since the beginnings laid by jacques boucher de perthes and édouard lartet; his greatest achievement is not so much to have taught a fourth generation but to have sewn ideas and strongly inspired a successor generation that is broadly scattered around the world.

John Gowlett

See also

Africa, Francophone; Africa, Sahara; Africa, Sudanic Kingdoms; Britain: Prehistoric Archaeology

References

For references, see Encyclopedia of Archaeology: The Great Archaeologists, Vol. 2, ed. Tim Murray (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999), p. 726.

McCarthy, Fred D.

(1905–1997)

Although Fred McCarthy spent the bulk of his career at the Australian Museum in Sydney, his interests extended beyond museum work to include foundational studies in Australian prehistoric archaeology, comparative archaeological research in indonesia, ethnographic fieldwork in Arnhem Land and Cape York (both in Australia), and the key administrative role of first principal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. McCarthy is most famous as the excavator of the Lapstone Creek rock shelter in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney (1935–1936), where the reality of cultural change in prehistoric Australia was demonstrated, and as a stone tool typologist with the publication (with Elsie Bramell and H. V. V. Noone) of The Stone Implements of Australia (1946). McCarthy was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by the Australian National University in 1980.

Tim Murray

References

Specht, J. 1993. F.D. McCarthy, Commemorative Papers(Archaeology, Anthropology, Rock Art). Sydney: Australian Museum.

Meadowcroft Rock Shelter

Meadowcroft is a rock shelter in southwestern Pennsylvania (United States) with a long series of stratified, multicomponent deposits spanning a period from 14000 b.c. to ca. a.d. 18. Fortunately, Meadowcroft is not subject to weathering degradation due to freezing and thawing, which can either preserve or destroy the archaeological record, as limestone rock shelters often are. Meadowcroft is oriented east-west with a southern exposure about 15 meters above Cross Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River. The overhang is 13 meters above the present floor. Local springs are abundant and the prevailing wind across the shelter opening ventilates smoke and insects.

The environment surrounding Meadowcroft was favorable to both occupation and preservation 16,000 years ago. The site was occupied intermittently by groups representing all major cultural stages in North America and has some of the earliest reliable evidence of people in North America. The climate indicated by pollen studies suggests an open spruce/pine forest with some open tundra and little hardwoods for occupation at around 16,000 years ago. Elsewhere in similar environments caribou and mastodon would be subsistence mainstays, but there are no extinct Pleistocene fauna at Meadowcroft. This raises the question of whether the age of the site dates to the Holocene or whether it was used during a warmer climate that supported different species.

Meadowcroft is the oldest documented site for Paleo-Indian occupation. The site contains lithic blades dating to 14,000 years ago, following migration over the Bering Strait. Excavation begun in 1973 by Adovasio et al. began with mapping and trenching; all artifacts were processed and labeled on site. The most common cultural features found were firepits, ash and charcoal lenses, firefloors, and refuse or storage pits. A total of seventy samples were prepared for radiocarbon dating from the excavation at that time, and some forty more have been obtained since. The radiocarbon dating confirms an early (pre-Clovis) occupation of 14,000 years ago. Other artifacts recovered include lithic, bone, wood, shell, basketry, cordage, and ceramic materials. The lithic collection is not only the earliest securely dated collection of tools in eastern North America, but also among the earliest reliably dated assemblages recovered in the Western Hemisphere.