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