Forty Feet Down
If you stand on the modern High Plains of western Kansas, the landscape appears flat and ordinary.
But beneath that surface, entire late Pleistocene ground layers remain preserved — sealed below meters of wind-blown loess and alluvial sediment.
At the Kanorado locality, archaeologists documented deeply buried Paleoindian occupation surfaces associated with Clovis and Folsom traditions.
The evidence-first takeaways:
- Stratified cultural deposits, not surface scatters.
- Buried paleosols, formed during stable Ice Age intervals.
- Lithic artifacts embedded within intact sediment layers.
- Faunal remains preserved in sealed contexts.
The Plains were not empty.
They were buried.
The Anomaly: A Hidden Landscape
Unlike erosional regions where ancient surfaces remain exposed, the Central High Plains experienced significant sediment aggradation during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene.
Draw systems, alluvial fans, and loess accumulation gradually buried older land surfaces.
At Kanorado, excavation into terrace fills revealed distinct cultural layers separated by sediment.
The importance is not merely the artifacts themselves.
It is their position.
Stratigraphy transforms isolated finds into chronological evidence.
Bone, Stone, and Context
Some faunal remains from deeply buried levels exhibit spiral fractures consistent with breakage while bone was fresh.
Such fractures may reflect human marrow extraction, but they must be evaluated alongside alternative taphonomic processes.
Without context, interpretation weakens.
Within intact paleosols, interpretation strengthens.
Kanorado’s significance is methodological.
It demonstrates that surface visibility does not equal occupation intensity.
Why It Survived
Slow sediment accumulation sealed these Ice Age surfaces rather than eroding them away.
The result was preservation.
Beneath the loess and terrace fills of western Kansas, late Pleistocene horizons remain intact.
What This Changes
The archaeological map of the Central Plains is shaped by burial depth.
Geoarchaeological modeling — targeting buried paleosols rather than walking modern surfaces — has revealed that early occupation layers may remain preserved below.
What appears sparse at the surface may be substantial at depth.
Further Reading
- Kansas Geological Survey — Loess and High Plains stratigraphy
- Odyssey Archaeological Research Program (University of Kansas)
- Mandel, Rolfe D. — Buried Paleoindian-age landscapes in stream valleys of the central plains
- Center for the Study of the First Americans (Texas A&M University)