Raising Questions on the Cinmar Blade

[sailorjoe]

I missed the start of this thread back during May. I appreciate David resurrecting it. I have nothing to add except to say that it is very informative and I have learned much.

[Havenhunter]

I'm open to any & all theories provided there is sound empirical evidence. Some things cannot be proven but there is enough data to at least imply plausibility.
I've had the pleasure of holding Mark Small's blades & the first thought that's comes to mind is that these were intended to slay something really, really big!! A mammoth or mastodon certainly comes to mind.
One has to keep in mind Dr. Stanford interviewed a very old man just days prior to his death about a single event that occurred decades before. If total recall of the facts was muddied by time & age, I am not surprised. Did Stanford embellish, skew, or confuse the facts in an effort to prove his theory? Maybe. I for one choose to believe the eArth & sea cover great treasures & some of us are fortunate enough to find them.

[painshill]

It’s true that these two points don’t feature in “Across Atlantic Ice” but they nevertheless were published by Stanford et al. in 2014 in:

New Evidence for a Possible Paleolithic Occupation of the Eastern North American Continental Shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum by Dennis Stanford, Darrin Lowery, Margaret Jodry, Bruce A. Bradley, Marvin Kay, Thomas W. Stafford and Robert J. Speakman 2014.

The emphasis on the word “possible” is mine, but it is worth drawing attention to it. Both blades are illustrated by line drawings in Figure 5.10 of that paper, which can be downloaded from here (if you sign up for an Academia.edu account… which I highly recommend):

https://www.academia.edu/7054896/New_Evidence_for_a_Possible_Paleolithic_Occupation_of_the_Eastern_North_American_Continental_Shelf_at_the_Last_Glacial_Maximum

All that the authors say about these points is this (again, the emphasis is mine):

A large knife (Fig. 5.10a) made of quartzite was dredged from the bottom of Mopjack Bay near Norfolk, Virginia. Use-wear studies suggest that it was not hafted, but rather it was hand-held. A heavily resharpened biface (Fig. 5.10e), was also dredged from Mopjack Bay. Like the Cinmar biface, this tool was made of banded rhyolite and was used as a hafted knife. It is important that these specimens were found in circumstances indicating that they were used and lost on the now-submerged continental shelf or the adjacent lowlands along the LGM Susquehanna River channel. It is also evident that they were all heavy-duty tools; likely used for butchering larger animals such as mastodons rather than smaller fauna.

It is important to note that the manufacturing technology used to produce the Chesapeake Bay bifaces and the tool types themselves reflect the same technology as that used by the Solutrean people of southwestern Europe during the LGM (Stanford and Bradley 2012). Although more evidence is needed, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to hypothesize that this early settlement of the East Coast of North America resulted from a European Paleolithic maritime tradition. There is little question that the Cinmar discovery indicates that exciting new chapters in the story of Paleolithic people will be uncovered as archaeologists continue to investigate the continental shelves of oceans worldwide (Earlandson 2001).

Clearly, the blades were examined “in the hand” for an assessment of the lithic materials to be made. It couldn’t have been deduced from casts. So, who assessed them? I’m finding this story very muddled, and there are various conflicting accounts (conflicting in minor, but important, details) about their heritage… even within accounts that seem to have been written by yourself.

[Guest]

It is vital to note that Mobjack Bay is not near Norfolk, but is shown on the map of Mathews and a small part of Gloucester County--there are four rivers, clockwise from bottom left--the Severn, Ware, North and East which form the bay watershed. Mobjack is that neck of land at the junction of the North and East Rivers--at lower center of image (street name of Mobjack Lane is just barely readable)



The blades were loaned by my arrangement to Dr Stanford with the widow's consent. The stated origins of these blades conflicts with my own account given at the museum to these. Mike Frank cast the blades shown in public at the NM conference

This hits upon problems with accurate dissemination of raw data....for the life of me, and I AM the source of find info via word of mouth from Mark Small. It is and always has been my assertion the finds were from vicinity of Haven Bar Buoy.. The Rappahannock channel joins the ancient basin of the Susquehanna and creates a shallow bay-depth along their now sunken shores. The Piankatank River and Queen's Creek, Milford Haven flowing through what is known as Hole-in-the-Wall (a passage through barrier islands), are parts of this drainage, too.

