Folsom site
Folsom site | |
U.S. National Historic Landmark | |
A Folsom point | |
Nearest city | Folsom, New Mexico |
---|---|
Area | 10 acres (4.0 ha) |
NRHP reference No. | 66000473[1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
Designated NHL | January 20, 1961[2] |
Folsom site or Wild Horse Arroyo, designated by the Smithsonian trinomial 29CX1, is a major archaeological site about 8 miles (13 km) west of Folsom, New Mexico. It is the type site for the Folsom tradition, a Paleo-Indian cultural sequence dating to between 11000 BC and 10000 BC. The Folsom site was excavated in 1926 and found to have been a marsh-side kill site or camp where 32 bison had been killed using distinctive tools, known as Folsom points. 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 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, 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 museum sent paleontologist Harold Cook to the Crowfoot the following spring, and he and McJunkin did some exploratory digging.[3]
Excavation
In 1926, archaeologist Jesse Figgins from the Denver Museum (now the Denver Museum of Nature and Science) and Harold Cook 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.
Controversy
During the first quarter of the 20th century, a bitter debate raged in the archaeology and physical anthropology 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, curator of the U.S. National Museum, remained adamant in his belief that humans could not have arrived until about 1000 years BCE.[4] 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.
Present Day
The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.[2]
See also
- Lindenmeier site, another National Historic Landmark site that was a Folsom culture campsite, in northern Colorado.
- Cooper Bison Kill Site, another Folsom culture kill site in Oklahoma
- Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site a Folsom culture kill site in northeastern Colorado
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Colfax County, New Mexico
- List of National Historic Landmarks in New Mexico
References
Adovasio, J.M. and David Pedler. "The Peopling of North America." North American Archaeology. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p. 45.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ a b "Folsom Site". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 17, 2007. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
- ^ Hillerman, T., "Othello in Union County,"The Great Taos Bank Robbery, (1973); ISBN 0-8263-0306-4
- ^ Schultz, A.H., "Biographical Memoir of Ales Hrdlicka 1869-1943," National Academy of Sciences, 1944
- v
- t
- e
- Periods
- Lithic
- Archaic
- Formative
- Classic
- Post-Classic
cultures
- Adena
- Alachua
- Ancient Beringian
- Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi)
- Anishinaabe
- Avonlea
- Baytown
- Belle Glade
- Buttermilk Creek complex
- Caborn-Welborn
- Cades Pond
- Calf Creek
- Caloosahatchee
- Clovis
- Coles Creek
- Comondú
- Deptford
- Folsom
- Fort Ancient
- Fort Walton
- Fremont
- Glacial Kame
- Glades
- Hohokam
- Hopewell
- La Jolla
- Las Palmas
- Maritime Archaic
- Mississippian
- Mogollon
- Monongahela
- Old Cordilleran
- Oneota
- Paleo-Arctic
- Paleo-Indians
- Patayan
- Plano
- Plaquemine
- Poverty Point
- Red Ocher
- Safety Harbor
- Santa Rosa-Swift Creek
- St. Johns
- Steed-Kisker
- Suwannee Valley
- Tchefuncte
- Troyville
- Weeden Island
sites
- Angel Mounds
- Anzick site
- Bandelier National Monument
- Bastian
- Benson
- Blue Spring Shelter
- Bluefish Caves
- The Bluff Point Stoneworks
- Brewster
- Cahokia
- Candelaria Cave
- Casa Grande
- Chaco Canyon
- Coso Rock Art District
- Crystal River
- Cuarenta Casas
- Cueva de la Olla
- Cutler
- Eaker
- El Fin del Mundo
- El Vallecito
- Effigy Mounds
- Etowah Indian Mounds
- Eva
- Folsom
- Fort Ancient
- Fort Center
- Fort Juelson
- Four Mounds
- Gila Cliff Dwellings
- Glenwood
- Grimes Point
- Helen Blazes
- Holly Bluff
- Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
- Horr's Island
- Huápoca
- Key Marco
- Kimball Village
- Kincaid Mounds
- Kolomoki Mounds
- Lake Jackson Mounds
- Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site
- L'Anse aux Meadows
- Lynch Quarry Site
- Marksville
- Marmes Rockshelter
- Meadowcroft Rockshelter
- Mesa Verde
- Moaning Cavern
- Moorehead Circle
- Morrison Mounds
- Moundville
- Mummy Cave
- Nodena site
- Ocmulgee Mounds
- Old Stone Fort
- Orwell site
- Paquime
- Painted Bluff
- Parkin Park
- Pinson Mounds
- Plum Bayou Mounds
- Portsmouth Earthworks
- Poverty Point
- Pueblo Bonito
- Rassawek
- Recapture Canyon
- River Styx
- Roberts Island
- Rock Eagle
- Rock Hawk
- Rosenstock Village
- Russell Cave
- Salmon Ruins
- Serpent Mound
- Sierra de San Francisco
- Shell ring sites
- Spiro Mounds
- Stallings Island
- SunWatch
- Taos Pueblo
- Town Creek Indian Mound
- Turkey River Mounds
- Upward Sun River
- Velda Mound
- West Oak Forest Earthlodge
- Wickiup Hill
- Windover
- Winterville
- Wupatki
remains
- Aridoamerica
- Ballgame
- Black drink
- Ceremonial pipe
- Chunkey
- Clovis point
- Container Revolution
- Eastern Agricultural Complex
- Eden point
- Effigy mound
- Falcon dancer
- Folsom point
- Green Corn Ceremony
- Horned Serpent
- Kiva
- Medicine wheel
- Metallurgy
- Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing
- Mound Builders
- N.A.G.P.R.A.
- Norse colonization of North America
- Oasisamerica
- Piasa
- Projectile point
- Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
- Stickball
- Three Sisters agriculture
- Thunderbird
- Transoceanic contact
- Underwater panther
- Water glyphs
- Related
- Genetic history
- Pre-Columbian era