Timothy S. Lambert

Anth. 4633

Dr. George Odell

06 March 2011

SW Paleo-Indian\Archaic Occupation

The Southwest has been defined in many different ways over the past century. In many a

famous Hollywood movie, the Southwest region was portrayed as a barren wasteland, with little to no

natural resources available to anyone. Documentaries on places like Death Valley, California or Planet

Earth videos depicting the Sonoran Desert as a vast sand ocean with no water in sight, save the few

precious oases that exist every hundred miles or so, do not do justice to the actual diversity that exists in

the area. From the luscious tablelands or mesas in central Arizona, southern Colorado, and Northern

New Mexico, to the mountainous regions of the continental divide, to the vast Sonoran and Chihuahuan

deserts there thrives a huge range of plants and animals specifically adapted to the ever changing

environment. If we choose these areas and decide to define the Southwest region based on climate, we

can say that these regions all have one factor in common. Even though they are very diverse, they

suffer from a general lack of water and their average annual rainfall is commonly in the range of five to

ten inches.1

There are other definitions of course. Another way that is commonly used to define the

Southwest region is by cultural traits and adaptations. In this view the Southwest is defined

characteristically by the cultivation of the “three sisters” or corn, beans, and squash. This agricultural

definition is defined as stretching from Durango, Mexico north to Durango, Colorado and from Las

1 Cordell, Linda. Prehistory of the Southwest Orlando: Academic Press 1984, pg.2

Vegas, New Mexico west to Las Vegas, Nevada.2 This area is culturally defined by the prehistoric

presence of digging sticks, manos, and metates used for cultivation in the archaeological record, as well

as, the lack of the state level societies that developed in Mesoamerica. Included in this non-existent

society, is the lack of an efficient writing\notation system, large urban centers, and public architecture

that came to be the defining characteristic of the late Mesoamerican region.3 For discussing Paleo-

Indian and Archaic inhabitants of the Southwest though, this definition is somewhat useless since its

main classificatory statement is based off of very late societies that did not exist in early-man times.

For discussing Paleo-Indian and Archaic peoples a better way to define the Southwest region is

simply by geography, using man made lines on a map. While this offers some advantages, such as

knowing which state to request permits and grant money from, it can also cause a few problems as well.

One main problem with defining any area based off imaginary lines is that the living breathing

inhabitants of the past had no concept of these borders. This means that when we define an area by

national and state boundaries, the cultures we describe did not adhere to these modern boundaries in

any way and likely ranged across several states at different times of the year. Thus, we can propose a

definition of the Southwest region based on topology, latitude and longitude measurements, and

familiar town names, but it must be remembered that these boundaries do not mean that a culture

group ended precisely on that border and a new one began on the other side. In his book First

Inhabitants of Arizona and the Southwest, Byron Cummings does a fairly decent job of this. He states

that the area archaeologists call the American Southwest covers roughly 550,000 mi2 in the continental

2 L. Cordell, op. cit., in note 1

3 L. Cordell, op. cit. in note 1, pg. 4

United States, and 150,000 mi2 in the country of Mexico.4 Included in this vast amount of land are all of

Arizona, and New Mexico, the greater part of Utah, Nevada, southwestern Colorado, western Texas, and

the greater part of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. Cummings states “Roughly speaking, it

lies between 25° N latitude and 42° N latitude, and ranges from 100° W longitude to 117° W longitude.”5

He further describes the area by saying the “…topography is varied, ranging in elevation from more than

14,000 feet in Colorado and 12,000 in northern Arizona and New Mexico to sea level at the mouth of the

Colorado River.”6 This definition works fairly well for describing early-man and Archaic occupations of

the area, although they differed greatly from place to place due to extreme differences in climate and

vegetation that changed drastically with elevation.

