Murray Springs is located in southern

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

near the San Pedro River and once served as a Clovis hunting camp approximately 11,000 years BP. The site is unique for the massive quantity of large

megafauna In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common threshold ...

processing and extensive tool making.

Archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

s identified five buried animal kills and processing locations and a Clovis camp location. The site is located in the

San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area (San Pedro Riparian NCA; SPRNCA) contains nearly of public land in Cochise County, Arizona, between the international border with Mexico and St. David, Arizona. The riparian area, where some of ...

, administered by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

Archaeology

In 1966, archaeologists C. Vance Haynes and Peter Mehringer of the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

discovered the site while extending the mapping of the area of the Lehner Mammoth Kill Site 19 kilometers to the south.Haynes, C. Vance Jr., editor. (February 2007) Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona. The archaeologists located two concentrations of

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

bones that day. They were convinced the area was a Clovis site based on the bones and because Murray Springs shared the same geologic characteristics as the Lehner site. Funding by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

and the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

enabled excavations from 1967 to 1971. Some of the significant artifacts found during the excavations included hearths, a

bone tool In archaeology, a bone tool is a tool created from bone. A bone tool can conceivably be created from almost any bone, and in a variety of methods. Bone tools have been documented from the advent of ''Homo sapiens'' and are also known from ''Homo ...

projectile point In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have be ...

s, lithic tools, and

debitage In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic flakes and lithic blades, b ...

. The bone tool is believed to be a shaft straightener. The five buried animal kills and processing locations contained bones of mammoth, bison, horses, camels, canids and rodents. A worker found a single pot

sherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well. Occasionally, a piece of broken p ...

on the surface of the site that was associated to use approximately 1300 to 1450 CE. The archaeologists noted peoples have used the spring over an extended period. An analysis of the site is interpreted as leaning against the extraterrestrial impact theory of the Pleistocene Extinction. The San Pedro River Valley is rich in discovered Clovis culture sites. Within a 50-mile radius are nearly a dozen Clovis sites including the Lehner Mammoth Kill Site, the

Naco Mammoth Kill Site The Naco Mammoth Kill Site is an archaeological site in southeast Arizona, 1 mile northwest of Naco in Cochise County. The site was reported to the Arizona State Museum in September 1951 by Marc Navarrete, a local resident, after his father fou ...

, the Escapule Clovis Site and the Leikem Clovis Site. The

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

oversees Murray Springs and in 2012, the U.S. Government declared the site 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 ...

. The site has a parking area and an interpretive trail.

References

{{authority control Clovis sites Archaeological sites in Arizona National Historic Landmarks in Arizona National Register of Historic Places in Cochise County, Arizona Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona Bureau of Land Management areas in Arizona Protected areas of Cochise County, Arizona

Archaeology

See also

References