LATEST EXCAVATIONS AT LINDENMEIER SITE ADD 

 TO INFORMATION ON THE FOLSOM COMPLEX 



By FRANK H. H. ROBERTS, Jr. 



Archcologist, Bureau of American Ethnology 



Evidence that Folsom man, one of the first American big-game 

 hunters, made and used fine bone needles with eyes, and that three 

 types of projectile points found in the western part of the Great 

 Plains represent sequent stages in the occupation of the area was 

 part of the information obtained by the Bureau of American Eth- 

 nology-Smithsonian Institution expedition in northern Colorado dur- 

 ing the 1940 field season. 



Excavations at the Lindenmeier site (fig. 79), an important 

 archeological location because it once was a camping place for groups 

 of Folsom people, were resumed June 3, continued through July and 

 August, and were brought to a close on September 20. The summer's 

 digging started at a portion of the site where work stopped the 

 previous year (fig. 80) and the overburden, ranging from 3 to 6 

 feet in depth, was removed from 2,125 square feet of the former 

 habitation area. This exposed numerous concentrations of cultural 

 material consisting of stone and bone implements and camp debris 

 (fig. 81). Over 1,000 artifacts, the largest number obtained during 

 any single season's excavation at the site, and numerous animal bones 

 came from these assemblages. Included in the collection of artifacts 

 are bone needles, mentioned above, bone awls, bone punches, bones 

 with spatulate ends, stone projectile points, many of the flakes re- 

 moved to form the facial grooves, scrapers of various kinds, knives, 

 hand hammerstones, and stones used for smoothing wooden objects 

 and, possibly, for dressing skins. One interesting occurrence was 

 the finding of a channel flake that fits a portion of a point obtained 

 during the first season's work. The fragments came from locations 

 some 450 feet apart. 



The importance of the needles is that they demonstrate the 

 presence of this type of implement at an earlier period in North 

 America than previously supposed and also in their implication of 

 the use of some kind of tailored clothing and foot gear. While there 

 was the assumption that Folsom man relied on hides from the animals 

 he hunted for protection against the rigorous climate of the closing- 

 days of the last ice age, this is the first indication that he may have 

 fashioned actual garments from that material. With such needles and 