There exist more specialized definitions of the Southwest as well. In a study that sought to

reveal the range of the utilization of the Tall Cacti or Carnegiea gigantea, more commonly known by its

local name of the Saguaro Cactus among early peoples, Castetter and Bell suggest a slightly altered

version of the Southwest. They propose that the Southwest region includes all of Arizona and New

Mexico, the southwest quadrant of Colorado, the southeast portions of Utah and Nevada, as well as the

northern parts of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. To this definition they add “To our

conception of the Southwest…Baja California has been added because of natural botanical affinities of

the species presented.”7 They add a disclaimer for those not satisfied with their definition when they

continue with “Culturally, Baja California does not belong to the typical central Mexican region nor to

the Californian area, hence no particular violence is done by this temporary alignment.”8

4 Cummings, Byron. First Inhabitants of Arizona and the Southwest. Tucson: Cummings Publication Council, 1953, pg. 1 5 B. Cummings, op. cit., in note 4, pg. 6 6 ibid 7 Castetter, Edward and Bell, Willis, The University of New Mexico Bulletin, Ethnobiological Studies in the American Southwest IV. The Aboriginal Utilization of the Tall Cacti in the American Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1937 pg. 1 8 ibid

As can be seen, the problems of defining an area are many and varied, yet it must be done for

the sake of accurate scholarship. In this case, when referring to the Southwest region I will adhere to

the following definition which, in a way, is a combination\revision of several of the previously discussed

explanations: the Southwest region includes all of the states on Arizona and New Mexico, the southwest

quadrant of Colorado, the extreme southeast portions of Nevada, Utah, California, the far western

reaches of Texas, the northwestern quadrant of the Mexican state of Chihuahua and the extreme

northeast part of the Mexican state of Sonora. Again, I caution that these boundaries are based purely

on modern, man-made lines and the actual societies discussed herein did not adhere to these lines

when living their lives. They simply shifted locations according to the most recent changes in climate

and available resources, paying no attention to these imaginary boundary lines.

These changes in climate not only occurred over space, but we now understand that they occurred over

time as well. In Paleo-Indian and Archaic times the climate was somewhat different from the very hot,

dry summers and intensely cold winters of today. By studying well preserved pack rat middens,

archaeologists are able to gain a pretty good idea of some of the flora and fauna that existed in the

region, as well as radiocarbon date much of the preserved materials. The premise for this science is that

pack rats tend to gather food within a small radius of their dens. Once the rat moves on, its feces

contain a conglomerate of these organic materials. These materials are sometimes preserved and can

be studied later to distinguish what the rat was eating and when it was eating it. One of these studies

conducted by Thomas R. van Devender analyzed the plant remains found in twenty-nine pack rat

middens from differing elevations, time periods, and climates. What van Devender discovered is that

the earliest climate of the Southwest region was very much cooler and more precipitation existed than

does today. He proposed that with an increase in elevation, there was an increase in precipitation, and

a decrease in temperature. This created areas of high elevation with large amounts of flora, and the

areas of low elevation had relatively less flora. In the terminal Pleistocene, i.e. 13,500 ± 390 B.P., van

Devender suggests, based on his findings, that in the “…northern Chihuahuan Desert… piñon-juniper

woodland extended from an elevation of about 1495m in the Guadalupe Mountains to 600m in the Rio

Grande in the Big Bend.”9 Similarly, in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and parts of California, there

existed a single-needle piñon (Pinus monophylla) woodland at about 510 m elevation, while in the lower

elevations of 260 m there seems to have been a more xeric10 juniper woodland. This juniper woodland

appears in the Mohave Desert around the same time in elevations ranging from 1100 m to 1830 m. The

author finishes his discussion of the area during the end of the Plesitocene with his results for the last

subsection of the area. He states “In southern Nevada and northeastern California, single-needle piñon

was recorded as low as 730 m…There are additional records of

juniper woodland and pinion-juniper woodland from the western Mohave Desert.”11 Areas that are

currently a sage brush grassland mosaic would have been an area reminiscent of today’s southern Great

Plains, but much cooler and moister. Due to the increased precipitation and lower temperatures,

playas of the present day, would have held water for a major part of the year, providing the much

needed water source of the Paleo-Indians and the mega-fauna they are so commonly associated with.

