ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT HUNTERS IN THE 



WESTERN UNITED STATES AND 



CANADA 



By FRANK H. H. ROBERTS, JR. 

 Archeologist, Bureau of American Ethnology 



Search for further information on Folsom Man, the aboriginal 

 nomad who hunted big game on the western plains during the closing 

 days of the Glacial Period, was continued throughout the summer of 

 1938. Excavations at the Lindenmeier site in northern Colorado, 

 where previous investigations had revealed the remains of a camp 

 once occupied by that early New World inhabitant, comprised a major 

 part of the season's work. After the termination of the digging the 

 writer visited sites in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Saskatchewan, Can- 

 ada, where local collectors have found implements indicative of the 

 Folsom or some presumably associated complex. 



When the Bureau of American Ethnology-Smithsonian Institution 

 Expedition had established camp at the Lindenmeier site (fig. 109), 

 activities were resumed where the excavating was stopped at the end 

 of the 1937 season and were continued until six additional parts of 

 the area had been examined. Despite an unusually stormy summer 

 (fig. no), and the handicap of numerous heavy rains, some of cloud- 

 burst proportions, a total of 3,500 square feet of the original surface 

 of occupation was uncovered. Removal of the overburden (fig. in), 

 ranging from 3 to 8 feet in depth, exposed various concentrations of 

 stone implements, cut and split animal bones (figs. 112, 113, 114), 

 the remains of several hearths, and places where stone chippers had 

 fashioned different kinds of tools from nodules gathered from the 

 surrounding countryside. The collection of specimens obtained in- 

 cludes several new types of knives and scrapers in addition to typically 

 fluted points and other implements similar to those found in former 

 years. There is also a series of bone fragments bearing incised lines, 

 indicating that the people had a simple form of geometric art, and 

 there are bits of polished bone suggesting that tools were made from 

 that substance as well as from stone. 



The hearths were not well-made fire pits. They were either simple 

 depressions in the earth or merely places where fires had been kindled 

 on the surface. Most of the animal bones are from bison, the 

 extinct taylori, although there are some from deer and antelope of as 

 yet undetermined species and from smaller mammals such as the fox 



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