2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



National Museum, and he in turn transmitted the information to the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology. Several letters were exchanged be- 

 tween the writer and Major Coffin, and as a result of the correspon- 

 dence it was decided that a first-hand inspection of the site was 

 advisable. In September the writer was sent to Fort Collins. The 

 owner of the land, William Lindenmeier, Jr., gave permission for a 

 series of investigations, and preliminary prospecting was started. 



The site is north of Fort Collins, Colo., just south of the Wyoming 

 line. It was first discovered in 1924 by Judge C. C. Coffin and his son 

 A. L. Coffin. Since then they and Major Coffin, with various friends, 

 have visited it from time to time and have collected numerous speci- 

 mens. When the writer went to Fort Collins, they had gathered 83 

 points or portions of points and about the same number of other 

 artifacts. From the very beginning of their finds the Coffins were 

 impressed with the fact that all of the points picked up at this location 

 dififered from the usual Indian arrowheads which are so abundant in 

 that general region. Although they were convinced that the points 

 constituted a distinct type, they were not aware of their true signifi- 

 cance until informed by Dr. E. B. Renaud, of the University of 

 Denver, that they were Folsom points. 



In the summer of 1930 Dr. Renaud and a number of his students, 

 under a project sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Cooperative 

 Fund, the University of Denver, and the Colorado Museum of 

 Natural History, were making a survey of local collections and of 

 former village sites in Colorado and adjacent regions. Their purpose 

 was to plot distribution maps for various types of implements, with 

 the places where they were found. It was during these investigations 

 that the Coffin series was noted.'' In June 193 1 Dr. Renaud visited 

 the location from which the artifacts came, and he describes it briefly 

 in one of his reports.* No digging was done, but portions of two 

 Folsom points were picked up from the surface at that time. The 

 Coffins continued their visits intermittently and added specimens to 

 their collections. Most of the material was picked up from the surface, 

 but a few pieces were scratched out of the soil. No extensive work 

 was attempted until the autumn of 1934. 



The place where the points and other implements were found by the 

 Coffins is a denuded area approximately 70 by 150 yards in extent. 

 The bulk of the material came from a small section covering only 

 about 30 square yards. The surface over a greater portion of this site 



Renaud, 1931 a, p. 17. 

 Renaud, 193^ a, pp. 27-28. 



