A new work by Jud Turner caught my attention as I really want a mammoth representation for the Clovis site. Much of his work is from found or salvaged objects but have a distinctly biological “feel”.
I know it doesn’t really aide the viewer in any scientific way but I think the sense of scale is transmitted by life-size representations, whether three-dimensional, flat, or even abstract. The construction photos on his site are fairly impressive due to the scale of the project.
The 13th Southwest Symposium will be taking place this weekend at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The 2012 symposium will focus on Causation and Explanation: Demography, Movement, Historical Ecology.
Click on the above image for more info.
Archaeology is everywhere, and archaeological remains can become unearthed at anytime and in any place, such as in the backyard of a Tennessee home.
Shelly Mays/The Tennessean
The excavation of this 14,000 year old site in Cool Springs, Tennesse has produced finds of Mastodons showing signs of having been butchered. View the link provided below for more details concerning the excavation at the Coats-Hines site.
This looks like an interesting and information packed blog. The site was created and is maintained by a Graduate Student at Michigan State. I have only just begun to delve into her blog but I suggest you have a look and learn something morbid.
“Climate Change in New Mexico” is a new class offered by Dr. Kilby at ENMU for undergraduate students to directly participate in the scientific study of the effects of long-term climate change by focusing on the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (about 12,000 years ago).
The class is attended by students from Anthropology, Geology, and Biology departments, who actively participate in collecting field samples, analyzing results, and reconstructing past environmental changes from the Ice Age to the present.
The Clovis site provides a stratigraphically ideal opportunity for students to learn the basics of collecting samples for radiocarbon and OSL dating, as well as sediment, pollen, phytolith, diatom, and stable isotope analysis.
The slideshow documents the class taking samples from the east profile of Isequilla’s Pit on the South Bank of the Clovis site.
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This class is supported by an NSF New Mexico EPSCoR grant.
More photos from the 2011 Atlatl Throw…thanks again to Kandy and George.
Thank you to Mu Alpha Nu, Blackwater staff, the Portales gang, and visitors from near and far, for making this year’s competition another great one!!
Click the photo to check out the gallery, courtesy of Kandy Black and George Crawford.
Clovis points from the Clovis site. These likely all date to a few centuries around 11,000 RCYBP and most were found in association with Mammuthus columbi and a few with Bison antiquus. The Clovis site contained at least 28 mammoths that died or were killed around the pond margin and there is good evidence that six or more were killed by humans.
Points from Clovis strata at the Clovis type-site
As can be seen in this image, the raw materials were variable but high quality. Also notable are the small size of the points. Non-hunters often mistakenly think that a small point is for small prey but quite the opposite may be true. Until recently, small arrow points were used in Africa to bring down elephants, buffalo, and other large game. The object is to pierce a vital organ or artery and a wider blade needs more force to cut through hide to reach the protected organs. There was probably much more thought to the animal’s behavior and the situation of the kill and it may be no coincidence that all of the known mammoth and bison kills at the site are within the muddy pond margin.
The majority of raw materials are Edwards Plateau Chert or Alibates Agate from the Canadian River in Texas. Other materials include quartzite, likely procured in the upper reaches of the Canadian, Tecovas jasper from north Texas, silicified wood, and obsidian.
More to come…
Folsom ultrathin biface from the Clovis site North Bank.
Ultrathin bifaces are a recently recognized element distinctive to the Folsom toolkit. Ultrathin bifaces are found at many Folsom sites including those in North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Ultrathin bifacial manufacturing technology appears consistent between numerous sites recognized by distinctive, opposed diving bifacial thinning flakes (Root et al. 1994).
Morphologically, the Folsom ultrathin biface is broad in width, has finely retouched excurvate margins, and is extremely thin (Boldurian 1999:111). Functionally, its use is generally interpreted as a non-hafted knife or cutting implement used for butchering and processing game. Pegi Jodry (1998) has suggested that ultrathin bifaces were used and maintained by women for specialized butchering required for drying strips of meat.
Comments welcome.
Boldurian, Anthony T. 1999 Clovis Revisited:New Perspectives on Paleoindian Adaptations from Blackwater Draw, New Mexico. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.
Jodry, Margaret A. 1998 The Possible Design of Folsom Ultrathin Bifaces as Fillet Knives for Jerky Production. Current Research in the Pleistocene 15:75-77.
Root, Matthew J., J. D. William, Marvin Kay, and L. K. Shifrin 1999 Folsom Ultrathin Biface and Radial Break Tools in the Knife River Flint Quarry Area. In Folsom Lithic Technology: Explorations in Structure and Variation, edited by D. S. Amick, International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
9th Annual Fall Indian Market Day at Cahokia Mounds, Illinois
American Indians and vendors of Indian-made items will sell crafts, art, jewelry, beadwork, clothing, baskets and more. Shop for unique holiday gift items. Friday, Noon-5 pm; Saturday 9-5, and Sunday, 9 am to 4 pm. Free.
For those unfamiliar with this spectacular archaeological site: Cahokia Mounds, located just across the river from St Louis, Missouri was one of the greatest and largest cities on Earth during its heyday by the 13th century. For various reasons including disease, much of the Mississippian culture was in collapse by the time of European expansion in the 16th-18th centuries.
If you have any interest at all in late prehistoric North America, this site is a must see.
