Bet it was only during winter.



----- Original Message -----
From: KATHRYN P ROSENTHAL <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 1999 12:29 PM
Subject: [P-F] Storing Meat in Ponds


An Ann Arbor News article entitled "Digging up the Past"
talked about amateurs helping the U of M's Museum of
Anthropology's archaeology efforts in Michigan.
Archaeologists have identified about 250 prehistoric sites
in one Michigan county alone.

The article states, "The earliest evidence reveals humans
hunted mastodons and stored their meat in local ponds 11,000
years ago."

I've no idea how they managed to find archaeological
evidence supporting meat storage in ponds, but assuming they
did, why would early Native Americans store meat in water?
Smoking meat, drying it in the sun,...but storing in
water???  How long do you think it would last?  Were they
trying to preserve the meat, keep insects off it, keep it
safe from predators - what?

Kath