NO. 4 A FOLSOM COMPLEX ROBERTS 7 



ent writing, official reports on the Clovis work have not been pub- 

 lished ; hence, reference can be made only to the investigations. 



The exinct bison from the fossil pit at Folsom, Bison taylori'' 

 (Stelabison occidentalis taylori and Bison oliverhayi^), are considered 

 to be Pleistocene forms, animals that were living in the glacial period. 

 This fact, coupled with the finding of points in association with bones 

 of the musk ox and of other extinct bison in additional localities, 

 furnishes the basis for the conclusion that the Folsom points repre- 

 sent considerable antiquity. This belief is substantiated by the fact 

 that at a number of sites points bearing certain characteristics of the 

 true Folsom type, yet not definitely assignable to that class, have been 

 found with remains of extinct species of animals. One of the sites 

 best illustrating this phase of the problem was that at Dent, Colo., 

 where two points, one of which is decidedly Folsomoid, came from a 

 deposit containing mammoth bones." Several pits in Nebraska and 

 Kansas have yielded points, in some cases with mammoth bones and 

 in others with bison bones." Near Colorado, Tex., an articulated 

 skeleton of an extinct bison and some chipped points were recovered 

 from a reputedly Pleistocene deposit." Although the majority of the 

 blades in this group of finds are not primarily Folsom in type, the 

 conditions under which they were discovered tend to substantiate the 

 Folsom evidence for an early occupation of the New World. In the 

 latter connection, though they have no bearing on the Folsom problem 

 proper, might be mentioned an association of man-made objects and 

 traces of the ground sloth in Nevada," and human bones with sloth 

 remains near Bishop's Cap, N. Mex." These occurrences are addi- 

 tional contributions on the " antiquity of man " in the Southwest. 

 Whether all of this evidence from the various places mentioned 

 actually dates man in the closing days of the Pleistocene, indicates his 

 presence at the beginning of the post-glacial period, or demonstrates 

 a later survival of ice-age animals is a phase of the problem which 

 the geologist and paleontologist must solve.'''' Some insist that the 

 evidence unequivocally proves that man was here in the Pleistocene, 

 others that he came during the transition between the glacial and 



' Hay and Cook, 1930. 



' Figgins, 19.33 b. 



°Figgins, 1933 a. 



"Bell and Van Royen, 1934. Schultz, 1932 (contains lengthy bibliography). 



"Figgins, 1927. 



" Harrington, 1933. 



" Bryan, 1929. Thone, 1929. 



^* For a discussion of this subject see Antevs, 1935. 