The area along the strip of shoreline from Gwynn's Island to Bethel Beach is where the four additional specimens came from. This suggests that the focus of habitation was along and between the LGM shoreline circumscribed by the ancient channels' shores and the current shoreline, which was then 100ft above the LGM bay-water level.

Erosion is ferocious here--already the formation of Belle Isle is washed away, taking with it pleistocene fossil and artifact bearing layers, now being swept into the haven along the inner shore of the southern tip of Gwynn's Island, and likely to the bottom of the haven itself until they dredge it again. Numerous Clovis points have been recorded from Belle Isle or the tip of Gwynn's Island. In 1890, a casino, hotel and vacation resort was on Belle Isle--since I've known the place, all I've seen are a few scattered bricks left--one could still walk from Belle to Gwynn's island across the shallows. A

Sandy Point is gone, as are a whole string of islets and marsh grass clumps once spread across either side of the hole-in-the-wall. Shagtail, where many artifacts came up, is also gone, now washing across a very shallow sand bar near Diggs, VA. The public beach has eroded away at least 500 yards since I first came to the county in '74. The stretch of open water from Bethel beach to Sanger's Island is the result of Sanger's beach eroding away over a mile and a half stretch of barrier island since 1974. All of this shoreline formation is subject to extensive erosion from NE winds and currents.

Gravel from Belle Isle now adorns the shores of Sanger island beaches The triangle formed by this range focuses NW winds/currents directly from the ancient shoreline to the present one--given the shallow and almost consistently sandy bottom, storm energy easily propels anything not stuck in the bottom towards the shore. Storms even dredge up material from shallow areas close to shore--ancient living floors submerged under a feet feet of water, the clay substrate's pitting and hollows could as easily be stump holes or old fire-pits laden with artifacts

[painshill]

Any idea then, why Stanford et al. quote (and provide an approximate map for) the origin of these blades which is nowhere near the origin you say Mark Small provided to you (bearing in mind also that Mr Small traded for them rather than found them and is relying on the veracity of a claim from someone else)?

[Guest]

All I do know is we all spent at least 6 hours in the museum going over the artifacts brought in by not only the widow, but a score of others, at least. Talk was ongoing and it is possible that misunderstandings are innocent. I did refer to the big blade as the Mobjack Blade, but only in name because no typology I'm aware of bears a finders name--hence I chose at that time not to be presumptuous by trying to name them after my buddy. This is the only event during the day's conversations that jogged my mind after reading their being said to come from Mobjack Bay. I think it was a poor situation for recording of pertinent data.

We discussed sunken Spanish ships, find locations for Mark's other Paleo's, assessments of later material by Dr Lowery (Dr Stanford hardly notices anything more recent than paleo--but he did ohh and ahhh over a translucent multi-hued Jacks Reef in the collection. We all talked about a host of other things, as well as the thousands of points we all poured over--make no mistake, I was elbow to elbow with Dr's Stanford and Lowery while examining these artifacts--it was like a crash course in everything I wanted to study, and it seemed to have worked a bit both ways like that. I got a kick out of the end results of having butchered a recently dead elephant with Clovis tool technologies(Dr Stanford's recounting of the event)--they took the remains to the dog-food manufacturer, told the scale man it was a elephant, scale man writes down 'big cow'....meat in bulk sold to the factory weighed 3300lbs, netting a profit of something lik 33 cents a pound for the meat...and a great relief upon the trucks suspension

[Guest]

Mark Small traded into them from a classmate he'd known throughout their school years. It is a small community of approx 10,000 total county pop. Everyone knows everyone, and Mark had no qualms of bragging that he'd show up at the docks with a bottle of JD, a bag of moke and cash in-hand, just asking to see who caught what. He grew up on the island, and is buried there. He got to where I could never go, because he knew who was kin or close to everyone on the docks and aboard the boats--the 'next generation' of watermen graduated with him. I've known Mark since we were in the 10th grade, began hunting with him shortly after I got out of the service in '81. He already had a collection. Many of our mutual friends also hunted with us, with me, etc.

