In a discovery which pioneers a novel method of detecting the presence of ancient remains in what are now drowned landscapes, a team of Canadian scientists has used geology-style drill cores to gather evidence of toolmaking by ancient aboriginals from an Ontario lake bottom.
     Led by researcher Lisa Sonnenburg of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the team took sediment samples from a shallow section of Rice Lake, a popular summer vacation spot northeast of Toronto where people are known to have camped soon after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age.
     The scientists found more than 150 tiny flakes of quartz bearing telltale markings of human activity - evidence that a submerged ancient shoreline was a site for manufacturing spear points, scrapers and other tools for fishing and hunting.
     While looking for larger artefacts in a submerged landscape amounts to searching 'for a needle in a haystack,' Sonnenburg said the coring technique could be useful anywhere shifting shorelines have flooded potential archeological sites.

Edited from The Vancouver Sun (6 June 2011)