Buttermilk Creek Complex facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Buttermilk Creek Complex
Location of Salado, Texas

Country	United States
State	Texas
County	Bell
Elevation	600 ft (183 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	76571

The Buttermilk Creek Complex refers to the remains of an ancient settlement. It is located along Buttermilk Creek in Salado, Texas. This site is about 15,500 years old. If these findings are confirmed, it means humans lived in the Americas much earlier than previously thought. It would show people were here before the Clovis culture.

Uncovering Ancient Secrets
- Digging into the Past
- The "Clovis First" Idea
What Was Found at the Site?
- Tools and Artifacts
  - Oldest Weapons Found
How Scientists Date the Site
See also

Uncovering Ancient Secrets

The Buttermilk Creek Complex was found at the Debra L. Friedkin archaeological site. This site is in Bell County, Texas. It has given us proof that humans were in the Americas before the Clovis people. For a long time, people thought the Clovis were the first to explore North America.

Many things support the idea that people lived here before Clovis. For example, special dating methods show the site is 13,200 to 15,500 years old. The soil layers are also undisturbed. Plus, many stone tools were found. Scientists use a method called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to date the soil. OSL checks light energy trapped in dirt to see when it was last exposed to sunlight.

Digging into the Past

Dr. Michael R. Waters from Texas A&M University started digging at the Debra L. Friedkin Site in 2006. He worked with a team of students. The site is near the Gault Site, another important ancient site.

Early humans liked the Buttermilk Creek area for many reasons. It had a good climate and plenty of food. There was also water all year round. Most importantly, the area had high-quality Chert stone. This stone was perfect for making tools.

People made tools from chert using a skill called flint knapping. They would strike chert rocks with harder stones or antler billets. This removed flakes of stone. They shaped the chert into tools with two sharp sides, called bifacial tools.

They also used smaller antlers to refine these tools. They made spear points, knives, and other useful items. Besides bifacial tools, they made unifacial tools like blades. These had only one sharp edge.

The "Clovis First" Idea

For many years, archaeologists believed the Clovis people were the first in the Americas. They thought Clovis people came from Siberia. They crossed a land bridge called Beringia. Then they spread through North and South America between 13,200 and 12,800 years ago.

The Clovis people were known for their unique spear points. These points were shaped like a leaf and had a groove, or "flute," down the middle. This idea was called the "Clovis First" model.

However, this theory has been questioned recently. The discovery of the Monte Verde site in Chile changed things. This site has dates going back 14,600 years. It was the first widely accepted site that was older than Clovis.

The acceptance of Monte Verde opened the door for other pre-Clovis sites. Before the Buttermilk Creek Complex, there wasn't clear proof of pre-Clovis culture in North America.

Some other sites in the US might also be pre-Clovis:

Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania)
Topper Site (South Carolina)
Page-Ladson (Florida)
Cactus Hill (Virginia)
The Schaefer and Hebior mammoth sites in Kenosha County, Wisconsin
Lovewell (Kansas)
La Sena (Nebraska)
Paisley Caves (Oregon)

Many of these sites have possible pre-Clovis remains. But some have faced debate. Their findings haven't always been fully published. This has kept them from being widely accepted.

The Debra L. Friedkin site has strong evidence for its pre-Clovis age. The Buttermilk Creek Complex helps archaeologists learn more. They want to know who the first humans were in the Americas. They also want to know when and how they arrived.

What Was Found at the Site?

Archaeologists dug in two main areas at the Debra L. Friedkin site. These areas are called Block A and Block B. They are on ancient floodplains.

The oldest human remains, from the pre-Clovis time, were found in Block A. This area has 52 squares, each 1 meter by 1 meter. Block A was buried under layers of clay. This clay was deposited by floods from Buttermilk Creek. It was about 1.4 meters deep.

The Buttermilk Creek Complex artifacts were found in dark, rich soil. The soil layers in Block A seem untouched. This means the artifacts are in their original place. Scientists checked this in several ways. For example, artifacts weren't sorted by size. Also, older artifacts had a specific mineral coating. And the OSL dates were in the correct order.

Block A has 9 different soil layers. Many experts worked together to study the findings. They included people who specialize in OSL dating, geologists, soil scientists, and archaeologists.

Above the Buttermilk Creek Complex, other ancient layers were found. A layer with Folsom points was found. Below that, a layer with Clovis tools was found. The Buttermilk Creek Complex layer is below the Clovis layer. It is about 20 centimeters thick.

Scientists took 18 OSL dates from this layer. These dates ranged from 14,000 to 17,500 years ago. Spear points with stems were found throughout this layer. These points are about 15,500 to 13,500 years old. Triangular spear points were found from about 14,000 years ago.

The digs show that people lived at this site almost continuously. This started with the Buttermilk Creek Complex. Then came Clovis, Folsom, and later groups. People lived there all the way through to recent prehistoric times.

Tools and Artifacts

The Buttermilk Creek Complex has many stone artifacts. It has more tools and different types of tools than other North American pre-Clovis sites. This is a big reason why scientists trust the claims from this site.

Over 15,500 pre-Clovis stone artifacts were found. These included large and small stone flakes. They also found many tools.

The tools included:

5 blades (long, thin flakes)
14 bladelets (small blades)
12 bifaces (tools shaped on both sides)
1 discoidal core (a round stone from which flakes were removed)
23 tools with modified edges
3 radial break tools
1 piece of polished hematite (a mineral)

Scientists also studied how some tools were used. They looked at four artifacts closely. These tools showed signs of cutting, grooving, or carving. This suggests they were used on hard materials like bone, wood, or antler.

There seems to be a connection between the Folsom, Clovis, and Buttermilk Creek Complex tools. The stone flakes found in all three layers show similar tool-making stages. This means people used the site for similar purposes over time.

However, the Buttermilk Creek Complex people used the site for more different tasks. This is based on the ratio of tools to flakes.

Some flakes found in the Buttermilk Creek Complex suggest early tool-making skills. These skills might have later developed into the Clovis technology. Both Clovis and Buttermilk Creek tools also include blades. This suggests that Clovis tool-making could have grown out of the Buttermilk Creek methods.

But there are also differences. The Buttermilk Creek tools do not show "fluting." This is a special groove found on Clovis spear points.

In 2011, when the findings were first published, scientists hadn't fully put broken artifacts back together. But early checks showed that pieces from the same tool were found in different parts of the site. Five such "refits" were found.

Oldest Weapons Found

In 2018, Professor Michael Waters' team found the oldest weapons in North America at this site. These were ancient spear points. They were about 3-4 inches long. They are dated to 15,500 years ago.

These spear points were made of chert. They were found under several feet of dirt. Scientists believe these tools were used to hunt animals in the area.

How Scientists Date the Site

The site was dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). This is because organic materials, like wood or bones, didn't preserve well. A total of 63 OSL dates were taken from the site. These dates, along with the tools found in each layer, helped identify the different time periods.

To get OSL samples, scientists hammered copper pipes into the soil walls. Each sample was tested using three different OSL methods.

The OSL dates proved that the soil layers were undisturbed. They also showed that the layers were in the correct time order. This strong evidence supports the claim that the Buttermilk Creek Complex is indeed a pre-Clovis site.