An archeological find in the Shields Valley in 1968 revealed some surprising new information about the earliest inhabitants the state, and provides a window into the shifting ethics of modern archeology. Our story starts in the Ice Age, when people took to the mountains of Montana to hunt camels, cheetahs and mammoths.
Austin Amestoy: Welcome to The Big Why, a series from Montana Public Radio where we find out what we can discover together. I'm your host, Austin Amestoy. This is a show about listener-powered reporting. We'll answer questions, big or small, about anything under the Big Sky. By Montanans, for Montana, this is The Big Why.
This episode reporter John Hooks is back. I understand you have another Montana history lesson for us today John.
John Hooks: I sure do, Austin, and we’ve got a great topic for this one.
Austin Amestoy: I love the confidence there John! What’s our subject?
John Hooks: We’ll get to our listener’s question shortly, but first, we need to do a bit of table setting. I’m going to take you along to a ranch in the Shields Valley, near Wilsall, with our guide: Historian, cultural consultant and friend of the show, Shane Doyle.
We walk through some tall grass and end up at a spot where a creek runs underneath a small cliff face. This is where a construction crew stumbled across an incredible discovery in 1968.
Shane Doyle: So, the construction workers showed up here, they were loading the sandstone rock into the back of a pickup truck, and as the driver pulled away, he saw in the rearview mirror a Clovis artifact drop through the hole that they had just dug. And that's when they discovered this incredible cache of over 120 priceless Clovis artifacts.
Austin Amestoy: Forgive my ignorance here John, but what is a “Clovis” artifact?
John Hooks: The term Clovis refers to the people who lived in the Americas around 13,000 years ago, toward the end of the last Ice Age.
For context that’s almost 10,000 years before the Great Pyramids of Giza were built. And folks back then had a very particular style of making stone and bone tools; so those tools are the Clovis artifacts.
Austin Amestoy: Oh wow, so this is some really ancient, ancient history.
John Hooks: And the artifacts aren't even the most incredible thing they found: underneath were the remains of a baby boy, buried with the artifacts and painted red with ochre. It’s one of the oldest human remains ever discovered in North America, and is the only remains from the Clovis culture ever found.
The remains are known as the Anzick child. Anzick being the family that owns the ranch where they were discovered.
Austin Amestoy: John that is totally remarkable, I had no idea about this. What is it about this site our listener wants to know?
John Hooks: Our listener this episode is Henry Holt. He lives up in Whitefish, and he told me he got interested in this after falling down a classic Wikipedia rabbit hole.
Henry Holt: I was just looking into the Native American heritage of Wilsall and the Crazy Mountains, and that took me there. Which, immediately, it was a huge hit for me because I'm into all that sort of stuff.
John Hooks: Henry’s got a really keen hobbyist’s interest in history, especially this ancient, early Americas type stuff, but he couldn’t find much info about any archeological investigations or research into Clovis people in the region beyond the Anzick child, so he wanted to know: What have we learned in the years since the Anzick discovery?
Henry Holt: To me, I hear about and I read about all sorts of archeology going on all over the place, but I hear nothing about here.
Austin Amestoy: John, I’m in the same boat as Henry here and really interested in learning more. What were you able to find out?
John Hooks: So, the Anzick site itself, and other finds in Park County, have taught us a lot about Clovis people. We’ve learned about what they ate, who they’re related to, and where they lived. The Anzick child also provides a window into shifts in ethics in modern archeology.
Austin Amestoy: Great, let’s start with what they ate.
John Hooks: Sure! So, if you’ll excuse a pun, Clovis-era diets are where things get wild and woolly. To walk us through that is Scott Dersam, an anthropologist and teacher at Montana State [University].
Scott Dersam: Essentially, their technology — their lifestyles, their foraging, how they move, where they move, when they move — their technology is all derived upon what we call megafauna predation, or like. predating of mammoths, early paleo horses, early paleo cheetahs, paleo sloths.
Austin Amestoy: So they were hunting woolly mammoths and other giant Ice Age animals?
John Hooks: Exactly, and blood residue from Anzick tools helped confirm this
Scott Dersam: Two of the artifacts from the Anzick tested positive for butchery of paleo camel.
Austin Amestoy: Amazing! Giant camels wandering around southwest Montana.
John Hooks: It’s so cool it’s almost hard to wrap your head around.
Austin Amestoy: So, moving on, you said the Anzick site showed us who Clovis people were related to, what did you mean by that?
John Hooks: A little over a decade ago, scientists were able to sequence the genome of the Anzick child, which showed a unique DNA sequence that is only found in the Indigenous people of North and South America. For the importance of that, let’s turn it back over to Shane Doyle, who is a member of the Crow Tribe and worked with the researchers who studied the genome.
Shane Doyle: The significance of the DNA study showed finally, once and for all, that Clovis people were in fact Native American. That is what we know of and who we think of as Native Americans.
John Hooks: The genome shows the Anzick child is directly related to modern day Native people, including the tribes in Montana.
Austin Amestoy: That is so cool. So you mentioned insights into where Clovis people lived?
John Hooks: Absolutely. So, given they were living during the literal ice age, archeologists have assumed that Clovis people mostly stuck to lower elevation areas, like the Shields Valley where the Anzick child was found.
But Scott Dersam, who we heard earlier, has actually been researching Clovis artifacts that have been found in the last 20 or so years high up in the mountains in Park County.
Scott Dersam: There are no other Clovis sites in the mountains. There's zero evidence of Clovis use of mountains anywhere in the world, period.
Austin Amestoy: So the artifacts Scott is studying are the only evidence of Clovis people being this high up in the mountains?
John Hooks: Correct. And Scott says it's leading to a reevaluation of how Clovis people interacted with our landscape, and how much time they spent in the mountains.
Austin Amestoy: John you also mentioned the Anzick site can teach us about changes in archeological ethics, tell me more about that.
John Hooks: For this part I’m going to bring in Jessica Bush, she’s the State Archeologist with the Montana Historical Society and sits on a government body called the Montana Burial Preservation Board. She told me that the Anzick child provides a case study in how the field has learned to be more respectful, especially of indigenous remains.
Jessica Bush: I've heard people say, 'what if this is my child? I wouldn't want someone digging them up and doing scientific analysis on them.' And it's kind of bringing that home.
John Hooks: That’s in part why there hasn’t been more excavation for additional remains in the area since the original Anzick find. When the remains were first discovered, the mindset was that they needed to be kept safe and studied. But after the genome study was published, researchers wrestled over what to do next with the child’s remains. After consulting with Montana tribes, they decided to rebury the child in 2014 in an intertribal ceremony in the Shields Valley. Shane Doyle was there that day.
Shane Doyle: That was a good feeling. You know, that was a feeling of being able to finally exhale. And the medicine man who performed the ceremony, Larson Medicine Horse, said that this closes the chapter on this for all of us now, and in a good way. And, you know, we want to thank you for being here as we bring this boy full circle.
Austin Amestoy: Before we wrap up I’m just curious, what did listener Henry Holt have to say about your findings?
John Hooks: He was interested, but still has a ton of remaining questions. That’s one of the things that comes with studying Clovis history, there’s always going to be questions left unanswered.
Henry Holt: No, I mean, it's. It's good. I kind of figured that most of my questions would remain extremely unanswered.
Austin Amestoy: Thanks for bringing us this episode John, it was fascinating
John Hooks: Happy to.
Austin Amestoy: Now we want to know what makes you curious about Montana. Submit your questions below. Let's see what we can discover together!
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