Modern man has never seen those animals in America. They were gone long before he came. They had been extinct thousands of years before the first Europeans poked their tardy noses into the New World.
In spite of this we know that the early Indians did see them. They hunted them and lived on their flesh. They may have been a contributing factor in the extinction of some of those ancient species. Changing weather conditions thinned out the great herds and man, not yet conservation conscious, may have helped to wipe out the survivors.
How do we know?
In a number of places the implements of those early men have been found in direct association with the bones of the extinct animals. The inference is unquestionable. Dart points, knives, scrapers and other implements have been found so definitely associated with the bones of animals that there can be no doubt that man and the animals existed at the same time. If those animals have been extinct for thousands of years it dates the earliest men fairly well.
One of the most important finds was made in northeastern New Mexico, near the little town of Folsom. This find was important because it was here for the first time that modern scientists were forced to admit that man had been in America a long, long time. It is also important because it has given a name to some of the ancient men. Folsom Man, the most elusive American we have yet been unable to find.
The discovery of the earliest evidences of Folsom Man is one of the strangest stories in American archeology. The events in the story covered a period of twenty-five years and it was only by chance that the important archeological evidence came to the attention of the scientific world.
Back about 1900, a negro cowboy known as Nigger George, was riding the range on the Crowfoot Ranch near the little town of Folsom, New Mexico, searching for cattle. As George rode along, he came to a deep arroyo so he turned his horse and rode along its bank. Suddenly, in the opposite wall of the arroyo, the cowboy noticed some huge bones. They were larger than any bones he had ever seen and the fact that they were washing out of the arroyo wall several feet below the surface was puzzling. Fortunately George, although an illiterate man, was curious about the bones and, instead of riding on and forgetting them, collected a number and took them to the ranch house.
The bones were obviously larger than those of modern bison or cattle but no one at the ranch was particularly interested in them. Many years passed and finally someone became mildly interested in the bones and gave them to Mr. Ed Price, of Raton, New Mexico. Again the years passed and it was not until 1925 that the bones once more attracted attention. In that year a number were sent to the Colorado Museum of Natural History and the paleontologists recognized them for what they were—the bones of an extinct bison. Thousands of years ago the bison had roamed the plains of North America. They were tremendous, long-horned animals, larger than our present-day bison.
Park visitors entering Balcony House on ranger-guided tour