One day a university student, named Mike Johnson, found something really amazing in his backyard. It was a spear shaped rock that people thousands of years ago used to hunt with. He thought it was so neat that he decided to become an archaeologist. An archaeologist is someone that digs up stuff that people or other animals left there a long time ago.

Since then, Mike has been digging lots of things up and figuring out how they fit into history. Now he is working on the Cactus Hill project, in Cactus Hill, VA. Cactus hill may be the home of the first people of North America.

The Cactus Hill site was discovered by Joe McAvoy. McAvoy is a world famous scientist who one day happened to stumble across a piece of birch bark dated back to the oldest people known in North America. So he began a huge effort to dig into the earth's crust to find out more about the first people. These people and way of living come from the Clovis Period. The Clovis Period was about 13,000 years ago! The people that lived here used rocks for tools and hunting weapons. Still much is not known about these people because the dig has really just started. What did they wear, and what kind of language did they have? Where they come from, and where did they go? As the dig continues archeologists will continue to find out more and more about the first people of North America.

Nick

Please email me at: nick@ustrek.org