Figure 1. Index map of New Mexico showing locations of significant archeological sites, modern Indian pueblos, and Navajo, Ute, and Apache reservations
Early Hunter Sites 1. Folsom State Monument 2. Sandia Cave 3. San Jon 4. Blackwater Draw 5. Manzano Cave 6. Lucy 7. Milnesand 8. Burnet Cave Prehistoric Pueblo and Cliff-Dwelling Ruins 9. Aztec Ruins National Monument 10. Chaco Canyon National Monument 11. Puye Cliff Dwellings 12. Bandelier National Monument (Tyuonyi) 13. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument Historic Pueblo Ruins 14. Jemez State Monument 15. Pecos State Monument 16. Coronado State Monument (Kuaua) 17. Paako State Monument 18. Quarai State Monument 19. Abo State Monument 20. Gran Quivira National Monument Modern Pueblos 21. Taos 22. San Lorenzo (Picurís) 23. San Juan 24. Santa Clara 25. San Ildefonso 26. Nambé 27. Tesuque 28. Cochiti 29. Santo Domingo 30. San Felipe 31. Sandia 32. Santa Ana 33. Zia 34. Jemez 35. Isleta 36. Laguna 37. Acoma 38. Zuni 39. Ojo Caliente Navajo, Ute, and Apache Reservations 40. Navajo Indian Reservation 41. Ute Mountain Indian Reservation 42. Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation 43. Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation
Modern pueblos Historic pueblo ruins Prehistoric pueblo and cliff-dwelling ruins Early Hunter sites
Another important discovery was made in Sandia Cave northeast of Albuquerque. Below cave deposits containing Folsom points was an earlier type of point among the bones of mammoth, horse, camel, and other large Pleistocene mammals. Now identified as Sandia points, these projectile tips are distinguished by an asymmetric stemmed form with a shoulder on one side. The age of the Sandia points has been a subject of some controversy, but the latest available data from charcoal in Sandia Cave indicates an age of nearly 12,000 years, which is within the accepted range of the Clovis points.
Figure 2. Folsom point recovered from among rib bones of fossil bison at Folsom, New Mexico (Photograph of plastic replica. Original point in collection of Denver Museum of Natural History.)
Clovis, Sandia, and Folsom points, together with related stone implements, are at many places enclosed in sediments deposited in or adjacent to ponds, lakes, streams, and wet meadows. These environments indicate a former cool and more humid climate in areas that are now semiarid. The food requirements of many of the large herbivores that lived at this time also suggest more abundant vegetation and surface water than prevails here today. It is not unreasonable, then, to presume that climatic conditions contributing to the advance of continental glaciers in the Great Lakes region, and to valley glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, should have been reflected in lower summer temperatures and higher rainfall in non-glaciated areas. The ultimate extinction of the large Pleistocene mammals and the similar time of disappearance of the hunters who preyed upon them may both be related to the climatic changes that followed the end of the Ice Age in America.
HUNTERS AND GATHERERS
Groups of people dependent upon a different way of life from that of the Early Hunters are known to have occupied much of the present area of New Mexico. Although there is some suggestion of overlap in time of these people with the Early Hunters, they appear to have become prominent during the several thousand warm, dry years following the end of the Pleistocene. Adapted, as they were, to a fuller utilization of the resources of the area through the hunting and trapping of smaller game and an emphasis on the gathering of a wide variety of wild plant foods, these people ranged extensively across the varied terrain of the state. Similar patterns of subsistence and artifacts are known from the Great Basin region west of the Rocky Mountains, where they have been categorized under the term Desert Culture. Local manifestations of the Desert Culture in southeastern Arizona, extending eastward into western and southern New Mexico, are identified as the Cochise Culture. Other groups showing similarities with Archaic cultures to the east penetrated the northeastern part of New Mexico at a time when the area was still populated by Pleistocene bison.