4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



ceased, notified Director J. D. Figgins of the Colorado Museum of 

 Natural History, Denver, of a bone deposit which they had found in 

 the bank of an arroyo on the upper sources of the Cimarron River 

 near the town of Folsom in eastern New Mexico. Samples of bone 

 sent to the museum indicated that the remains were those of an 

 extinct species of bison and of a large deerlike member of the 

 Cenndae. Prospects for fossil material were so promising that the 

 Colorado ^Museum sent a party to the site in the summer of 1926. 

 During the course of the excavations, carried on under the super- 

 vision of Frank Figgins and Mr. Schwachheim. parts of two finely 

 chipped projectile points were recovered from the loose dirt at the 

 diggings. Near the place where one of them had been dislodged a 

 small, triangular piece of " flint " was found embedded in the clay 

 surrounding an animal bone. This fragment was left in the block of 

 earth, and when the latter was received in the laboratory at Denver, 

 the dirt was carefully cleaned away from the bit of stone. It appeared 

 to be from the same material as one of the points, and close examina- 

 tion showed that it actually was a j^art of the ])oint. This evidence 

 seemed unquestionably to demonstrate that here was a definite asso- 

 ciation between man-made objects and an extinct l)ison.* 



Director Figgins was so impressed with the find and was so 

 thoroughly convinced that it was of importance to students of Ameri- 

 can archeology that he took the points with him that winter when he 

 visited several of the large eastern museums on paleontologic busi- 

 ness. In most places his announcement was courteously yet skeptically 

 received. One authority on stone implements marveled at the quality 

 of workmanship that the specimens exhibited and even remarked 

 that they were reminiscent of the finest examples from W'estern 

 Europe. He was doubtful, though, of the trustworthiness of the asso- 

 ciation. He thought that it could perhaps be attributed to an accidental 

 mixing of material. Others said that the points had no significance 

 because they could be duplicated in existing collections. At a few 

 museums, notably the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. 

 Figgins was urged to continue the work in the hope that additional 

 evidence could be obtained. 



The Colorado Museum again sent a party to Folsom in the summer 

 of 1927 and had the good fortune to find additional points. One of 

 these was noted before it was removed from the matrix, even before 

 it was completely uncovered. Work was stopped immediately on that 

 part of the excavation, and telegrams were dispatched to various 



Cook, 1927. Figgins, 1927. 



