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to satisfy such criteria they are inevitably open to question, rejection, or suspended judgement.” The problem here is that practically none of the locations where major paleoanthropological discoveries have been made would qualify as genuine sites. This includes many sites crucial to the picture of human evolution so carefully built up over the past century. For example, most of the African discoveries of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus have occurred not in “clearly identifiable” geological contexts, but on the surface or in cave deposits, which are notoriously difficult to interpret geologically. Most of the Java Homo erectus finds also occurred on the surface, in poorly specified locations. At none of the places of these discoveries can one find the combination of factors Griffin deemed necessary for a proper site.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Sheguiandah site appears to satisfy most of Griffin’s stringent requirements. Implements were found in a geological context clearer than that of many accepted sites. Several geologists expert in North American glacial deposits did apparently agree on an age in excess of 30,000 years. Evidence suggested there was no secondary deposition or intrusion. A variety of tool types were found, pollen studies and radiocarbon tests were performed, and macrobotanical materials (peat) were present. The only things absent were human and animal bones.

A few years after dismissing Sheguiandah as a nonsite, Griffin grudgingly accepted it as a recent site. In reading the report containing this admission, one gets the impression that the only tools found were those lying on or near the surface, and that the Sheguiandah site can best be dated with reference to peat bogs that formed after Manitoulin Island emerged from Lake Algonquin about 9,000 years ago. There is not the slightest hint that tools were found in glacial till and meltwater deposits. Griffin (1983, p. 247) stated, referring to Sheguiandah and two neighboring locales: “A reasonable estimate of the age of these sites would be from about 7000 to 6000 b.c., a time when there is a high pollen count from a nearby bog at Sheguiandah. These sites are almost certainly not earlier than the period of the lowest level of Lake Algonquin.”

In 1974, a similar approach was taken by P. L. Storck of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He listed Sheguiandah as a Shield Archaic site. The Shield Archaic is a recent, and broadly defined, Indian stone tool culture that spread across much of central Canada. Lee protested, pointing out the absurdity of treating the tools from Sheguiandah as if they all belonged to a single unit of recent historical time. To do so would mean ignoring the obviously stratified nature of the Sheguiandah site, with tools of distinct types found on the surface and at different levels below the surface—within glacial tills, meltwater deposits, and lacrustine sediments (T. E. Lee 1974).

The Shield Archaic culture was preceded by Paleo-Indian cultures in Canada, and it may thus be called a post-Paleo-Indian culture. According to Lee, the Paleo-Indian culture is represented at Sheguiandah by the upper projectile point level, lying above the glacial tills. The Shield Archaic came later, and might be represented by the tools found lying on the surface at Sheguiandah. In any case, both the Shield Archaic and Paleo-Indian cultures came after the glacial period. Disputing the Shield Archaic labeling of Sheguiandah, T. E. Lee (1974, p. 24) asked the following questions: “Where do we go to find post-Paleo-Indian in and beneath primary glacial tills, in meltwater deposits, and beneath boulder pavings? Shall we consult the geologists who extensively and intensively studied the site during four years while the trenches were open? Will their opinions carry weight in the face of a young archaeologist’s statement? Four of them—the most closely involved out of a hundred geologists who saw the trenches—Dr. Sanford, Dr. Antevs, Dr. Terasmae, and Dr. Liberty put the age of the site at ‘a minimum of 30,000 years.