Mini Pompeii Emerges on Cape Cod : Archeology: Researchers are hurrying to excavate an 8,000-year-old Indian seaside settlement before it’s destroyed by high tides on New Year’s Eve.

The “welcome” sign at the border of this small Cape Cod town reads: “Settled by Pilgrims in 1644.”

But archeologists have found evidence that the date is really 8,000 years before that, when ancestors of today’s Indians formed a settlement here.

Unusually high tides in November sliced through 15 feet of sandy dunes on Coast Guard Beach, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The tide uncovered what archeologists say is a portion of the oldest undisturbed example of a prehistoric settlement ever found in the Northeast.

“We consider it kind of a miniature Pompeii,” said Mike Whatley, the park’s supervisory ranger.

But with more high tides expected on New Year’s Eve, the seaside window into the past could quickly close. So a team of archeologists is frantically working in freezing temperatures and high winds to excavate the site.

“It’s an emergency excavation. Just about everyone on our payroll is down here,” said Linda Towle, archeology supervisor for the National Park Service’s North Atlantic Region.

In their rush to save the treasure buried on the beach, the scientists have yet to spend much time evaluating what they have found.

They believe, however, that the area was used about 8,000 years ago by a small group of people who moved from one place to another depending on the season.

Ice covered all of New England until about 15,000 years ago. After the glaciers retreated, scientists say, the first human beings started arriving 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Arrowheads and spear points found at the site indicate that this particular group of Cape Codders was made up of hunters, most likely of deer, moose and bear.

The dim outline of postholes, apparently part of a wall, suggests a shelter was constructed using saplings stuck into the ground and covered with reed mats, bark or fur. A pond just to the south would have furnished water and freshwater fish, Towle said.

“They were fully evolved human beings,” she said. “They are racially the ancestors of the American Indians who were here when the Europeans arrived.”

Although Cape Code is now a popular site for summer homes, the settlers appear to have built their homes for winter use.

Park service rules limit excavation of sites unless they are threatened, so the archeologists here don’t have carte blanche to dig up the entire area. Whatley said it is believed that the settlement extended over several acres, somewhat larger than the area that was uncovered by the tide.

The settlement was 4 miles from the ocean because the sea level was significantly lower, and the eroded dunes show that the landscape then formed a valley that would have sheltered the encampment from the elements.

The archeologists conjecture that the group went from the settlement to the sea to gather shellfish, but either ate it there or shucked it and returned with just the meat. No seashells or shell fragments have been found at the site.

Archeologist Gerald Kelso noted the settlement is a reminder that other people were in the area centuries before the Pilgrims arrived from Europe.

“Our history was written by Europeans, so you have this story of the hardy pioneers settling virgin territory,” he said. “It wasn’t, and it hadn’t been for 10,000 years before they got here.”

It is not the first time archeologists have had to race to save important sites from Cape Cod’s prehistory.

A 7,000-year-old site in Mashpee was bulldozed to make way for a golf course in 1987. When artifacts were found by a homeowner digging a septic tank in 1982, scientists were given just three days to excavate there. Spear points, arrowheads and flakes from toolmaking were uncovered while developers were bulldozing land for a subdivision in 1988.

Most of the prehistoric settlements that have been found had been disturbed by plows in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The excavation on the beach was not because the sandy conditions above it made farming difficult.