Then, according to van Devender and his floral analysis, the climate began to shift towards the

dryer, dustier Southwest of today. He documents this Plesitocene-Holocene boundary at about 8,000

B.P. saying “…the last record of woodland in the deserts around 8,000 years ago…is remarkable.”12 He

notes that they are remarkable because prevailing pollen evidence had traditionally placed the date at a

much earlier time about 12,000 B.P. This boundary in time can simply be defined as a shift from glacial

climates to the post glacial climes of today. Until this point in time, glaciers had covered much of the

9 van Devender, Thomas R. Holocene Woodlands in the Southwestern Deserts in Science, New Series Vol.198, No. 4313 (Oct. 14 1977), pg. 189 10 Xeric is defined by www.dictionary.com as an adjective with the following meaning: “of, pertaining to, or adapted to a dry environment.” 11T. van Devender, op. cit., in note 9, pg. 189 12 T. van Devender, op. cit., in note 9, pg. 191

northern continental U.S.A as well as vast regions of Canada. This huge sheet of ice, thrusting deep into

the North American continent changed climates and climate zones extremely, and the same can be said

of when the glaciers started to melt and recede during the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, whether

you place it at 8,000 or 12,000 B.P. This recession released millions of gallons of water long trapped in

glaciers and sea levels rose worldwide. The rising of the sea levels, combined with other factors such as

the climate zones shifting due to glacial recession, cause a fairly substantial change in the climate of the

Southwest. No longer were any of the mega-fauna that existed in the Pleistocene alive and most species

became extinct. As the glaciers retreated back into Canada, they shifted rain patterns and annual

precipitation amounts everywhere. The Southwest began to dry and out warm up, the playas of today

began to form, and the arid environment started to take over. In the floral record this is characterized

by a shift from the juniper and piñon woodland to a desert scrub mosaic. The author states

“Radiocarbon dates from middens containing only desert species from the Mojave Desert are… 7,500 ±

100 B.P.”13 To correlate these findings other researchers have done similar studies on pack rat middens,

but with the faunal remains of bugs and insects. In short, these studies found

“… a paleoenvironmental scenario…which closely agrees with the interpretations of plant

macrofossil records from the region. Late Wisconsin [terminal Pleistocene] climate in south-central New

Mexico was cooler and wetter than present... A shift to more xeric conditions occurred in the early

Holocene...desert-grassland gave way to desertscrub in the vicinity by Mid-Holocene.”14

Other studies showed these same results, with James Judge stating in his doctorial dissertation,

that he later published in book form, entitled PaleoIndian Occupaation suggests that the summer mean

temperatures would have been around 16.2 degrees F cooler than they are today and “The mean annual

13 ibid 14 Elias, Scott. Paleoenvironmental Significance of Late Quaternary Insect Fossils from Packrat Middens in South-Central New Mexico. The Southwestern Naturalist, Vol. 32 No. 3 (Sept. 28 1987) pg. 383

rainfall was somewhat higher than present, but it is not known by how much.”15 He goes on to say, “As

a result of increased moisture and decreased temperatures, the small ponds and playas of the area

contained water, as did the rivers and some of the major arroyos.”16 He sums up the faunal situation

pretty well when he says that for the earliest part of human occupation in the area, extinct forms of

megafauna, including horse, mammoth, camel, bison, ground sloth, cave bear, and several others

roamed the woodlands inhabited by simple hunter-gatherer people. He notes that as extinction

progressed and the area became drier the fauana moved toward a buffalo heavy population leading to

certain cultural adaptations that we shall discuss shortly.

Now that we have a good idea on the climate, flora, fauna, and topography of the area and

time-period being looked at, we can move on to looking at the inhabitants of the Paleo-Indian and

Archaic eras, first in a generalized, introductory sense, then by using four archaeological sites to flesh

out the general theories. In the most general sense, early occupations of the Southwest can be broken

up into a crude chronology. For years the earliest inhabitants were seen as the Clovis people, or a

culture that archaeologists propose were characterized by their neatly fluted, lancelote points, that

were very efficient at wounding and killing the terminal-Pleistocene mega-fauna discussed earlier.

