Abandoned Wyoming Mine Changes History

It's one of the oldest mines in North America.

Older by around 14,000 to 16,000 years old.

Archaeologists are uncovering a site in the former iron-mining town of Sunrise, Wyoming, that could upend our understanding of early human history in North America.

The Powars II site, located on privately owned land once abandoned by the mining industry, is the only known Paleoindian red ocher mine in the Americas.

Red ocher had both practical and ceremonial uses for early peoples—as pigment, preservative, sunblock, and more.

But what makes the site even more remarkable is the discovery of unique projectile points unlike any previously identified.

Experts believe these “Sunrise Points” may indicate a distinct paleoindian cultural complex not known before.

Other artifacts also indicate activity that predates the Clovis culture, which is considered the oldest in the area.

You can explore the science, history, and community efforts surrounding this extraordinary archaeological discovery, now believed to be between 14,000 and 16,000 years old, in the Wyoming PBS video below.

The dig by archaeologists has found Paleo-Indian projectile points, a timeline of the different cultural complexes they came from.

Stanford and Frison had known about the possible archaeological site at Sunrise for several years.

In 1981, Frison was completing a fellowship at the Smithsonian and working with Stanford on the book The Agate Basin Site.

Learn more at this link.

In walked Wayne Powars and dumped a sack of artifacts on the table, artifacts containing many tens of points and stone tools from the Clovis period (13,100 to 12,700 B.P.). A “normal” Clovis site, in Frison and Stanford’s experience, may yield 2 to 3 points or other artifacts. Powars’ collection, from one location, was unprecedented.

The site is still being dug today, and the discoveries are rewriting North American early history.