Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [242]
The middle Wisconsin was a period of significant glacial retreats, which took place during interstadials, or warm periods. The interstadial retreats were interrupted by some partial readvances.
During the late Wisconsin, the glaciers again advanced, this time to their maximum extent, after which they finally retreated, leaving the present Great Lakes.
According to Sanford, the presence of tools in the tills indicated that Manitoulin Island must have been habitable (not covered by ice or water) at certain periods. During these times, people quarried stone and made tools. After these periods of habitation, glacial advances mixed the tools lying on the ground with stone and earth. When the glaciers retreated this material was deposited as till. So the most important problem facing Sanford was to identify the times when it was possible for toolmakers to have lived in the vicinity of Sheguiandah and the times that glaciers subsequently advanced over the habitation sites.
Supporters of the dominant view about the peopling of the New World would want the habitation dates to be as recent as possible. This is because they believe that a human presence in the New World does not go much further back than 12,000 years. It should be kept in mind, however, that such a recent period of habitation at Sheguiandah must have been followed by a glacial advance and retreat; otherwise, one would not find tools in glacial till.
Was there in fact such a situation within the past 12,000 or so years at Sheguiandah—a period when Manitoulin Island was habitable followed by a period of glacial advance and retreat? In the 1950s, when the site was discovered, it was thought there were two relatively recent glacial advances and retreats that might have reached Sheguiandah—the Cochrane advance, at maybe 8,000 years ago (Nilsson 1983, p. 390), and the Valders advance, at around 11,000 years ago (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, p. 81). These advances were thought to have taken place after the main Wisconsin ice sheet retreated north of Manitoulin Island during the final part of the late Wisconsin. One might therefore propose that the tools found in the glacial till were manufactured in a warm period before the Cochrane advance or before the Valders advance. The Two Creeks interstadial has been mentioned.
But current geological opinion argues against this. First of all, during the Two Creeks interstadial, Sheguiandah appears to have been under ice (Hough 1958, p. 288). And when the ice finally retreated, it apparently did not come back (and deposit till). Also, recent authorities do not find evidence for either the Cochrane or Valders advances in the Lake Huron region (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, pp. 71–72, 95–96; Nilsson 1983, p. 390). According to this view, around 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, the retreating Wisconsin ice sheet passed north of the region now occupied by Lake Huron, apparently without advancing again (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, pp. 95–96). Furthermore, as the ice passed north of the present Lake Huron basin, it appears that Manitoulin Island remained under a body of water called Lake Algonquin. Lake Algonquin was a proglacial lake, one that forms at the front of an advancing or retreating glacier. “The position of the ice front is speculative,” said Sanford (1971, p. 12). “However, if the map presented by Hough (1958, fig. 62, p. 288) can be considered as summarizing the opinion of geologists, and I believe that it can, Sheguiandah would have been covered by ice during the Two Creeks interval. On the other hand, let us suppose the ice had melted sufficiently so that the front was farther north; and supposing that the area would have been habitable so far as climate is concerned, even though the ice front was not very far away. What are the chances people could have lived on the island? They are extremely slight, because of the probability that the island would have been well covered by water.”
Thus far in our review we have found no situation within the past 12,000 years that would account for stone tools