Americans Hunted Animals Now Extinct
The Folsom find was arresting, even dramatic. Not only was one of the nineteen points from the first three field seasons actually lodged between the ribs of an extinct bison. In addition, the skeletons of twenty-three of these animals testified that here was the scene of a prehistoric kill. Man had indeed had something to do with these beasts before they had grown cold; for the tail bones of each bison were missing, and hunters will tell you that, in skinning, “the tail goes with the hide.”[9]
The minute, ribbonlike flaking of a Folsom. This drawing, one and a half actual size, is from a broken point found at Lindenmeier. (Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Natural History.)
Another arresting feature was the shape of the point—unique in all the history of primitive man—and the fact that it was better made than any other point of equal antiquity. It was rather broad, with a deep concave base that terminated at each side in a jutting point, or “ear.” The edges were most skillfully chipped, and the base and ears were often ground smooth. It was particularly distinguished by the fact that a long flake of stone had been chipped away on each face from the base almost to the tip. The flute, or channel, left by the flake, made the point look a little like the end of a grooved bayonet. This is the true or classic Folsom. An earlier type is larger, without ears, and imperfectly grooved (see illustration, [page 155]). In current terminology, the former is called simply Folsom, and the other Clovis Fluted, Ohio Fluted, and so on, depending on where the point was found.
Between 1926 and 1948, more than sixty points of the classic Folsom type appeared, and the number has grown since then. Many were discovered on the surface, some in association with the bones of extinct animals, particularly Bison antiquus. Most appeared in the general area of the High Plains, but some on the west slope of the Rockies and in southern Texas. Hundreds of Clovis and other fluted points have been found in the field or recognized in collections; they have come from every state but Hawaii, and from Canada. From north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, fluted points range southward through Canada, the United States, Guatemala, and Costa Rica to the highlands of Ecuador.[10]
There has been some argument over whether the Folsom or the Clovis is the older. John L. Cotter reported the finding of Clovis points and elephant fossils near Clovis, New Mexico, in a level lower than one containing Folsom and bison.[11] In 1948 Harrington pointed out that Clovis has been found four times in association with the mammoth, as well as once with the bison, but that, when the Folsom type is partnered with fossils, these are almost invariably the bison’s.[12] (Later finds bore him out.) The wholly extinct mammoth is usually presumed to be older than the bison, one species of which still lives. Furthermore, in Burnet Cave, New Mexico, a Clovis has been found with bones of an animal of the musk-ox type.[13] Within fifty miles of the Mexican border, the musk ox, says Roberts, is “generally considered good evidence of an ice-age fauna.”[14] Folsom may be a localized expression of the basic pattern, reaching perfection in the High Plains, while Clovis spread more widely.