Recently this view has been challenged by a number of archaeological sites, proposing they have found

remains for “pre-Clovis” peoples, but we shall discuss this argument later when I describe a possible

“pre-Clovis” site in the Southwest dubbed Pendejo Cave. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the “Clovis-

first” generalizations here to establish a basic timeline, then will expound on the timeline in greater

detail a bit later. These Clovis peoples, contrary to popular belief, were not solely mega-fauna hunters

as Disney’s Ice Age would have us believe, but were highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups that relied on

“…many distinctive adaptations to locally plentiful and predictable resources, which are not yet

15 Judge, W. James. Paleoindian Occupation of the Central Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1973, pg. 40 16 ibid

reflected in the archaeological record.”17 Fagan goes on to say that these resources could have included

deer, rabbit, fish, as well as any number of edible plants and vegetables. In fact, recent studies on

ethnographically similar hunter-gatherer groups have found that these early Paleo-Indian inhabitants

most likely relied more heavily on foraging than they did hunting. The result show that the wild plant

and vegetable resources have a better cost to benefit ratio when comparing energy expended in

collecting the food and potential energy contained in the food. Simply put, these resources were more

stable, and less hazardous than hunting and could be counted on as a food source. The Clovis peoples

existed, depending on what set of facts you believe, starting at anywhere in the range of 13,000 to

10,000 B.P. and came to a close around the end of the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary anywhere from

9,000 to 7,000 B.P. As mentioned above, archaeologist characterize these inhabitants by their chipped

flint tool kits. Fagan remarks of these toolkits “Clovis toolkits were…portable…as befits people who were

constantly on the move. Their stone technology was based on high quality, fine grain rock…to kill and

process big-game and cut down trees.”18

The next general phase that many archaeologists recognize is again characterized by their

distinctive stone tool technology and toolkit. These peoples are dubbed the Folsom people and their

stone tools show an adaptation to a type of hunting strategy that was entirely different from their Clovis

predecessors. Fagan notes that what was special about these late paleo inhabitants’ tool kits is that “By

8,000 BC, later Paleo-Indian cultures developed regionally distinctive cultures…most areas of North

America had distinctive point forms, which may reflect local adaptations to different environmental

conditions.”19 One of the earliest distinctive cultures that emerged in the Southwest, as well as other

regions, was the Folsom Complex. Archaeologists characterize these peoples by their stone toolkit that

17 Fagan, Brian Ancient North America: the Archaeology of a Continent. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2005, pg. 89 18 B. Fagan, op. cit., in note 17, pg. 91-92 19 B. Fagan, op. cit., in note 17, pg. 97

shows immense specialization from hunting not the now extinct mega-fauna, but rather large herds of

Bison antiqus, an early Buffalo like creature that was about 50% larger than the modern Bison bison.

These Folsom peoples ranged across the areas than now encompass much of the Great Plains, the

Southwest, and several other regions in pursuit of buffalo herds. They toolkits is most simply put a

refinement on the Clovis technology. The flute is still there, but the overall point length in generally

shorter, and the flute now takes up almost the whole length of the point, whereas Clovis technology

employed a longer, slightly longer blade, with the flute generally taking up about one-third of the length.

This flute, or a flake taken off the point lengthwise, in about the center of the base “allowed a large,

heavy stone point to be more easily wedged and bound into a split fore-shaft of the spear.”20 The

advantage to this as described by Plog is “The weight and the more streamlined nature of the point and

fore-shaft…enhanced their penetration into the animal being hunted, a significant assistance given the

extremely tough skins of some large animals.”21 Many a Folsom point has been found lying in the rib

bones of an early bison skeleton, or wedged between piles of bison skeletons from communal drives, in

which relatively large numbers of bison were dispatched. This style evolved into several locally distinct

stone toolkits, some contemporaneous with the Folsom Complex and others being descendants of the

Folsom complex. These, what can be simply called, variants have names such as Agate Basin, Midland,

Hell Gap, Angostura, and others. At the end of this late paleo-Indian era, we have what people refer to

as the Archaic and we shall turn our attention to that period of time now.

Once again we see the main defining characteristic between the late Paleo-Indian times and the

early Archaic is a change in hunting-gathering strategy, as evidenced through their stone toolkits. Plog

says “The post-Folsom era saw a shift in hunting and gathering, from an emphasis on a limited variety of

big game species …to a broader focus on a range of foods, in particular a much greater reliance on the

20 Plog, Stephen. Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest. London: Thames & Hudson, 2008, pg. 39 21 S. Plog, op. cit, in note 20, pg. 38, fgs. 30/31

collection of plants.”22 With this is a similar increase, as before with the Clovis-Folsom switch, to even

more locally specialized toolkits, that varied greatly across time and space. The time span for the

Archaic period has never been set in stone and accepted by all archaeologists everywhere. Dates range

from the starting point of 7,000 B.P to as late as 5,000-4,000 B.P. and ending anywhere from 3,000 to

2,000 B.P. Disregarding any date controversies, it can be simply stated that the Archaic era saw a huge

shift to local specialization causing huge amounts of sometimes non-related variants. During this era

many archaeologists agree that we see the very beginnings of agriculture, due to increasingly efficient

foraging practices. We shall discuss this topic more a bit more, when we flesh out the Archaic more

thoroughly, in a few paragraphs.

