AGES faculty recently participated in a project to identify portions of the Lake Erie bottom that could have been inhabited when the lake waters were lower.
This research has been covered by local and national NPR programs, most recently Here and Now. Now in its third season, the research has identified several areas that appear to contain intact land surfaces submerged and buried beneath the lake bottom. One of these surfaces was dated to more than 10,000 years ago. Future work will continue to refine the search areas with the goal of locating archaeological sites.
Ben Ford co-leads the project in partnership with colleagues from Texas A&M University and the Seneca Nation of Indians. The project is partially funded as an archaeological field school through the Anthropocene Research Center.