NO. lO SECOND REPORT OX FOLSOM COMPLEX ROBERTS 35 



longer. Furthermore, Yuma points constitute so small a factor that it 

 is questionable whether they should be considered as belonging to the 

 complex. 



Five species of animals are represented in the bones from the site. 

 Only one, the bison, is an extinct form. Nine species of moUusks 

 were found and while none of these is extinct, two are considerably 

 north of their present range. Their presence at the Lindenmeier site 

 is considered an indication that the climate was somewhat warmer 

 and moister when Folsom man was there than it is now. 



The large trenches revealed in cross-section the deposits overlying 

 the old level of occupation and demonstrated that what now constitutes 

 a terrace was at one time an old valley bottom. The ridge that bor- 

 dered its southern side has been eroded away since the area was 

 abandoned by its aboriginal occupants. The nature of the valley fill, 

 as exposed in the trench walls, suggests that the changes which cul- 

 minated in the present state of the site could not have been extremely 

 rapid ones. Considerable time must have elapsed since the layer con- 

 taining the man-made objects was laid down. Evidence in the trenches 

 also indicated that the makers of the tools and the Folsom points 

 stopped for a time along the slope above the old valley bottom. If 

 the trenches did not cross a portion of the real campsite, they at least 

 bordered on it. This was shown by the finding of cut and burned 

 bones, charcoal and wood ashes, hammerstones and chipper's debris, 

 and implements broken in the making. All were so situated that their 

 locations could not be attributed to drift or to the washing down of 

 material from higher levels. The broken implements, when the frag- 

 ments are fitted together and the original flake is restored, give good 

 evidence of the technique used in the manufacture of tools. 



The trenches did not produce data that are of aid in determining the 

 age of the site. Despite their establishing the fact that the soil layer 

 in which the objects are found was produced by the natural decay and 

 break-up of the top of the Oligocene bed underlying the area, they 

 gave no clue either to the agency that originally eroded away the over- 

 burden, thus laying bare the Tertiary stratum and forming the old 

 valley, or to the time when the action took place. Conditions at the 

 Clovis lake beds are somewhat better from the standpoint of dating, 

 and Dr. Ernst Antevs has reached the conclusion, from extensive 

 studies of the area, that the Folsom artifacts found there represent 

 an antiquity of from 12,000 to 13,000 years."" Since the Clovis mate- 

 rial indicates that it comprises the relics of a people whose material 



Antevs, 1935, p. 311. 



