Finding the Clovis Culture

In 1926, when scientists from the Colorado Museum of Natural History found a stone projectile point imbedded in the rib of a bison antiquus, a large predecessor of modern American bison, changed the whole time frame for human habitation in North America.  

That point, found near the town of Folsom, in north eastern New Mexico, proved that early man had been hunting bison as far back as 9,000 B.C.E., 7,000 years earlier than previously thought. But that find was just the first of many that have pushed back our understanding of when humans came to the Americas. The hunt for the earliest American was on!

As news of the Folsom find began to spread, people started taking an interest in old bones found in the ground. One of those was a 19 year old Eagle Scout from Clovis, New Mexico. His name was James Ridgely Whiteman.

One day in February of 1929, Whiteman was walking along Blackwater Draw, an arroyo between Clovis and Portales. In a letter he wrote to the Smithsonian Institution, he said he found fluted points in association with mammoth bones.

Mammoths weren’t alive at the time of the Folsom kills. If Whiteman was right, his find was even older.

No one paid much attention to Whiteman's letter, and the discovery he had made in Blackwater Draw went unexplored. In 1932, a horse-drawn scraper that the highway department was using to collect gravel for a road project uncovered a huge pile of bones right where Whiteman had said they were.

The next year, Edgar B. Howard, an archeologist from the University of Pennsylvania, began a four year excavation of the site. He and his colleagues found ancient spearheads, stone tools, hearths, and evidence of almost continuous human occupation at the site dating back 13,000 years. He named these people the Clovis people, after the nearby town of Clovis, New Mexico.

Howard concluded that Clovis people camped on the west side of the lake, where they could have a view of the surroundings. 

They didn’t seem to camp for long periods before they moved on to other places. 

If there were no mammoths around, they hunted smaller game.

Blackwater Draw was an animal trap. Hunters waited until mammoths and other animals got trapped in the mud at the edge of a lake, then attacked them. Scientists have found other animal bones, too: Bison, saber toothed tigers, ambelodons, large ground sloths, peccaries,and dire wolves. Some might have been hunted, but others died of natural causes, got caught in the mud, or were killed by other animals. 

By the time of the Folsom Culture, there were no ground sloths, ambelodons or mammoths left, but they hunted at Blackwater Draw, too. Artifacts indicate that they tended to camp on the Northwest edge of the lake, where they could look for approaching herds of bison. Archaeologists can tell that Folsom groups stayed longer than the Clovis groups had, but they, too, moved on once they had skinned and butchered their bison.

One reason people did not remain at Blackwater Draw is that there is no good stone for making points in the area. The stones for points found at Blackwater Draw were brought from other places, including Alibates (near Amarillo, Texas), the upper Colorado River in Colorado, the Valles Caldera in New Mexico's Jemez mountains, and the Sangre de Cristo mountains, north of Santa Fe. The distribution and number of points help archaeologists determine how early man traveled throughout the area. 

Today, there is a building sheltering the kill site at Blackwater Draw, which is part of the Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark. The bones lay on many levels, showing the large period of time in which this site was an active hunting area. The different levels are clearly marked. Down the road is an excellent museum, and camp sites are available at Oasis State Park, which is a little more than four miles away. 

Readings in Prehistory for Middle Grade and Adult Readers

 If you ask nearly anyone for a recommendation for a book set in prehistoric times, you’ll likely hear Clan of the Cave Bear mentioned. The first of Jean M. Auel’s six book Earth's Children series was published in 1980 and is still popular today. Set around 30,000 years ago, it tells the story of Ayla, an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl who is adopted and raised by a tribe of Neanderthals. It is a coming-of-age book, but beginning with the second book, the explicit romantic sex makes it inappropriate for middle grade readers. That is not to say that there are no books set in prehistoric times that are appropriate for middle graders. Here are a few recommendations:

Set in Western Europe 35,000 years ago, Noonalook is the story of a man who used to be great within his clan, but age and disability has shoved him into the forgotten fringes of society. When a raiding party leaves behind one of their young boys, Noonalook decides to return him to his people. This story is unusual for a middle grade novel, as most stories in this niche feature protagonists that are in their early to mid teens. The dialog is often limited to indecipherable strings like "Sundu, gello nar nodum. Stedona mellekon" and the like. While I understand when outsiders speak gibberish, I wonder when it comes out of the mouth of our POV character. Shouldn't we readers be able to understand his words just as much as his thoughts? Self-published, it has a handful of errors.

