1936:
Portales Daily News. Note that there was no “Clovis” cultural group yet…\
Click HERE for the pdf, with bonus Coronado article OR link below:
http://theclovissite.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pdn1936.pdf
The most recent New Mexico Archaeological Council newsletter is out. this issue focuses on Paleoindian archaeology and includes a short article of recent activities at the Clovis site. Click here to download. If you are a New Mexican, or have an interest in the archaeology of our fine state, consider joining NMAC.
2013-2
Paleoindian Archaeology in New Mexico
Contents:
In Memorium: Patrick Culbert
Introduction
Current Research and Investigations at Blackwater Draw, NM
Recent Research at the Mockingbird Gap Clovis Site
New Finds at the Water Canyon Paleoindian Site
Recent Paleoindian Studies at Spaceport America
Interpreting the Paleoindian Signature of Southeast New Mexico
Late Paleoindian Projectile Point Technology
Annalisa is a blogging archaeologist and artist living in Alaska. This is a reblog of her SAA poster from this year. Check out her Tumblr which contains many good archaeology bits as well as other interests from her life.
Interesting news from the genetics world. We’re slowly building a clearer picture of early Americans.
“A new genetic study of South American natives, published on the journal PLOS Genetics, provides scientific evidence to reformulate the traditional model and define new theories of human settlement of the Americas” from a new article by Professor Daniel Turbón, from the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Barcelona.
“This new research is based on the analysis of male Y-chromosomal genetic markers in about one thousand individuals, representing 50 tribal South American native populations.”
Image from the Dire Wolf Project (http://www.direwolfproject.com/home.html).
We don’t find many predators in our assemblages on the Southern High Plains. When we do, it is generally a tooth, a single toe bone, or a few bits. Predators weren’t hunted in droves and likely wander off to die alone so they don’t end up in the cultural assemblage. However…
There are some interesting finds coming from UNLV lately. Las Vegas wash has produced many fossil animals, but, just as in many other ancient sites, it’s the predators that are the rare ones.
“The Pleistocene predators are starting to pile up in the fossil-rich hills at the northern edge of the valley.
Less than a month after a California team found evidence of a saber-tooth cat in the Upper Las Vegas Wash, UNLV researchers announced the discovery of a 1½-inch long foot bone from what they believe was a dire wolf that stalked the valley between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago.” Read the article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal here.
There is more information about the saber-tooth cats in this short article in the RGJ. Another interesting find that I want to know more from. With so much great information coming out through the scientific community, and the exponential nature of the data, it’s sad to think of all the time and energy focused away from this good stuff and onto the wacky pseudo-science floating across the television and internet.
Smilodon fatalis. Image from the Indiana Geological Survey (click image for more information).
A fun, and remarkably good-looking, mammoth sculpture in Bluff, Utah. Set to burn on the solstice to honor the mammoth petroglyphs found nearby. I love Bluff and wish I could get up there for the event.
The Clovis age hand-dug well located within the South Bank area of the Blackwater site got an unexpected visit from its original excavator this summer. Shirley East, pictured above standing in the well, was a regular face around the Blackwater site between 1962 and 1969. Shirley was a crew member for many of the excavations at the site and actively involved with the Paleo-Indian Institute of Eastern New Mexico University.
Shirley and her husband visited the museum and site in early August while in town for business. Shirley’s last visit to the site was in 1993 when she was summoned to help locate the long-backfilled well as part of a mapping project with ENMU and the Smithsonian Institute. Shirley located the well in no time happily stating, “well its just right there!”.
Shirley shared many stories from those early days and even offered to share her knowledge of those excavations of yesteryear. The Blackwater site was certainly honored to receive the visit, and I am personally thankful for her extended hand of help.
As an added bonus, I learned that Shirley was the artist who painted the Pleistocene animals on display at the Blackwater museum and worked diligently to prepare displays for its Grand Opening in 1969. The Blackwater Draw Museum was first opened to the public primarily to display artifacts discovered at the Blackwater Locality.
This is the raw photo. It will undergo some cleanup via PhotoShop and we hope will become a postcard.
Happy Vernal Equinox.
We’re working on some new imagery for the Clovis site. Everybody loves the points. To think that this was probably stuck in the mammoth it was found with over 12,000 years ago.
Too much data, not enough time. The story of archaeological research.
I began a mapping project of the bonebed excavations in our Interpretive Center about two-and-a-half years ago. It has been on hold more than it has been an active project. Because it is protected from the weather, it is relatively safe from the elements. However, bad things can happen to fragile deposits including attacks from insects, rodents, temperature swings, and vandals. After some relatively minor animal damage and one case of vandalism, finishing the photo-documentation and illustrated maps became a priority for me. Fortunately, we had virtually all the information necessary to repair the work that was so quickly undone during those incidents but I am still hoping for more. We have illustrations of every bone exposed in the excavation and have begun the photo-mosaic preliminary to making the information available electronically.
A processing area of heads and scapulae on the west edge of the paleo-arroyo.
It is only a few thousand bones exposed so far but even that much data can become unmanageable in a hurry. As these bonebeds are kept relatively in situ for display, much of the analysis will proceed from the imaging, not the actual bones. Counts, such as NISP, and MNI have been made in the past but more elements are uncovered with every cleaning of the deposit. Also, these studies need to move forward to publication to add the available data of bison kills.
Bison bones, while intact and in situ, have undergone serious post depositional damage from burrowing rodents, most likely prairie dogs.
I don’t want to overlook or downplay the importance of excavation but often that part of archaeology is just the beginning. Archaeological sites are not just a collection of individual artifacts to be shaken out of the sediment, then housed in a museum or collection. They are complex conglomerations of clues about human behavior that need to be teased out of the ground like a long-forgotten crime scene.
A portion of the lower South Bank bonebed. Unlike the later, Archaic deposits, this bonebed indicates some post depositional movement of the deposits by water passing down the outflow channel.
This work takes time and money. Without these resources data will be lost just as it has been and always will be. In the current political and economic climate we can only trudge along and do what we can while trying to avoid the inevitable distractions of politics, unethical behavior, and lack of public support. Despite not having the resources to keep the Clovis site open daily throughout the year, we have almost daily visitors hoping to have a look at this mecca of American Prehistory and the site that tracks the history of American Archaeology.