This history, of course, does not stop at the Archaic period, around the time of Christ, but the

extent of this paper does. I would like to move now to the four sites that will help give archaeological

data for some of the generalized claims made above. With each of these sites we will discuss several

factors about them. We will discuss the nature of the occupation, based on the archeological data, as

well as if the sites were in situ23, how well they were excavated, if they were disturbed or not, and

ultimately we will consider whether the evidence at the site allows for a good strong interpretation of

what was going on in this area, at this time. We shall investigate the archaeology of each site, then in

the conclusions I shall consider the above questions.

The first site we shall look at is what is considered the original type-site for the Clovis point, of

Blackwater Draw, particularly Locality No. 1.24 The type-site is located near Clovis, New Mexico, where

the distinctive point inherited its name from. In the preface to the first comprehensive collection of

22 S. Plog, op. cit, in note 20, pg. 45 23 In situ is defined by www.dictionary.com as: In the original place or arrangement 24 I originally had intended to not choose the Clovis type-site as one of the sites to use in this paper. But being new to the area, I failed to realize that the awesome site report I had found on an early-man site called Black Water Locality No. 1, was the Clovis type site until it was already too late to change the site. Thus Blackwater Locality No. 1 is my first site, showing a large portion of early history/

multiple sight reports for Blackwater Locality No. 1, James Hester states “The significance of the finds of

Paleo-Indian artifacts associated with extinct vertebrates in Blackwater Draw is known to all students of

American Archaeology.”25 This find was indeed a huge step for archaeologists, but over time it became

more of a law than a theory, with many die-hard “Clovis-first” peoples clashing verbal swords with the

opposition of the “pre-Clovis” crowd, who theorize that it was completely possible for people to have

existed on the North American continent before the Clovis culture. Since the main characteristic of

these peoples were their stone-tools in association with extinct fauna that is what I shall mainly focus on

when discussing Locality No. 1.

Blackwater Draw is an extinct riverbed near the source of the modern day Brazos River. This

river, was at some point in the geologic past, cut off by the headword erosion on the Pecos River,

resulting in the only water source for that area being runoff created by precipitation on local, often

highly variably, levels. Hester states “This condition led to the development of a series of small shallow

ponds along the draw. ..one such pond…is Blackwater Locality No. 1.”26 According to Hester the ponds

dried up at several different times in history according to the climatic variation of the day. This

produced a well-stratified site, due to large amounts of sand or silt that was deposited during the dry

spells. These tended to fossilize and preserve in an anaerobic environment remains very nicely. This

site shows a long history with a preservation of the Clovis Complex, Folsom Complex, Portales Complex,

Archaic Complex, and later occupations in time periods we are not concerned with. It can be seen from

the simple classifications utilized at the site,that most of the excavations were conducted very early in

the history of the science of archaeology, and many of their methods are now considered very crude

compared to modern techniques. Recovered from Blackwater Draw were a total of 223 Clovis artifacts

25 Hester, James Blackwater Locality No. 1: A Stratified, Early Man Site in Eastern New Mexico Ranchos de Taos: Fort Burgwin Research Center, inc. Souhtern Methodist University, 1972, pg. vii 26J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 1

according to Hester’s count. These artifacts exhibited characteristics such as core struck blades, flake

knives, scrapers etc.27 He notes the amazing addition of what he calls true core struck blades theorizing

that “…the presence of blades…suggests that the Clovis culture was much more closely related (in a

typological sense) to an Old World predecessor, than is the subsequent Folsom culture.”28 This

conclusion and desire to draw a connection between the earliest North American inhabitants and the

latest European inhabitants was rampant, and to a great extent still is, leading many people to offer any

possible connection they could come up with. Along with this distinctive stone tool kit were some bone

tools that Hester believes were more varied than any other collection known to date. Simply, the

complex was characterized by flakes struck from prepared cores, then small amounts of secondary

flaking taken off the core around the outer areas, and last by the small flakes directed into the length of

the blade to help “…reduce the size of the bulb of percussion.”29 We have discussed the advantages of

this adaptation in earlier paragraphs. A few new typological categories were recognized based on

characteristics like blade length and width. The huge ice-breaker for the Clovis level was that several of

the early tools were associated with skeletons of now-extinct mega fauna such as Wooly Mammoth.

