Cactus Hill

Cactus Hill is an archaeological site in southeastern Virginia, United States. The site sits on sand dunes above the Nottoway River and lies about 45 miles south of Richmond. The site is owned by the International Paper Corporation.

The site has yielded multiple levels of early occupation. Archaic stage material is underlain by fluted stone tools associated with the Clovis culture reported dated to 10,920 BP. A lower level yields artifacts including unfluted bifacial stone tools with ages reported ranging from 15,000 to 17,000 years old. White pine charcoal from a hearth context on this level has reported dates to 15,070 radiocarbon years BP. Further charcoal deposits retrieved at the site have a reported date to as early as 19,700 years ago, although these deposits may have been made by forest fires. Cactus Hill is arguably the oldest archaeological site in North America.

Dennis Stanford, proponent of the controversial Solutrean hypothesis, suggests projectile points found in the 16,000 BP occupation layer pre-dating Clovis may provide an intermediary link between the Solutrean and Clovis cultures. According to Stanford, "In fact it's [the projectile point] closer to Solutrean than Clovis where you can see that it's in a progression between Solutrean and Clovis, so you have Solutrean, Cactus Hill and Clovis".

In Cactus hill, Discoveries of early Indian settlements were made.

References

http://www.quia.com/quiz/3151618.html?AP_rand=1942069759

External links

• Archaeology magazine update on Cactus Hill