Ohio History Journal

PREGLACIAL MAN IN OHIO.

AT the meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History2

for November 4, 1885, Mr. Putnam showed an implement

chipped from a pebble of black flint, found by Dr. C. L.

Metz in gravel, eight feet below the surface, in Madisonville,

Ohio. This rude implement is about the same size and shape

of one, made of the same material, found by Dr. Abbott in

the Trenton, N. J., gravel, and is of special interest as the

first one known from the gravels of Ohio. This announce-

ment, coupled with a letter from Dr. Metz, saying that he

had since found another such implement at Loveland, led

me, on the 11th and 12th of November, to visit the locali-

ties and see their relation to the glacial deposits of the region.

The results I here detail.

Madisonville is situated eleven miles northeast of Cincin-

nati, in a singular depression connecting the Little Miami

River with Mill Creek, about five miles back from the Ohio.

The Little Miami joins the Ohio some miles above Cincin-

nati, while Mill Creek joins it just below the city. The gen-

eral height of the hills in that vicinity above the river is from

400 to 500 feet. But the hills just north of Cincinnati are

separated from the general elevation further back by the de-

pression referred to, in which Madisonville is situated.

The depression is from one to two miles wide, and about

five miles long, from one stream to the other, and is occupied

by a deposit of gravel, sand, and loam, clearly enough be-

longing to the glacial-terrace epoch. The surface of this is

generally level, and is about 200 feet above the low-water

mark in the Ohio. On the east side, on the Little Miami

River, at Red Bank, the gravel is rather coarse, ranging from

one to three or four inches, interstratified with sand, and

underlaid, near the river-level, with fine clay. There is here

a thin covering of loess, or fine loam. On going westward

this loess deposit increases in thickness, being at Madison-

 

1See Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. XXIII., p. 242.

257

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258    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

ville, one mile west, about eight feet thick. Farther west it

s much deeper, and seems to take the place of the gravel

entirely. At several railroad cuttings, compact glacial clay,

technically called "till," with scratched stones, appears

underneath all.

From this description it appears that this cross-valley con-

necting Mill Creek with the Little Miami back of Avondale,

Walnut Hills, and the Observatory, was once much deeper

than now, and has been filled in with the deposits made when

immense glacial floods were pouring down these two streams

from the north. The Little Miami was a very important line

of glacial drainage, as is shown by the extensive gravel ter-

races all along its course. The railroads transport this gravel

long distances. The coarser material was naturally deposited

near the direct line of drainage, where the current was strong.

Naturally, also, back from the river towards Madisonville

there would be, as there is, an increase of the fine deposit,

or loess, which is practically a still-water formation.  So

much for the true glacial character of the formation. There

can be no doubt upon that point.

As to the implement, it is preserved in the Archaeological

Museum in Cambridge, Mass., where any one can examine

it and compare it with similar ones from other parts of the

world. It is pronounced by Professor Putnam and Dr. Metz

to be of the true palaeolithic type. It is not smoothed, but

simply a rudely chipped, pointed weapon, about three

inches long. Dr. Metz found it two years ago, while dig-

ging a cistern. In making the excavation for this he pene-

trated the loess eight feet before reaching the gravel, and

there, near the surface of the gravel, this implement was

found. There is no chance for it to have been covered by

any slide, for the plain is extensive and level topped, and

there had evidently been no previous disturbance of the

gravel.

Subsequently, in the spring of the present year (1887),

Dr. Metz found another palaeolith in an excavation in a simi-

lar deposit near Loveland, Ohio. Loveland is also on the

Little Miami River, in the northeast corner of Hamilton

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Preglacial Man in Ohio.             259

county. The river makes something of an elbow here, open

to the west. This space is occupied by a gravel terrace

about fifty feet above the stream. The terrace is composed

in places of very coarse material, resembling very much that

of Trenton, N. J., where Dr. Abbott has found similar imple-

ments. The excavation is about one-quarter of a mile back

from the river, near the residence of Judge Johnson. The

section shows much coarser material near the surface than at

the bottom. The material is largely of the limestones of

the region, with perhaps ten per cent. of granitic pebbles.

The limestone pebbles are partially rounded, but are largely

oblong. Some of them are from one to three feet in length.

These abound for the upper twenty feet of the section on the

east side toward the river. One granitic boulder was about

two feet in diameter. On the west side of the cut, away

from the river, mastodon bones were found, a year ago, in a

deposit of sand underlying the coarser gravel and pebbles.

It was here, about thirty feet below the surface, that Dr.

Metz found the palaeolithic implement last spring. It was

an oblong stone about six inches long, four and a half inches

wide, which had been here chipped all around to an edge,

and is, in his opinion, unquestionably of human manufacture.

By those familiar with the subject, these will at once be

recognized as among the most important archaeological dis-

coveries yet made in America, ranking on a par with those

of Dr. Abbott, at Trenton, N. J. They show that in Ohio,

as well as on the Atlantic coast, man was an inhabitant before

the close of the glacial period. We can henceforth speak

with confidence of preglacial man in Ohio. Other observers

in the State should be stimulated by this discovery. It is

facts like these which give archaeological significance to the

present fruitful inquiries concerning the date of the glacial

epoch in North America. When the age of the Mound

Builders of Ohio is reckoned by centuries, that of the pre-

glacial man who chipped these palaeolithic implements must

be reckoned by thousands of years.

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

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