Inside the Search for a Clovis Quarry in Maryland

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND—ABC News Baltimore reports that Maryland State Terrestrial Archaeologist Zachary Singer and State Geologist Rebecca Kavage Adams are investigating stone tools made and used by Clovis hunters some 13,000 years ago at central Maryland’s Piney Grove site. The site was discovered during road construction in 2001. “Every piece of chalcedony we’ve found at the site has been worked, has been flaked,” Singer said. “The chalcedony must have been found nearby because we’re finding lots of evidence of people breaking down larger pieces to make hunting tools,” he explained. Adams has analyzed the stone and is now looking for its source among stone outcrops in the region that would have been easily accessible on foot. The researchers also plan to analyze blood protein residue from cracks in the Clovis tools to identify what sorts of animals the Clovis hunters pursued. To read about tools recovered from a 16,000-year-old site in Idaho, go to "A Seaside Journey to America."