Ventana Cave facts for kids
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Ventana Cave
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Ventana Cave
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 Location in Arizona
Location in the United States
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| Location | Pima County, Arizona, United States |
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| Nearest city | Santa Rosa, Arizona |
| NRHP reference No. | 66000189 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | January 20, 1964 |
Ventana Cave (called Nakaijegel in the O'odham language) is a very important archaeological site. An archaeological site is a place where people find old things from the past. This cave is located in southern Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation.
Scientists have dug up (excavated) many ancient things from Ventana Cave. The first big digs happened in the 1940s. Emil Haury led these projects. Teams led by Julian Hayden and Wilfrid C Bailey helped with the work.
Contents
Discoveries from Deep Inside
The oldest items found in Ventana Cave were in a layer of volcanic rock and ash. This layer also held bones of very old animals. These included animals from the Pleistocene era, also known as the Ice Age. Some of these animals are now extinct, meaning they no longer live on Earth.
Ancient Animals and Tools
Scientists found bones of ancient horses, a type of pronghorn called Burden's pronghorn, and tapirs. They also found bones of giant sloths and other animals. Along with these bones, they found stone tools.
One special stone tool, called a projectile point, was found in this deep layer. It looked a bit like tools from the Folsom tradition and later the Clovis culture. But the group of tools found at Ventana Cave was unique. So, scientists gave it a special name: the Ventana Complex.
How Old Are the Finds?
Scientists used a method called radiocarbon dating to find out how old these items were. This method measures how much carbon-14 is left in old materials. The first tests suggested the volcanic layer was about 11,300 years old.
New Studies and Ideas
Later, in the 1990s, two scientists named Bruce Huckell and C. Vance Haynes studied Ventana Cave again. They looked closely at the layers of earth and the tools found. They also did new radiocarbon dating tests.
Changing Our Understanding
Their new tests showed that the volcanic layer was actually laid down between 10,500 and 8,800 years ago. This was a bit different from the first dates. Huckell and Haynes also thought that the ground had been disturbed over time. This disturbance might have mixed older animal bones with newer tools.
They suggested that the extinct animal bones might have come from an even older layer. This mixing could have made it seem like ancient people hunted these extinct animals with the stone tools. Huckell and Haynes believe the Ventana Complex tools are from a time after the Clovis culture. They think the Ventana Complex is not closely related to Clovis tools.
A Special Place
Ventana Cave is a very important site for understanding early human history in North America. Because of its importance, it was named a National Historic Landmark in 1964. This means it is a place of great historical value to the United States.
See also
In Spanish: Cueva Ventana (Arizona) para niños
