THE FOLSOM PROBLEM — ROBERTS 535 



conclusion of his work Dr. Brown emphasized the fact that the sedi- 

 ments overlying the bone bed were highly restratified earth of a nature 

 indicating great antiquity. He concluded that they belonged to the 

 close of the Pleistocene and placed the age of the remains at the end 

 of that period. Some of the experts support this opinion. Others 

 believe that the site should be considered Early Recent rather than 

 Late Pleistocene, and there the matter rests today. 2 



The second important New Mexican area contains several sites. 

 It lies approximately 160 miles southeast of Folsom, between Clovis 

 and Portales, not far from the Texas-New Mexico boundary (fig. 1). 

 The sites were reported to Dr. Edgar B. Howard of Philadelphia in 

 the summer of 1932 by A. W. Anderson and George Roberts, of Clovis. 

 Dr. Howard visited the area at that time and returned again in No- 

 vember of the same year, when a road-construction company, digging 

 for gravel, exposed a layer of bluish clay containing quantities of 

 animal bones and indications of human occupation. As a result of 

 that inspection he planned a series of investigations for the summer of 

 1933. This began as a joint undertaking of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences and the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Later in the 

 season Dr. John C. Merriam, president of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, visited the excavations and became so enthused over the 

 prospects that he arranged for the California Institute of Technology 

 to send a party, under Dr. Chester Stock, to cooperate in the work. 

 Dr. Howard returned in the summer of 1934 in compan} T with Dr. 

 Ernst Antevs who studied the physiography of the region in an en- 

 deavor to date the sites. Dr. Howard again led a party to the Clovis 

 sector in the summer of 1936. This was a joint project of the Acad- 

 emy of Natural Sciences and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 

 The work was continued in 1937 under the auspices of the University 

 of Pennsylvania Museum and the Academy of Natural Sciences, with 

 Dr. Howard acting in a supervisory capacity and John L. Cotter in 

 direct charge of the excavations. 



The Clovis-Portales area is part of the Staked Plains, the old 

 Llano Estacado of the Spanish explorers. In this district the flatness 

 of the terrain is broken only by sand dunes rising along the edges of 

 shallow depressions. These dry basins occur in a series that extends 

 in a general east-southeasterly direction about midway between Clovis 

 and Portales. Evidence points to a former period of heavy precipita- 

 tion. At that time the basins were more or less permanently filled 

 with water. Subsequent desiccation reduced them to mere water 

 holes. They eventually dried up entirely and were filled with drift 

 sand. Recent wind and water action have left them in varying 

 stages of erosion. The sand has been whipped up into dunes along 



1 For more detailed information on the Folsom site, see Brown, 1929; Bryan, 1937; Cook, 1927; Figgins, 1927; 

 Roberts, 1935. 



