Scott A McWilliam
Contributor
Anyone see any baskets underwater?
I am starting a project that some will find amusing and others incredibly boring. Also, I am looking for help. I am starting to look and have been writing on prehistoric archaeological sites with submerged components and if you are interested in that type of thing send me a note and I will send hyperlinks.
It will take a ridiculous amount of diving in Lake Superior but I think we can begin the search for the oldest shipwreck in North America, possibly as far back a 6,500 BCE. Perhaps we will discuss this more if anyone is interested.
We would often dive at Silver Islet off the dock when I lived in Thunder Bay. Very close to the dock in two places we came across what looked like a stack of baskets that had become unbound. We used to call this type of basket an apple basket and it held about a bushel and a half. Now, decades after the fact, I realise that my apple baskets were the remains of birch bark canoes and the flat strips of wood in my basket were the cedar strips of the canoe. In one case the canoe was standing on end and compressed in making a dense pile of the strips of wood.
If you notice a similar feature while diving drop me a line. It is best not to mess with the site as it is the type of the thing that may merit excavation, you can contaminate samples spoiling radiocarbon dating if the materials are not handled right.
I am starting a project that some will find amusing and others incredibly boring. Also, I am looking for help. I am starting to look and have been writing on prehistoric archaeological sites with submerged components and if you are interested in that type of thing send me a note and I will send hyperlinks.
It will take a ridiculous amount of diving in Lake Superior but I think we can begin the search for the oldest shipwreck in North America, possibly as far back a 6,500 BCE. Perhaps we will discuss this more if anyone is interested.
We would often dive at Silver Islet off the dock when I lived in Thunder Bay. Very close to the dock in two places we came across what looked like a stack of baskets that had become unbound. We used to call this type of basket an apple basket and it held about a bushel and a half. Now, decades after the fact, I realise that my apple baskets were the remains of birch bark canoes and the flat strips of wood in my basket were the cedar strips of the canoe. In one case the canoe was standing on end and compressed in making a dense pile of the strips of wood.
If you notice a similar feature while diving drop me a line. It is best not to mess with the site as it is the type of the thing that may merit excavation, you can contaminate samples spoiling radiocarbon dating if the materials are not handled right.
