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.
Two Other Folsom Sites—Clovis and Lindenmeier
The second site of classic Folsom was that near Clovis, investigated first by Edgar B. Howard in 1932, and dated by the glacialist Ernst Antevs and the geologist Kirk Bryan. It was notable on two counts. The finds were in the dried beds of lakes that had apparently been formed in the pluvial, or very wet, period which occurred at least as early as the end of the last glaciation—11,000 to 12,000 years ago—and probably still earlier. This time there were fossils of other extinct mammals besides bison—mammoths, horses, camels, and peccaries. In addition to Folsom and Clovis points, Howard found an unfluted artifact which he considered to be a Folsom knife.[15]
This map shows the chief sites where artifacts of early man have been found in the Southwest. (After Hurst, 1945, with some additions.)
The third major discovery of classic Folsom artifacts came officially in 1934, when Roberts dug a site called Lindenmeier in Colorado; but as far back as 1924—two years before the first discovery of a Folsom point in New Mexico—Judge C. C. Coffin and his son, A. L. Coffin, had begun to pick up such points in this area without recognizing their importance. Lindenmeier is particularly significant because it was an occupational site, a camp of some duration. It was also a factory, for Roberts found spear points, scrapers, and other tools in various stages of manufacture. Again there were bison bones.[16] There were also traces of camel, as well as an elephant tusk not too closely associated with the artifacts. A skillful geological study of the old and elevated river terrace on which the site is located linked it with glacial moraines which indicate a readvance of the glacial ice.[17]
The date of Folsom man is uncertain. Some believe he lived during the last years of the Great Ice Age. Some place him a little later than the melting of the glaciers. The earliest radiocarbon date yet determined for Folsom is from the Lindenmeier site, where bits of charcoal provided a date of 10,780 ± 375 years.[18] It took about 700 man-hours of tedious and painstaking work to locate and recover this charcoal. Elsewhere, at such Texas sites as Blackwater Draw, Lubbock, and Scharbauer, direct or indirect dates indicate a survival of the Folsom culture until about 9,000 years ago.