Folsom site or Wild Horse Arroyo, designated by the
Smithsonian trinomial
A Smithsonian trinomial (formally the Smithsonian Institution Trinomial System, abbreviated SITS) is a unique identifier assigned to archaeological sites in many states in the United States. They are composed of one or two digits coding for the sta ...
29CX1, is a major
archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
about west of
Folsom, New Mexico. It is the
type site
In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age ...
for the
Folsom tradition
The Folsom Complex is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 8500 BCE to c. 4000 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History.
...
, a
Paleo-Indian cultural sequence dating to between
9000 BC
The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC (11 to 10 thousand years ago). In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current Holocene epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC (11.7 thousand ...
and
8000 BC. The Folsom site was excavated in 1926 and found to have been a marsh-side kill site or camp where 32
bison
Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.
Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...
had been killed using distinctive tools, known as
Folsom point
Folsom points are projectile points associated with the Folsom tradition of North America. The style of tool-making was named after the Folsom site located in Folsom, New Mexico, where the first sample was found in 1908 by George McJunkin within ...
s. This site is significant because it was the first time that artifacts indisputably made by humans were found directly associated with faunal remains from an extinct form of bison from the
Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...
. The information culled from this site was the first of a set of discoveries that would allow archaeologists to revise their estimations for the time of arrival of Native Americans on the North American continent.
Discovery
The site was found in 1908 by
George McJunkin George McJunkin (1856–1922) was an African American cowboy, amateur archaeologist and historian in New Mexico. He discovered the Folsom site in 1908.
Born to slaves in Midway, Texas, McJunkin was approximately 9 years old when the Civil War ended ...
, an ex-slave cowboy and ranch foreman. While riding across the Crowfoot Ranch following the very severe rainstorm of August 27, which had devastated the nearby town of Folsom, he noticed and investigated a number of large bones where flash flooding from that storm had cut deeply into the bed of Wild Horse Arroyo. McJunkin was a self-educated man, with enough interest in geology and archaeology to recognize that the bones were not modern bison, and had been too deeply buried to be recent. For several years he tried to interest field archaeologists to visit the site, with little success. In 1918, he and Ivan Shoemaker, the teenage son of the Crowfoot Ranch's owner, dug bones and a fluted lance point out of the arroyo bank, and sent them to the
Denver Museum of Natural History
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...
. The museum sent
paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Harold Cook to the Crowfoot the following spring, and he and McJunkin did some exploratory digging.
Controversy
During the first quarter of the 20th century, a bitter debate raged in the archaeology and
physical anthropology
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct Hominini, hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly ...
communities about recent discoveries suggesting that humans had arrived in the Americas several thousand years earlier than had previously been thought possible. Most notably
Ales Hrdlicka Ales may refer to:
Places
* Alès, a town and commune in southern France
* Ales, Sardinia, a small town in the province of Oristano on Sardinia in Italy
People with the surname
* Alexander Ales (1500–1565), Scottish theologian
* Mikoláš AleŠ...
, curator of the
U.S. National Museum, remained adamant in his belief that humans could not have arrived until about 1000 years
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
.
[Schultz, A.H., "Biographical Memoir of Ales Hrdlicka 1869-1943," ]National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
, 1944 Findings of stone tools together with ancient animal remains were dismissed as, at best, mixing due to erosion or burrowing animals, or worse as careless excavation techniques, or even fraudulent "salting" of artifacts among the bones. Any archaeologist bold enough to challenge the conventional view risked damage to his reputation and career, without indisputable proof. The site in Wild Horse Arroyo provided this opportunity.
Excavation
In 1926, archaeologist
Jesse Figgins from the Denver Museum (now the
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...
) arrived at the site to begin excavations. Figgins discovered a light, fluted projectile point buried between two of the bison's ribs, thus establishing a clear association of the point with the species of bison that had been extinct for approximately 10,000 years. Instead of extracting the projectile point from the bones, he instead cut around the bones and the embedded projectile point, removing the entire sample without disturbing the associated point.
Figgins returned to the Denver Museum of Natural History with the point and bones for further study. The original Folsom point, still embedded in the matrix between the two bison ribs, can be seen on display at the very end of the Prehistoric Journey exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Present Day
The site was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1961.
See also
*
Lindenmeier site, another
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
site that was a
Folsom culture
The Folsom Complex is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 8500 BCE to c. 4000 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History.
...
campsite, in northern Colorado.
*
Cooper Bison Kill Site
The Cooper Bison Kill Site is an archaeological site near Fort Supply in Harper County, Oklahoma, United States. Located along the Beaver River, it was explored in 1993 and 1994 and found to contain artifacts of the Folsom tradition, including ...
, another Folsom culture kill site in Oklahoma
*
Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site
The Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site, located in northeast Colorado, was a Paleo-Indian site where Bison antiquus were killed using a game drive system and butchered. Hell Gap complex bones and tools artifacts at the site are carbon dated from abou ...
a Folsom culture kill site in northeastern Colorado
*
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in New Mexico
This is a complete List of National Historic Landmarks in New Mexico. New Mexico has 46 National Historic Landmarks (NHLs), including Raton Pass which is shared with Colorado, and listed by the National Park Service as in that state.
Current NH ...
References
Adovasio, J.M. and David Pedler. "The Peopling of North America." North American Archaeology. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p. 45.
{{Clear
1908 archaeological discoveries
1926 archaeological discoveries
National Historic Landmarks in New Mexico
Archaeological sites in New Mexico
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in New Mexico
Bison hunting
Geography of Colfax County, New Mexico
Archaeological type sites
History of Colfax County, New Mexico
National Register of Historic Places in Colfax County, New Mexico