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Wm las Sunday, September 30, What could be the most importa n t - arch neology pro “ ® j|l ever undertaken in the western hemisphere begins tomorrow morning when giant bulldozers, trench ma­chinery and other equipment oegin cexcavatioh at Tule S p rin g io miles from Las Vegas. . Under guidance of the Ne- T^da : ^tate Museum, scien­tists will launch their search will p p y e conclusively that man years ago. ^ e :enMre project will take four months. :. Bh: Richard Shutler Jr;, : ctir^ltpr of anthropology at I the Nevada state Museum shd director of the Tule ;S fM gs work, said yesterday leading scientists are taking an active part in the pro ject at the site: throughout the digging. . Shutler and. other ot- .ficials spent the weekend suiting up camp at the site as well as establish an office at; the. Thunderbird Hotel, headquarters for the project. Tomorrow’s activity will be- 9 a. m. when the earth-fhpyifeg; monsters go into WA persons in-strumental in the program taken on special tour of the tour group will be representatives of many industries that have • contributed equipment and other materials necessary in the project. ‘This venture promises to open a new window in the record of early man in Ameri­ca; 5 said Dr. Shutler. “A sam­ple of material taken -from the Tule Springs site pro­duced a radiocarbon date of 28-fJOO years. The main pur­pose now is to . find a num­ber of unquestioned human tools associated with charcoal and extinct animals, such as the pre-historic camel, horse, mammoth, bison and sloth. Such finds would prove con­clusively that man was here 30,000 years ago. If we suc­ceed in this we shall have changed the concept of the time of arrival of man in the western hemisphere by at least 15,000 years.” The four-month project will cost about $300,000 with a^ basic grant of $42,200 from ne National Science Foun­dation to the Nevada State Museum. . g |:v:§|pS|g Members of the project’s special: advisor^ committee include Dr. Willard F. Libby, UCLA; Dr. Robert F. Heiser, University of California; Dr. J. Desmond Clar, U. of C; Dr. Emil W. Haury, University of Arizonia; Dr. Alex D. Krieger, University of Washington, Dr. H. Marie Wofmington, Denver: Museum of Natural History* dl well, U. S. Geological Survey; Df. Carl Hubbes, Scrippss Oceanographic Institute; Phil Orr. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; H. C. Smith, associate archaeoio-! gist, . and Roger Morrisom i U.S. Geological Survey. ^Assistant director of the ^ dig•' is :'Dr.;^;Chaif es':-Rdzaire,: Nevada State Museum’s cura-. tor of archaeology. “An area 300 feet wide and] 3,000 feet long will be open' ler. Such a project would be impossible without the aid of many persons and organi­zations.” . l«as Vegas area residents and firms credited' with tak-j ing part in the project in- j elude Joe Wells, Thunderbird j Hotel president and owner J of Wells Cargo, Inc, for do-1 nation of 'eqmpment' and of­fice . facilities; Union Oil Co:; K. C. Smith Construction Co.; Allis-Chalmers, Interna­tional Harvester, Southwest Gas Co., J ones and Jones, Home Lumber Co., Foodland,: Thriftimart, Inc., Atlas Steel) Co., Petrolane. Gas Service,! American Linen Supply Co.,} Boulder Dam • area Council of Boys Scouts of America,; International Operating En­gineers. Union Local 12, aiark County Commissioners, Paf- Southern University. 1 jjgfjSgl evidence of man going back 13,000 years, which is 1,000 to 1,500 years ear­lier than other sites in the Southwest,” Shutler said. His evidence includes stone chips, two bone tools, and a stone scraper used to clean hides. If these artifacts, and their dating, are accepted, Shutler and his colleagues will have un­earthed the oldest firmly substantiated trace of man in the Western Hemi­sphere. He also uncovered a 40,000- year-old set of mammoth teeth (photo) but there was -no evidence that it was left over from a human meal. As Shutler pointed out, his quest is more than a numbers game. As long as the arrival question is open, it cannot be known who the first Americans were, or who were the ancestors of the American Indians, the Incas, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. No one even knows what the first Americans looked like. Shutler intends to keep searching the area for even earlier evidence, and he will inspect nearby caves on the chance that they contain some human remains; Other anthropologists, meanwhile, will excavate at dozens of other sites from Alaska to Patagonia. They will not be satisfied until they uncover enough ar­tifacts to settle all the arguments. Ed F o ster Mammoth teeth and arguments February 11, 1963 4 g y / w o g 927