[Havenhunter]

As a freelance writer I know the value of using a digital recorder to ensure getting the facts as told by the interviewee. If Dennis Stanford was relying on hand written scribbles and/or memory over the course of six hours, it's entirely possible he misquoted-- once or several times. Just a thought worth considering.

[Guest]

I agree--it was nothing like a sit down discussion, lol: Tables with artifacts, artifact owners with boxes, Mike Frank demonstrating knapping techniques, two reporters, museum founders, Dean Parker and wife present to be awarded a exact cast of the Cinmar in a ceremony honoring his donation to the Smithsonian, and Dr Stanford's staff, counting Mike and himself, totaled six...then there were the gawkers, lol. Note pads were used some.....some! There cannot be any fault in the original misinterpretations....subsequent misstatements based upon conflicting second-hand accounts seems to be the norm. As recounted, one fellow actually never bothered to just call the Gwynn's Island Museum as we went on about how it didn't exist prior to 1991...too many folks are too easily satisfied with secondary sources when primary sources are available

[CMD]

I agree--it was nothing like a sit down discussion, lol: Tables with artifacts, artifact owners with boxes, Mike Frank demonstrating knapping techniques, two reporters, museum founders, Dean Parker and wife present to be awarded a exact cast of the Cinmar in a ceremony honoring his donation to the Smithsonian, and Dr Stanford's staff, counting Mike and himself, totaled six...then there were the gawkers, lol. Note pads were used some.....some! There cannot be any fault in the original misinterpretations....subsequent misstatements based upon conflicting second-hand accounts seems to be the norm. As recounted, one fellow actually never bothered to just call the Gwynn's Island Museum as we went on about how it didn't exist prior to 1991...too many folks are too easily satisfied with secondary sources when primary sources are available

If this was the case, it sounds like an inexcusable level of carelessness by Stanford. He's trying to build a case for his theory, and he does not make absolutely certain he gets the reported find location correct? I don't care if there are a hundred people there, all waving lithics in his face. He used casts of those artifacts at the Santa Fe Conference. He placed them at an approximate location on a map. If somebody was providing him with a reported find location, it's his responsibility to record it accurately. And to know the info is second hand from Small. That the find location is where Small was told it was, not where he himself found them. Again, I don't care how noisy or tumultuous that show and tell might have been. He was willing to use those blades as evidence in support of the Solutrean Hypothesis. He's obligated to record any info associated with those finds accurately. Everybody makes mistakes; it happens. But, if he is not taking you aside and getting that info correct, right then and there, then wow, that is sloppy. Maybe I am being unfair. You know, he's been criticised for being loose with the facts with the Cinmar blade. He's trying to overturn conventional wisdom here. His peers are going to expect a very high standard for his evidence. Screwing up the find location, if that mistake can be laid at his feet, is poor. And I should think completely avoidable at the time. And his responsibility to avoid it. Once he publishes the wrong info, it's on him, whether he likes it or not. Whether his supporters like it or not. The man is trying to rewrite prehistory. Get your evidence straight.

[Guest]

What I have problems with--real problems--is the way subsequent researches have seemingly avoided primary sources for regurgitated 7th hand info. This explains why a lot of the confusion exists. As mentioned before, one researcher questioned how Cinmar could have been in the Gwynn's Island Museum before the museum was founded--and yet he had only to call the museum itsself. In fact, calling almost anyone in Mathews over the age of 35 might have given him the facts

[Guest]

Interesting bit of info for researchers, courtesy Dr Darrin Lowery

https://www.academia.edu/11753423/Cinmar_Site_Investigations_2013

[spacejesse]

http://violentmetaphors.com/2015/11/11/responses-to-some-questions-about-our-recently-published-paper-on-haplogroup-x-and-north-american-prehistory/

