THE DOCTOR IS OPERATING: THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF OUR NEWEST BOARD MEMBER
By James Heinz
Hollywood has a fictional archeologist: Indiana Jones. The Wisconsin Marine Historical Society has a non-fictional archeologist: Indiana Lemke, as she refers to herself on Instagram, or, as we like to refer to her, Great Lakes Lemke.
As I explained in an earlier article, Dr. Ashley Lemke of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the newest member of our board of directors. She is a student of ancient Native Americans and has a special interest in the hunting structures which now lie on the bottom of Lake Huron that they built to channel wild game into killing zones. I reported on her findings in a previous article: https://wmhs.org/heritage-of-the-great-lakes-maritime-industry-wmhs/page/5/
Normally a bunch of rocks on the bottom of the Great Lakes would not cause much of a commotion but that article got a much larger than normal response on the WMHS Facebook page. Dr. Lemke’s charismatic presentation of the subject was the principal reason.
And this past summer, she was at it again, back to the bottom of Lake Huron. Starting in July and continuing through Halloween, she went out on Lake Huron and discovered something only an archeologist could love.
A peat bog.
But not just any peat bog. This one is 100 feet deep on the bottom of Lake Huron. Why would a peat bog excite her? Because a peat bog contains ancient DNA that is preserved in the fresh, cold water and which is not available elsewhere. The paleo-genomics of this material shows what kinds of seeds, plants, trees, and animals were living at that time. The DNA will be sent to Cambridge University in England for analysis.
The peat bog may also contains the bones of the ancient animals the ancient Native Americans hunted, which are not found at the hunting structure sites because the ancient hunters removed them so as not to scare off animals in future hunts. Her mentor, Dr. John O’Shea, found ancient stone tools as well, covered with zebra mussels like everything else in the Great Lakes.
Dr. Lemke’s influence is worldwide. She reports that hunting architecture similar to what she has found at the bottom of Lake Huron has been found in the Baltic Sea. It is called the “Blinkerwall” and is thought to be the oldest megastructure in Europe. It is estimated to be over 10,000 years old. Dr. Lemke’s articles about the hunting architecture at the bottom of Lake Huron helped the European archeologists determine that their line of stones was built for guiding reindeer into kill zones.
She is also pioneering the use of sub bottom profiling to find ancient stone tools in the Great Lakes with Dr. Morgan Smith from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Sub bottom profiling is the use of low frequency sound waves to penetrate the bottom of bodies of water. The sound waves are then reflected back when they hit more reflective materials buried in the sediment. Ancient stone tools are thin and made of materials that reflect sound back at certain frequencies and display a distinct signature on the profiler.
Dr. Lemke does not always recover this material herself, although she says she “misses getting her hands dirty.” As Luke Skywalker had his trusty robot sidekick R2D2, Ashley Lemke has her trusty robot sidekick, Jake the ROV. Jake is the one who gets his hand, or manipulator, dirty. Jake has also taken photographs that enable her to make digital reproductions of the hunting architecture she has found.
She will be expanding her search for Paleolithic Native American sites to Lake Michigan. She is reviewing the results of a recent survey of the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary to look for signs of underwater ancient sites that have not been disturbed by modern development. She will then be known as Lake Michigan Lemke.
As an intrepid explorer, perhaps her greatest achievement this past summer was to be admitted to the pantheon of intrepid explorers: the world famous Explorer’s Club. Wikipedia describes it as: “The Explorers Club is an American-based international multidisciplinary professional society with the goal of promoting scientific exploration and field study. The club was founded in New York City in 1904 and has served as a meeting point for explorers and scientists worldwide.” Its members have included Theodore Roosevelt, John Glenn, James Cameron, Edmund Hillary, and Neil Armstrong.
New members must be recommended for membership by existing members. Dr. Lemke was recommended by Marty Klein, the father of side scan sonar, who had been following her career. Noted underwater explorer and author Dr. James Delgado, who spoke to the WMHS book club via Zoom, wrote a letter of recommendation supporting her membership. She was elected last summer.
This summer Dr. Lemke visited the legendary headquarters of the Explorers’ Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which she describes as “really cool.” She found the entire experience to be “crazy”.
She is also involved in publicizing her finds. She was the principal organizer of the Midwest Archeology Conference in Milwaukee on October 16-19 with the morning of October 18 devoted to Great Lakes underwater archeology.
She gave a lecture on the hunting architecture she found at the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association annual meeting in Milwaukee on October 19. She will also be giving a Brown Bag presentation on them in Madison in the spring. Her 12 part course on underwater archeology will be released in January as part of the Great Courses curriculum.
The most important event she will be hosting will be her annual EDMUND FITZGERALD Memorial Ceremony, to be held on Sunday, November 10th starting at 4 pm at Izzy Hops Tavern, 2311 North Murray Avenue, Milwaukee. This location was chosen because it stocks Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, the only drink appropriate for this occasion. And yes, the famous song will be played, at least until the bartender tells us that it is depressing the other customers.
Indiana Jones may have found the Lost Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, but I bet he never found “human refuse” DNA in a peat bog at the bottom of Lake Huron. Eat your heart out, Hollywood.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
Photos:
Dr. Ashley Lemke at the Explorers Club
Dr. Ashley Lemke working on board ship
Dr. John O’Shea (left) Dr. Ashley Lemke (right)
Dr. Ashley Lemke at the Explorers Club
