Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 11:30:27 -0500
Reply-To: RTB <21stcentury@ALTAMONTKS.COM>
Sender: Archaeology List "ARCH-L@listserv.tamu.edu"
From: RTB <21stcentury@ALTAMONTKS.COM>
Subject: Clovis hunting materials found

FORT SUPPLY -- Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that Clovis-era people hunted bison in rural Harper County nearly 11,000 years ago. Members of the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey on Sunday found the first Clovis spear point in association with a bison kill site. Wednesday, they were closing the excavation area at Jake Bluff on the Beaver River.

The find is unusual. Lee Bement, survey staff archaeologist who directed the excavation, said the nomadic people who roamed the country between 10,900 and 11,200 years ago, hunted primarily mammoths instead of bison.

"As such, it is probably the only known Clovis bison kill site in North America," he said.

In addition, it is only the second Clovis-age site found in the state, said Bob Brooks, state archaeologist and survey director. The other Clovis site is a mammoth kill area in Caddo County.

Jake Bluff, where hunters drove animals into a dead-end ravine before killing them, was excavated under the direction of Bement with assistance from Kent Buehler, staff archaeol- ogist for the survey. It was funded by the National Geographic Society and the University of Oklahoma Department of Anthropology.

Volunteers from the Oklahoma Anthropological Society started the excavation in the first part of June. OU students participating in a field school later joined.

They determined the approximate age of the spear head because of its distinctively Clovis characteristics including a lengthy groove down the middle of the point, Brooks said.

Crews also found materials for tools and debris from the making of tools, he said.

Hunters processed the six to 10 cows and calves in the ravine after killing them. The bones show the hunt probably was in the fall, Bement said.

Analysis of items probably will take a year but initial examination shows the spear tip is probably made of alibates dolomite, Bement said. Alibates is a type of stone found north of Amarillo, Texas, showing that these people roamed at least as far as there.

Brooks said archaeologists found the site after doing some survey work in the area three to four years ago after finding the Folsom era Cooper Site, also in Harper County.

The 1993-1994 Cooper dig focused on the skeletons of almost 80 bison from three slaughters. The Folsom period was between 10,200 and 10,700 years ago.

Cheers:

Robert

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