This was the first time in archaeological history that there were substantial in situ facts to show that

people existed on the North American continent with animals that were no longer living.30 What was

even more astonishing is that the stratified site contained multiple occupational layers, ranging from

Paleo-Indian all the way to the Archaic and beyond. Five hundred-forty thee artifacts represent the

Folsom complex at this site, and Hester characterizes them by stating that they are definitely derived

from the Clovis technology, but with a few key differences. He states “These features include a chipped

striking platform…unifacial implements worked to opposing faces, retouch on the nether [dorsal?] face

27 For Hester’s full version see Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 92 28J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 92 29J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 94 30 For pictures see fgs. 30-33 in 30J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 26

of the flakes, and parallel flaking.”31 There were also Folsom artifacts found in association with another

extinct animal, just a few thousand years later, the Bison antiqus. A Folsom point was found in

“definite” association with a bison atlas [antiqus?]. This once again showed that there was “early-man”

on North America.

The next neatly stratified layer yields the Portales complex, which is once of the late Plaeo-

Indian local complexes that developed out of the Folsom complex. While the author draws this

generalization he issues the disclaimer if the small sample size, as is frequent in archaeology. Only 49

artifacts with valid provenience data remain due to different causes. Hester describes these with the

name “Parallel Flaked” points as well, since many of the points were now small enough that a single

pressure flake could be shot from one side of a flake and terminate it at the edge of the flake itself,

producing a single solid channel across the face of the flake. These points were still not as small as the

Archaic ones considered in the next paragraph, but the author suggests that by the end of the late

Paleo, post Folsom, era we can begin to se the shift towards pursuing smaller game and focusing on

gathering rather than hunting.32 This time period of small game hunting and a heavy reliance on

gathering is termed the Archaic and this period is represented at Blackwater Draw, but not very well due

to the nature of the sediment deposition in which the artifacts lye. Many of them were discovered in

sediments that were most undoubtedly disturbed or transplanted in from other areas in a colluvial or

pluvial fashion. This leads to a very sketchy picture and interpretations and Hester only generalizes that

these points are characterized by “…a variety of stemmed forms with a triangular blade.”33 He makes no

further generalizations beyond that.

31 J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 118 32 J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 137 33 J. Hester, op. cit., in note 25, pg. 143

The second site I will discuss in that of Pendejo Cave. “Pendejo Cave is located on federal land

in south-central New Mexico (Long. 105° 55’ W, Lat. 32° 25’ N).”34 Pendejo Cave is the possible “pre-

Clovis” that was mentioned earlier in this paper. This site becomes important because it contains a

geologic column that is correlated with 75 radiocarbon dates from large amounts of carbon samples.

This allows archaeologists to refine the time-scale previously used, and make the generalizations that

much tighter. This cave sits in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert and is the desert scrub brush mosaic

described earlier. As mentioned earlier one of the major components of this site is the “pre-Clovis” side.

One example of people being there before Clovis comes from a “forensically indentified human hair”

carbon dated to 12,240 ± 70 B.P. and this hair is stratified below the Clovis occupation. To help support

this paleo-Indian occupation period is the recovery of some 250 stone artifacts associated with Paleo-

Indians. These were selected for lithic use-wear analysis through experimentation and the subsequent

observation of the archaeological specimens under a microscope using the “low power method.”35 The

tests allowed the researchers to get a decent idea of what the stone tools were being used for. In the

case of Pendejo Cave, some of the artifacts were hard to read due to PDSM, and low quality stone, but

some generalizations could be made. Several artifacts showed possible use as digging tools or

chopping\cutting vegetable materials, but again there are many hurdles in use-wear analysis that one

must jump to make estimated guesses. In chapter 11 of the book, R.S. MacNeish and Peggy Wilner talk

about the general lithic assemblage. They comment that the earliest phase termed Orogrande had only

55 artifacts recovered, and the possible dates range from 52,000 B.P. to upwards of 70,000 B.P.36 The

tools simply show possible use wear in chopping\adzing or scraping, and not very many specimens

exhibit use-wear at all. The evidence back this far is a bit sketchy due to several factors like PDSM, etc.