Children of the Dawnland is the first in a two book series by authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear.  Set at the end of the Ice Age, it tells the story of  a twelve-year-old named Twig, who feels compelled to supress her spirit dreams that act like premonitions. When her village is attacked by an enemy people, Twig and her companion, Greyhawk, escape and begin a journey to find the cave of the reclusive witch-woman, Cobia, who might be able to interpret her dream that a green light is going to explode from the sky and destroy the world. Well written, well researched, and exciting, I recommend this book highly.

The Gears are among those rare authors who can write both for adults and for children. If you are an adult and Children of the Dawnland appeals to you, I recommend People of the Sea.  Set twelve thousand years ago, in the Sierra Nevada, the people are facing the end of their way of life and the glaciers melt, destroying the habitat of the mastodons. The people wonder why the Spirits are taking away the animals they depend on, and their fear is compounded when a beautiful woman arrives, fleeing from her abusive husband. 

This novel is part of a series that progresses through centuries, from the first arrivals in the Americas through the coming of Europeans. The Gears, who are both writers and archaeologists, are probably the leading experts on early man in the Americas, and their books, both for children and adults, are depict the prehistoric world accurately and interestingly. 

Patricia Miller-Schroeder’s Sisters of the Wolf is a buddy journey novel, set in Ice Age Europe and featuring two girls in a quest to escape a deranged, power-hungry kidnapper and return to their families. Keena is a Neanderthal and Shinoni a Cro-Magnon, but they must join forces to make it through a dangerous Ice Age landscape filled with predatory animals, earthquakes and icy rivers. The cooperation doesn't just extend between races, but between species as the girl ally themselves with wolves, mammoths and horses in their race to escape. This is a book that middle grade readers will love, especially if they are looking for strong female protagonists, but it slips into fantasy a bit too much for my tastes. I just can’t buy their riding mammoths and the like. 

Justin Denzel’s The Boy of the Painted Cave tells the story of the artistic Tao, who lives as an outcast because he’d rather paint wild bears and woolly mammoths than hunt them despite the fact that he is not one of the Chosen Ones who can be cave painters. Alone in the wilderness, he makes allies of  a wild wolf dog named Ram and the mysterious Graybeard, who teaches him the true secret of the hunt. This book realistically depicts the prehistoric world.

First published in 1984, Ann Turnbull’s Maroo of the Winter Caves, is a classic that
deserves to continue being read. Set in southern France during the last Ice Age, it tells the story of a girl in the Madeleine people, a group of semi-nomadic hunter gatherers that lived in Europe 17,000-12,000 years ago. When multiple tragedies strike her small band, Maroo and her younger brother Otak must leave her family and strike out on their own to get help. Their route, over the mountains during a blizzard, is fraught with danger. I really appreciated how historically accurate this book is. There was no magic, no fantasy silliness. The people's spirit beliefs were believable. This is a short and easy read for younger middle grade readers who want to experience what life might really have been like.

Wolf Brother is the first book in a series entitled the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. Michelle Paver’s story takes place in Europe six thousand years ago. Twelve-year-old Torak and his wolf-cub companion journey through deep forests, across giant glaciers, and into dangers they never imagined as they battle to save their world from evil forces which seek to destroy it.  As much fantasy as prehistory, there are plenty of monsters and magic and cross-species communication for middle grade readers who don't want to be stuck in reality.

Lastly, I’d like to recommend you give my own contribution to prehistoric middle grade
novels a try.  Set in what is now Colorado, New Mexico and Texas 10,000 years ago, In the Shadow of Sunrise  tells the story of Earth Shadow, a handicapped boy who is part of the Folsom Culture. He has come of age and is finally able to join the adults from his clan on a summer trip where he hunts, gathers supplies, makes alliances with people from other clans, and learns that his mental abilities more than compensate for his physical inabilities. I did extensive research and visited the locations that became scenes in this book, and I believe it accurately depicts the period while offering a heartwarming coming of age story. 

I have one copy each of Maroo, Noonalook, Sisters of the Wolf and In the Shadow of Sunrise to give away to interested readers. All have been read but are in good condition. If you'd like to be considered for any of these titles, leave a comment below.