[painshill]

David SS has (twice now) referred to a “mistaken” belief that the Gwynn’s Island Museum did not exist prior to 1991. That belief is not mistaken. Jean P. Tanner, describing herself as “Volunteer Directory [sic] of the Gwynn’s Island Museum since 1991” in correspondence with Darrin Lowery of the Smithsonian on 21^st April 2015 says (the bold emphasis is mine, as are the comments in blue):

“… The museum was founded in 1991. We started out in what is now our Civic League Center, formerly, the Shiloh Methodist Church. We had to find new headquarters because of the rapid growth. An old school house, formerly the Odd Fellows Lodge, was donated to the Civic League and after extensive renovations, we opened our doors to the public June 25, 1994…… My home [ie not the museum itself] was open for the county school children prior to the 1991 opening [surely she means 1994 opening, otherwise this conflicts with her preceding statement?] so they could see and learn about the artifacts we had found at Gwynn’s Island…”

Lowery has now published a forceful rebuttal of Metin Eren’s (et al.) challenge to the provenance and provenience of the Cinmar blade and that quote comes from Lowery’s paper. Lowery’s rebuttal is undated, but obviously must be later than Eren’s paper (published June 2015) which is what initially sparked this thread. I rely heavily on quotes from that (Lowery) paper, within which Tanner shares information that she provided at the time to Stanford and later to Eren.

While remaining respectful of Academia.edu copyright, I hope that these quotes fall within “fair use” since it is important that both “sides” of the story are told and Lowery’s rebuttal restores that balance, as well as providing insight into how the various confusions may have arisen. You can read the paper in full here (and download it if you have signed up for an Academia account, which I highly recommend):

A Response to the paper titled “The CINMAR discovery and the proposed pre-Late Glacial Maximum occupation of North America” by Three University of Missouri “Scholars”
https://www.academia.edu/12645256/A_...ouri_Scholars_

Also, Tanner gives more definitive information about the provenance of the Cinmar blade and casts some light on the possible misinterpretations and misrepresentations that have arisen and found their way into print in various places:

“… I never met or knew Thurston Shawn [Charles Thurston Shawn, skipper of the Cinmar vessel and the claimed finder]. However, he was spoken of with high regard by many in the county. I first heard of him when in June 30, 2001 (not 2002 ref: this date questioned by Eren Metin [she means Metin Eren] in his e-mail to me in Dec. 2014) artifacts, a mastodon tooth, section of a tusk and a large stone blade were brought to the museum to be placed on loan by Dean Parker of Cobbs Creek, Mathews, VA. Parker, to my knowledge [bad wording… she must mean “to the best of my knowledge”] purchased the artifacts from Shawn in 1974 [ie Parker had owned them for 27 years]. The information left for the label read: Artifacts dredged up 40 miles off the Virginia Capes by Thurston Shawn (1970) [in fact, Shawn’s original charts still exist and the marked location was 58 nautical miles off the Capes, ie 67 miles; at a depth of 38-40 fathoms, ie 228-240 feet… as observed by Lowery’s examination of the charts on 7^th August 2008, a month before Shawn sadly passed away]……

I didn’t get to meet Parker until much later. I set up the display with the information for the label that came with them [ie provided by Parker and not by Shawn or from Shawn’s charts]……

The above is an accurate account of how the material came to be in the Gwynn’s Island Museum. Parker had them in his possession for several years [27 years according to Parker’s story, but Shawn could not remember exactly when he sold the items to Parker other than “it was a while ago”] until he read about the museum (and because we had an extensive pre-history collection of artifacts decided to place them on loan for others to enjoy and learn from.) We knew absolutely nothing about the Solutrean hypothesis at this time……

It is my understanding that archaeologist David Hazard……after a tour of the museum one day suggested to Darrin Lowery that if he was in the neighbourhood that he should visit the museum because they had interesting artifacts. Darrin took that suggestion and made a visit in 2008 (May 4^th, 2008). (The date 2009 was mistakenly stated on the museum website and corrected) This incorrect date showed up in other accounts……”

Stanford’s account in “Across Atlantic Ice” reads: “… A label in the exhibit [at the Gwynn’s Island Museum] indicated that in 1970 the crew of the vessel Cinmar dredged all of these specimens [the biface, mastodon molar and tusk section] at the same time while harvesting deep-sea scallops 100 kilometers off the coast of the Virginia Cape.”

