Wave Action at George Lake 1, Ontario

Extract

In a recent issue of American Antiquity (Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 101-11, 1954) Thomas Lee states that several geologists reject wave action as the cause of the worn condition of some of the blades found at the Sheguiandah site in Ontario, Canada. This fosters doubt in his mind that I am right in assigning wave action as the cause of the worn condition of artifacts from George Lake 1, 25 miles to the east. This is a matter of crucial importance for the site because it involves the only method of establishing the contemporaneity of cultural material with construction of the beach by waves at an elevation of 297 feet above the present level of Lake Huron.

The most secure support of wave action at George Lake is the abrasion of the artifacts to the same degree and in the same manner as the cobbles of the beach itself. Both are in the condition described by sedimentologists as subangular. It is also important that the aretes of the implements are in most cases much smoother than the surfaces of the flake scars. Other facts are consistent with this interpretation.