BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
VoL. 14, No. 7 
CaMBRIDGE, Massacuusetts, DecemBer 11, 1950 
? , 
PREHISTORIC PLANT REMAINS 
FROM BAT CAVE 
BY 
C. E. Smira, Jr. 
Durine the summer of 1948, an archeological expedi- 
tion under the direction of Mr. Herbert W. Dick of the 
Peabody Museum of Harvard University discovered an 
abundance of plant remains in a series of dry caves in 
New Mexico. The maize remains in this material have 
already been reported on (Mangelsdorf and Smith 1949). 
The balance of the plant material will be discussed in 
the present paper. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE 
The site is known as Bat Cave. It is situated on the 
edge of the Plains of San Augustin in Catron County in 
west central New Mexico. The topography of the re- 
gion has largely been determined by ancient Lake San 
Augustin, which formed the caves. The lake basin is a 
level expanse of fine water-laid material with occasional 
spots of alkali in the playa. It is almost entirely sur- 
rounded by mountainous terrain and is approximately 
60 miles long and 6 to 20 miles wide. 
The Bat Cave site consists of a large rock shelter (75 
feet by 100 feet) with a series of smaller caves at one 
side. ‘The smaller caves are 10 to 80 feet deep, and about 
10 to 15 feet from the present floor to the roof near their 
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