Dr. John O'Shea

ALPENA ­– Continuing Archaeological Research on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge will be revealed in the Sanctuary Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

“The discovery of ancient caribou hunting structures preserved beneath Lake Huron has transformed our understanding of the early human occupation of the Great Lakes,” a description from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary stated. “Since the initial discovery of the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, research has focused on broadening our understanding of these early hunters and the environment in which they lived.”

Join Dr. John O’Shea, the curator of Great Lakes Archaeology at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology and professor in the Department of Anthropology, as he provides an update on the exciting results of these new multi-disciplinary research efforts.

The Alpena-Amberley Ridge is a 9,000-year-old caribou hunting structure found beneath what is now Lake Huron. It was formerly a dry land corridor that connected Northeast Michigan to southern Ontario.

“We’ve been working out there for a long time,” said O’Shea, who is based in Ann Arbor but frequently visits the Alpena area to conduct field work. “We started in 2008, and I’ve given public talks up in Alpena and around that area over the years.”

O’Shea said during the lecture he will give a brief background about what they’ve been doing out there, then focus on some of the newer discoveries that they’ve found within the last couple of years.

“We partnered with the sanctuary and mapped a large new portion of the ridge out there,” O’Shea said. “A lot of these new, interesting discoveries have come about as a result of that new work that we did with the sanctuary.”

TBNMS Resource Protection Coordinator Stephanie Gandulla said the sanctuary crew is excited to host O’Shea and hear about his latest findings.

“It continues this coming summer with more research out there,” Gandulla said. “It’s very exciting.”