The snow is undisturbed on a frozen clearing in Debert, Colchester Co. It’s not marked on maps and there are no signs drawing cars off the main road. It’s a little known site. But historically, it has massive significance.

About 12,600 years ago this was a village, the first known settlement in Nova Scotia. And starting next spring, the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq will be encouraging people to see one of the oldest archaeological sites in North America.

“The site is of great importance to the Mi’kmaq, and I would argue to all of Nova Scotians,” said David Christianson, the curator of archeology for the Nova Scotia museum.

The people who lived here arrived just a few hundred years after the glaciers retreated during the last Ice Age and may have been chased out again when the ice fields advanced one last time. The land was new and there were fewer trees than there are today.

The province’s first known residents probably hunted caribou. One of the stone tools found on the site was stained with what DNA testing suggests was caribou blood.

Mammoth and mastodon lived in North America at the time, but there is no evidence linking them to the area. The remains of a giant beaver has been found on an island in the Bay of Fundy, but the acidic Nova Scotia soil has claimed any bones that would have been left at Debert.

All that’s left is stone tools, hearths and living floor. It’s unclear what the homes were made from.

The Debert Paleo-Indian site were first discovered in 1948, and excavated in the 1960s. More work was done in the early ’90s, and two other sites were found in the nearby woods. But Christianson said the area deserves a lot more study.

He hopes one day the right team of researchers will conduct a large-scale excavation. A whole range of sciences could be brought to bear to uncover the way the people lived.

“As much as it’s an archaeological problem, it’s also a problem of recreating that past environment,” Christianson said.

It may be easier to attract money and expertise once Mi’kmaqs develop the surrounding area. The Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre — a non-profit society organized by the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq — is cutting the first of two hiking trails and hopes to build an interpretive centre with public- and private-sector backing.

Project administrator Shannon Googoo said the confederacy has assembled an advisory committee made up of elders from across the province to decide how to present the site to the public. The committee started meeting in September.

Elaine Jeffrey, the project manager, said Mi’kmawey Debert is reluctant to encourage people to visit the site until it’s ready.

The remains have been threatened by ATV and motorcross enthusiasts in the past, but treasure hunters may pose a bigger threat to an unguarded site. Not that there is much for the uninitiated to find; most of the archaeological evidence is shards of stone left over from tool making, she said.

The first hiking trail is largely completed and should open in a few months. Jeffrey has been approaching the local business community looking for support in turning Debert into one of the province’s premier heritage sites. She estimates the Ice Age camp, which is just a couple kilometres from Highway 104, could draw 100,000 tourists each year.

“This belongs to everyone,” she said. “This is something we should all be part of.”

Source: www.canada.com