Bradbury Brook
Encyclopedia
Bradbury Brook is an archeological procurement area (21ML42), located a few miles south of Mille Lacs Lake
in east central Minnesota
. Here Late Paleoindian inhabitants gathered cobbles of siltstone
from a streambed or directly from glacial drift
. A partially intact stone workshop at this site was dated to 7212 +/- 75 BCE (before common era). The siltstone was used to produce a variety of tools, including a stemmed point, other bifaces, keeled scrapers
, blades and chipped stone adze
s. The workshop also contained several fragmented anvilstones and an abundant sample of hammerstones of various sizes
Archaeologists working at the site found more than 125,000 artifacts
, including stone tools, dating to 7212 BCE, making it the earliest dated excavated site in Minnesota.
Mille Lacs Lake
Mille Lacs Lake is a lake in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is located in the counties of Mille Lacs, Aitkin and Crow Wing, roughly 100 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area....
in east central Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Here Late Paleoindian inhabitants gathered cobbles of siltstone
Siltstone
Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...
from a streambed or directly from glacial drift
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...
. A partially intact stone workshop at this site was dated to 7212 +/- 75 BCE (before common era). The siltstone was used to produce a variety of tools, including a stemmed point, other bifaces, keeled scrapers
Scraper (archaeology)
In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...
, blades and chipped stone adze
Adze
An adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
s. The workshop also contained several fragmented anvilstones and an abundant sample of hammerstones of various sizes
Archaeologists working at the site found more than 125,000 artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
, including stone tools, dating to 7212 BCE, making it the earliest dated excavated site in Minnesota.