Sheridan Cave is a Paleo-Indian archaeological site from the late

Ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

Wyandot County, Ohio Wyandot County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,900. Its county seat is Upper Sandusky. It was named for the Wyandot Indians, who lived here before and afte ...

. Glacial deposits sealed off the cave more than 10,000 years ago. Sheriden Cave is a karst

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

on a dolomite ridge that crosses Hancock and Wyandot Counties. It is associated with the Indian Trail Caverns that opened in 1927. Sheriden Cave was discovered in 1989. The cave is unique because in addition to stone tools, there were also bone tools, remains of extinct animals, and organic matter found in the cave.

Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

of artifacts indicate that they were used 11,000 and 12,000 years ago.

Excavation

By 1995, the opening to the cave was exposed by a bulldozer. There was an initial study of the site due to the

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

remains, but a 1995 discovery found evidence of human occupation of the cave. Kenneth Tankersley of

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in A ...

led the excavation of the site, with his colleagues and the support of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

, beginning about 1997 and for about three years.

Findings

Rare bone spear points, a

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

hide-scraper, and a fluted spear point were found in the cave, radiocarbon dated to 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. The artifacts found include

Clovis culture The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...

material. Along with the artifacts were remains of the now-extinct

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within ...

epoch animals, including the

giant short-faced bear The Tremarctinae or short-faced bears is a subfamily of Ursidae that contains one living representative, the spectacled bear (''Tremarctos ornatus'') of South America, and several extinct species from four genera: the Florida spectacled bear ('' ...

stag moose ''Cervalces scotti'', the elk moose or stag-moose, is an extinct species of large deer that lived in North America during the Late Pleistocene epoch. It had palmate antlers that were more complex than those of a moose and a muzzle more closely re ...

, flat-headed peccary, and the giant beaver. The material in the cave was well-preserved, with organic material like gourds and human feces. There was also a layer of wood charcoal. Because well-preserved material from the Paleo-Indian period is unique in the eastern United States, little is known about how Paleo-Indians lived. This site is important to understanding how early humans lived in Ohio and how that compares to other early people who crossed the Bering Strait to enter the Americas. Life restoration cervalces scotti

archaeology professor Ken Tankersley found that people occupied the cave about 11,500 years ago, at a time where there was significant climate and environmental change. A historic marker marks the area near the cave, where the entrance is fenced off. Other Paleo-Indian sites in Ohio include Paleo Crossing site in Medina County, Nobles Pond site in Stark County, and the Welling site in Coshocton County.

References

* Redmond, B. G. 2000. Sheriden Cave: Opening the Time Capsule. Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Explorer Magazine, Spring 2000, pp. 4–6, 14. * Redmond, B.G. and K.B. Tankersley. 2005. Evidence of Early Paleoindian Bone Modification and Use at the Sheriden Cave Site (33WY252), Wyandot County, Ohio. American Antiquity 70(3):503-526. * Redmond, B.G. 2005. Sheriden Cave, Wyandot County: Opening a Time Capsule. In Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures, by Bradley T. Lepper, pp. 48–49. Orange Frazer Press, Wilmington, Ohio and Voyageur Media Group, Inc. * Redmond, B.G. 2007. Bone Points from Sheriden Cave. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Explorer Magazine, Spring 2007, p. 7. * Tankersley, K.B. and B.G. Redmond. 1999. Radiocarbon Dating of a Paleoindian Projectile Point from Sheriden Cave, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene. 16: 76–77. * Tankersley, K. B. and B. G. Redmond. 2000. Ice Age Ohio: A Deep Cave Yields Evidence of Paleoindians, Climate Change, and the Demise of the Megamammals. Archaeology, November/December 2000, pp. 42–46. * * Tankersley, K. B., B. G. Redmond, and T. E. Grove. 2002. Radiocarbon Dates Associated with a Single-beveled Bone Projectile Point from Sheriden Cave, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:62-64. * Waters, Michael R., Thomas W. Stafford, Brian G. Redmond, and Kenneth B. Tankersley. (2009) "The Age of the Paleoindian Assemblage at Sheriden Cave, Ohio." ''American Antiquity'' 74(1): 107–11. doi:10.2307/25470540.

External links

Indian Trail Caverns and Sheriden Cave
(video) {{Native Americans in Ohio Archaeological sites in Ohio Pre-Columbian archaeological sites Pre-statehood history of Ohio Paleo-Indian period Wyandot County, Ohio Late Pleistocene Geology of Ohio

Excavation

Findings

References

Further reading

External links