34 Pendejo Cave, ed. by MacNeish, Richard, and Libby, Jane. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2003, pg. 3 35 Odell, G.H. and F. Odell-Vereecken Verifyting the Reliability of Lithic Use-Wear Assements by “Blind Tests”: the Low-Power Approach. Journal of Field Archaeology 7 pgs. 87-120 36 R. MacNeish, and P. Wilner, op. cit., in note 34, pg. 205

The next complex is called the McGregor complex dating from about 52,000 to 31,000 B.P. This layers

provides better evidence with 103 artifacts, and “73 of which seemed to show evidence of use-wear.”37

Polyhedral points disappears out of the assemblage and seem to be replaced with choppers and

scrapers. The author continues of this trek towards increasing use of plant materials when he states

“With the Clovis-age horizon…many tools…showed polish, suggesting an increasing use of soft materials,

such as plants.”38 Other early tools from the Orogrande horizon showed possible use on hard materials

such as wood, or stone, while later occupations shifted towards softer materials, as evidenced in the

stone tools. This site, like the previous one, has later occupations including ceramics and domesticates,

but once again we are not concerned with this time period.

The third site we shall look at archaeologically is called Bat Cave. This site focuses on the more

Archaic end of the spectrum and was chosen, along with the next site to flesh out the Archaic

occupations of the area. Bat Cave is located “…on the southeast side of the Plains of San Augustin…in

New Mexico.”39 Bat Cave’s earliest radio carbon date come from a hearth at the top of the oldest

occupied layer and is 5981 ± 310 B.P. The stone tool assemblage at Bat Cave is impressive showing a

wide range of the great diversity that was characteristic of the Archaic period. Artifacts include a variety

of small to mid-sized projectile points40 as well as the choppers and scrapers that accompany the move

from a focus on hunting to a focus on gathering. We can track the focus on gathering slowly evolving to

domestication in several artifacts. Along with the earliest hearth, there is also a flat slab-style milling

stone used fro grinding some type of grain. This shows that around five to six thousand years ago,

hunter-gatherer groups probably were starting to figure out how to domesticate plants and animals,

very successfully. The author suggests, and many would agree, that these stones were probably used to

37 ibid 38 R. MacNeish, and P. Wilner, op. cit., in note 34, pg. 208 39 Dick, Herbert. Bat Cave Sante Fe: The School of American Research 1965, pg. 1 40 D. Herbert, op. cit., in note 39 pgs 24-29, fgs. 20-23

process some of the earliest from of wild maize or beans. As the sediments get younger in Bat Cave, the

amount of material associated with the beginnings of domestication increases. There appears only one

metate in the earliest strata, but in the following strata we see the numbers increase to a range of three

to nine per strata. This is a large increase and suggests a continued reliance on plants, instead of

animals.

The fourth and final site, we shall look at is the somewhat late, but pre-ceramic Archaic is

Tularosa Cave, New Mexico. The author of the site report states “Tularosa Cave is less than 40km

northwest of Bat Cave, and is located in a south-facing hillside over Tularosa Creek.”41 The cave sits at

roughly the same elevation as Bat Cave and thus falls into a similar climatic zone. In the earliest

excavations the strata were simply lumped into a “pre-pottery” category that existed of all the strata

below the last ceramic found, and everything above that line was “pottery” levels. These pre-pottery

levels seem to be radiocarbon dated to about 2,000 to 2,500 B.P. and the author notes “There are no

levels of the site that didn’t contain ample evidence for maize.”42 The pre-pottery levels contain an

interesting mix of projectile points, some cordage, and even sandals were found in Tulsarosa Cave, yet

the absence of pottery is what makes these early strata classifiable as Archaic. In this site we can see

the very advanced system of intense gathering\ bordering upon domestication of wild plants. Residents

were making ropes, sandals, and processing some type of maize grains from the earliest occupations, as

evidenced by manos and metates from the site. The author agrees with a previous researcher on the

fact that “…based on the range of artifacts and on the huge quantities of maize…the site was primarily

used in the late summer and/or early fall as a basecamp…with maize grown on the floodplain below the

