Pre-Columbian Native American pottery re-discovered in Dunes
From staff reports
Cherry Republic employee Andrew Moore found more than radiant fall colors and beachgrass on a walk in the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes earlier this fall. He came across shards of clay that appear to be specimens of Native American pottery from long before the white man landed in the Americas.
Moore says the patterned way the shards were laying caught his eye, as if someone had left a design in the sand. He told Cherry Republic CEO Bob Sutherland, who called the National Park Service the next day. Park curator and historian Laura Quackenbush visited the site and concluded that the shards were once the rim of a clay pot, which concurs with pottery discovered from archeological sites in Northern Michigan.
Quackenbush and other Park officials believe the specimens are more than 500 years old — probably from the late Woodland Period, between 200 BC and 1500 AD. Quackenbush has since contacted Andrew Stewart and William Lovis, archeologists at Michigan State University, who hope to test the soil in the specimens to calculate their age. Cherry Republic will soon launch a fundraising effort to help pay for the soil testing costs.
Quackenbush believes that more pre-Columbian artifacts may be unearthed in the National Lakeshore has Climate Change pelts the Park with rain and wind, and reshapes the dunes. “The interesting story here is that people lived temporarily in the dunes, in environments that are no longer there, buried in the dunes,” she said. “What they left behind is now coming to the surface.”
Park officials encourage anyone who comes across more unearthed pottery specimens to respect the antiquities and call Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore at 231-326-5134.
