Bone tool oldest human artifact found in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS – A simple tool carved from a deer’s leg bone that college students unearthed in 2003 is more than 10,000 years old, making it the oldest non-stone human artifact ever found in Indiana, scientists say.

University of Indianapolis researchers said radiocarbon dating shows that the 5-inch-long tool – a device called an awl likely used to punch holes in leather – is about 10,400 years old.

That makes it the oldest organic tool ever documented in the state, said Christopher Schmidt, who directs the college’s Indiana Prehistory Laboratory.

He said stone tools such as spearpoints found in Indiana in or near charcoal deposits from ancient campfires have been dated by that proximity at between 10,000 and 12,000 years old.

But the bone tool excavated from an ancient glacial lake in northwest Indiana is a rare find, Schmidt said, because tools made from organic material such as bones or wood typically decay over thousands of years.

“Usually bone tools rot away and nothing is left. You might have a bone tool that rots away and you’ll just find a stone point that was part of it,” he said. “To find a bone tool is very exciting for us.”

The findings will be published in an upcoming edition of North American Archaeologist.
Schmidt said the precise date provided by the tool supports the growing idea that Paleo-Indian peoples had migrated farther north just after the end of the last ice age than scientists had once thought.

The bone tool was fashioned from a white-tail deer’s leg bone, with one end ground to a point. Schmidt said scratches and notches on the bone suggest it was probably used along with a stone knife to punch holes in leather, perhaps to make clothing.
He said the nature of that activity suggests that the people who used it were not nomads but instead enjoyed a more settled lifestyle.

“This isn’t just people passing through. This is people settling down, making homes,” Schmidt said.

Little is known about the people who lived in Indiana 10,000 years ago, so the tool’s discovery is all the more important, he said.

“It gives us a glimpse into life not long after the glaciers had receded,” Schmidt said.
The tool was found in 2003 in glacial lake deposits in Carroll County near the town of Flora by students taking part in the University of Indianapolis’ annual summer archaeology field school.

Over the years, that site northeast of Lafayette has yielded the remains of mastodons. Schmidt said the long-vanished lake also attracted giant beaver and smaller wildlife for thousands of years.