Sloan Site: North America's Oldest Cemetery 🏺

Located on an ancient sand dune in Greene County, Arkansas, the Sloan Site is a pivotal archaeological discovery representing the oldest documented cemetery in the New World. The site was first noted in 1968 by Mary Ann Sloan, an Arkansas State University student, but its true significance became clear when her father, Frank Sloan, brought it to the attention of archaeologist Dr. Dan Morse in 1974. Morse's subsequent excavation revealed a cemetery of the Dalton culture, a group of hunter-gatherers who lived approximately 12,500 to 10,500 years ago. While the sandy soil preserved only small fragments of human bone from the 28 to 30 individuals buried there, the discovery of a vast array of carefully placed stone tools and other artifacts provided crucial insights into the lives and rituals of these early people.The significance of the Sloan Site to archaeology is immense, as it reshaped our understanding of early North American hunter-gatherers. The presence of a formal cemetery with intentional burials and grave goods indicates a level of social complexity and a belief system in an afterlife that was not previously well-documented for this time period. The artifacts themselves, including the large, thin stone bifaces known as Sloan points, demonstrate the remarkable technological skill of the Dalton people, revealing details about their hunting, hide processing, and woodworking. The site’s findings suggest that the Dalton culture was not just a collection of nomadic foragers, but a people with a strong sense of place, complex symbolic practices, and structured society, marking a key transition from the Paleoindian to the Early Archaic period.

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