From Clovis."
