| In spring 1987, at a small orchard parcel in Douglas County, Wash., cultures collided. |
| Routine agricultural digging uncovered the striking relics of a nomadic Ice Age culture. That one-in-a-million find would lead to a controversy that enmeshed an immigrant farmworker, a wealthy doctor, university scientists, state archaeological regulators, Northwest Indian tribes... and the legacy of a long-dead hunting people that trod the landscape 11,000 years ago. |
| Twenty years after the East Wenatchee Clovis Site was unearthed, The Wenatchee World revisits this complex story, which played out from 1987 to 1992. June 1, 2007 marks the end of a 15-year moratorium on archaeological surveys at the site, meaning scientists might soon revisit the humble orchard land where Paleolithic tools lay hidden for millennia. |
| About this story Reporting for this online story package took place from January through May 2007. The events surrounding the discovery were reconstructed through previously published news reports; archive documents from the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center, Washington State Historical Society and other agencies; and more than two dozen new interviews with those who participated in or observed the events at East Wenatchee. |
| CLOVIS PROJECT CREDITS: | |
| Reporter: Jefferson Robbins | Assistants: Abby Holmes, Nancy McMinn |
| Editor: Andrew Wahl | Print design and graphics: Jared Johnson |
| Librarian: Linda Barta | Web design: Gary Hesse |
| Photo editor: Don Seabrook | Copyright © 2007 World Publishing Company |
| The Lyman report, "A Mechanical and Functional Study of Bone Rods from the Richey-Roberts Clovis Cache, Washington, U.S.A.," was originally published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol 25, pp 887-906. Copyright © Elsevier (1998). | |