This is partly correct. The label at the museum used the location information provided by Parker (40 miles, ie 64 kilometers; unless Parker meant 40 nautical miles, in which case 74 kilometers). Stanford’s figure of 100 kilometers must have come from the later interview with Shawn, whose charts indicated 58 nautical miles (ie 107 kilometers).

“To move on with other corrections on dates, in 9/12/10 Dennis sent me some papers to look at and correct if necessary [presumably information in preparation for “Across Atlantic Ice”, published in 2012]. The 1970 date is correct for when Thurston dredged the artifacts [but she never met or conversed with him, so that must be second hand information from the Museum label that relied on information from Parker]. At the top of page 2 it read “Captain Shawn retained for himself a tusk section, a complete tooth and the biface”. The next line was not correct. It states that “He gave these specimens to the Gwynn’s Island Museum in 1974.” Thurston [Shawn] sold these to Dean Parker in 1974. Dean Parker kept them in his possession until June 30, 2001 when he placed them on loan to the museum. I e-mailed the corrections to Dennis but in another e-mail dated March 18, 2011, I told Dennis that the manuscript still shows the year the museum received the artifacts as 1974. The 3/10/11 manuscript, top of page – incorrectly states “these specimens have been on exhibit at the Gwynn’s Island Museum since 1974”. I’m sure these errors were corrected but someone did not pick up on them.

(Note [added by Lowery]: The Smithsonian email server typically blocks incoming email with large file attachments. Also, if you have a Smithsonian email account and your mailbox is full, all additional incoming emails will be trashed.) Maybe this is why Jean’s [Tanner’s] edits never made it to Dennis Stanford (Who knows?).”

Tanner also provided Lowery with a copy of the acquisition form for the items (included in the paper). It confirms the date for the donation as 30^th June 2001 and has the brief information provided by Parker that was used to create the museum label (with the blade described as “1 large stone tool (knife)”).

Ultimately, the various parties at Gwynn’s Island who were/are closest to the story (including Tanner) withdrew their co-operation with Eren when it became clear that his intent was to challenge the provenance and provenience of the Cinmar blade. Lowery was also dismayed that Eren stopped responding to his e-mails and published his challenge without any further consultation.

Make of it what you will, but airing it here does at least restore some balance to the discussions and provide insight into how some sloppiness in documenting the facts has fuelled the controversy.

[Guest]

The civic league building came to be used after a fashion as Gwynn's Island's 'museum', since exhibits were kept there, including the antique stuffed owl my little brother was given when the displayed and stored exhibits there were moved into the new building..

It is my understanding that the formalities of accession to the museum followed a period whereat the blade had been on loan informally, at the older building, prior to the new building's completion.

Apparently the artifact was loaned prior to the new building being completed, yes?

>>>Artifacts, a mastodon tooth, section of a tusk and a large stone blade were brought to the museum to be placed on loan by Dean Parker of Cobbs Creek, Mathews, VA. Parker, to my knowledge [bad wording… she must mean “to the best of my knowledge”] purchased the artifacts from Shawn in 1974 [ie Parker had owned them for 27 years]. The information left for the label read: Artifacts dredged up 40 miles off the Virginia Capes by Thurston Shawn (1970) [in fact, Shawn’s original charts still exist and the marked location was 58 nautical miles off the Capes, ie 67 miles; at a depth of 38-40 fathoms, ie 228-240 feet… as observed by Lowery’s examination of the charts on 7^th August 2008, a month before Shawn sadly passed away]……