41 McBrinn, Maxine Social Identities Among Arctic Mobile Hunters and Gatherers in the American Southwest, Tuscon: Arizona State Museum, The University of Arizona, 2005, pg. 47 42 ibid

site.”43 This is site is special because it documents the amount and intensity of the usage of maize over

a large span of time. It also speaks to the tendency of different parts of culture to adapt at differing

speeds throughout time. At this site we see all the normal effects on society that comes along with a

focus on intensive foraging and eventually domestication, except for the appearance of ceramics. The

lower strata show much of the same types and even amounts of artifacts such as rope, sandals, and

hearths, but at about 2,000 to 2,500 B.P. ceramics make an appearance and the “transition” to

agriculture and domestication was well on its way.

Conclusions

Utilizing the information from the four sites above we can now briefly discuss the topics listed in

earlier paragraphs. On the topic of how well these sites were excavated, we get a different answer for

each site. At Blackwater Draw, the methods employed would seem somewhat crude today, using

2mx2m grids and 20cm levels. Many of the original proveniences were lost, and some interpretations

are lost forever. However, due to the sedimentation nature of the draw, the levels are preserved nicely,

and represent accurately what was occurring at the early-man levels. The only layers that were

disturbed were the upper layers, in the Archaic period. Overall the Blackwater Draw, paints a very good

portrait of the early-man situation in the Southwest region.

The Pendejo Cave site was excavated, fairly well with modern techniques, and analysis was

carried out on several artifact classes. Most of the lower sediments, and the upper strata were very well

preserved, and were accompanied by about 75 radio carbon dates creating a very accurate geologic

column, that can be transposed on the pre-existing timelines. This is awesome when looking for “pre-

Clovis” sites and this is one of the main contenders out there. Overall, this site’s integrity is as good as

43 ibid

any you can find in throughout the continent. It represents a very accurate portrayal of what was going

on in the region at the time, and with more studies our understanding of early-man will only increase.

The third site mentioned above was Bat Cave, New Mexico. This site was originally excavated in

the early days of archaeology and issues provenience data based on six-foot square excavation units,

assigned to students. It is noted that the levels were not in the nice 10cm increments employed in much

of Southwestern American archaeology today, but rather were arbitrary depending on natural strata, or

even an archaeologist’s intuition. So the site was excavated well for its time but, by today’s standards

the excavation seems very crude. Nonetheless, the documents provide a basic idea of the Archaic

occupation of the time and what was occurring in the societies of the time. From the earliest sediments

dated to about 6,000 B.P., there is evidence of a gradual shift towards a sedentary life style geared

around intensive foraging and domestication. Radio carbon dates accompany much of the early work,

allowing for a similar situation to Pendejo Cave, but for the Archaic period. This site represents, very

well, what was occurring in the Southwest at this time.

The fourth and final site of Tularosa has a special set of circumstances as well. The methods for

excavation socnsisted of placing a two meter trench down the middle of the inclosure, and dividing two

meter units off to the left and right of this trench. Levels were dug as first arbitrarily due to the uneven

cave surface, but then switched to even 20cm increments. Again these methods seem crude today, but

they were the best ways that existed for doing arcaheology at the time. Most of the levels are pretty

well preserved, and the earliest dates place a pre-ceramic, agricultural society at about 2,000 to 2,500

B.P. This site is important because it shows us that different aspects of culture evolove at different

paces. On this site we see every level containing evidence of maize, with the distinct characteristic of

cermaics being present only after 2,000 B.P. The site is well preserved and in general can be considered

to be in decent context. Even though this site is a short occupation area, it gives us a very good look at

the move to a gathering society more than a hunting one. The four of these sites, as well as the rest of

the environmental and arcaheological data, all show a similar picture of what was happening over time

in the Southwest. These data all point to a trend towards a gathering based society that would

eventually evolove into domestication and finally the systems we use in the present day. But that

subject is the topic for another paper, and regretfully the extant of my paper ends here.

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