COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol
Harrisburg, PA 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

John K. Robinson, PHMC
Press Secretary
(717) 783-9882; e-mail

PHMC PRAISES STUDENTS INVOLVED IN QUEST TO SOLVE ANCIENT MYSTERY

HARRISBURG (March 16) – Historical and Museum Commission Executive Director Brent D. Glass today praised middle-school students from the Londonderry School in Harrisburg who are working with state archaeologists to unlock the secrets of one of North America’s most famous archaeological sites – the Shoop site in Dauphin County.

“This is an exciting partnership with some very bright young people that is helping us to unlock the mysteries of our past,” Glass said. “We also think it’s the first time this technology has been used for this purpose in Pennsylvania.

“Who knows? These future archaeologists may one day guide the next generation in examining artifacts with technology unknown today.”

Glass said that middle-school students Catherine Paszek and Dynisha Gamble, of Harrisburg, and Yusuf Sharif, of Camp Hill, Cumberland County, with the help of Tyco Laboratories of Harrisburg, used a scanning electronic microscope and specialized software to examine the edges of scrapers used by the Clovis or Paleo-Indian people of Pennsylvania -- Late Ice Age hunters who left the scrapers, spear points and other stone tools at what now is called the Shoop Site in Northern Dauphin County. Some of the tools are 10,000 years old.

Glass noted that PHMC archaeologists Joe Baker and Kurt Carr worked with the students to examine the images they produced and looked for evidence of how the scrapers were used.

Seventh-grader Gamble presented the research results at the Londonderry School science fair in February and entered the project in the Capital Area Science and Engineering Fair at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Cumberland County, this week.

“We concluded that the scrapers were used on hides and that they were making clothes,” Gamble said. “After all, it got cold then, too!” Glass said the students’ research bolsters the interpretation of some archaeologists that the Shoop site was a meat- and hide-processing site used by the Late Ice Age hunters who left the stone tools.

Mary Pat Evans, the Londonderry School science teacher who is coordinating the project, said that earlier research efforts have shown that stone scrapers used to work wood or bone usually exhibit a series of microscopic scratches along their edges. But the Londonderry School students found very few of these scratches on the Shoop site scrapers. Instead, they found and photographed a distinctive sheen or polish on the edges of the tools -- the unmistakable mark left by scraping and preparing animal hides.

The students will follow up their work this fall during the annual Archaeology Month on City Island, Harrisburg, Sept. 22 through Oct. 6. To refine their conclusions further, they will use reproduction stone scrapers modeled after the authentic tools from the Shoop Site, and work wood, hides, bone and other materials.

Then it’s back to the Tyco labs to compare the wear on their reproductions and on additional scrapers from the Shoop Site.

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