Blackwater Draw Archaeological Site located between Clovis and Portales, NM

Joanne Dickenson, long time researcher and curator at Blackwater Draw, was our tour guide.

1932: The First Discoveries

In 1929, a teenager named James Ridgley Whiteman sent the Smithsonian Institution a stone spearpoint he had found at Blackwater Draw.  Three years would pass before a professional archaeologist - Edger B. Howard of the University of Pennsylvania - finally investigated the discovery.  His excavations yielded startling evidence: human artifacts dating back at least 12,000 years, or nearly 10,000 years earlier than prople were believed to have reached North America.

Blackwater Draw

Blackwater Draw is one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.  Here in 1932, researchers found evidence of human occupation dating back more than 11,000 years - the oldest artifacts found in North America up to that time.  The discovery generated new understandings about when and how humans populated this continent.

Blackwater Draw is called a “multi-component” site by archaeologists, which means that artifacts from different cultures exist here in buried layers, one on top of another.  The major groups are the Clovis (approximately 11,500 years ago), the Folsom (about 10,500 years ago), Late Paleoindian (9,500 - 10,500 years ago), Archaic (beginning around 8,000 years ago) and the people who brought ceramics (pottery) to the site beginning about 2000 years ago.  As a general rule, Clovis points are longer and heavier than Folsom points.

Blackwater Draw is the Clovis “type site” which means the artifacts found here embody the culture’s defining characteristics.  Archaeologists conducted numerous excavations at this site between 1932 and 1974.  For most of that period, gravel mining also occurred at Blackwater Draw, until archaeologists finally gained federal protection for this sensitive area.  Eastern New Mexico University now owns the 157-acre site and continues to perform ongoing research.

TCAS group members

BISON

The Clovis people weren’t the only migrants to reach North America via the Bering land bridge.  Many of the animals they hunted made the same crossing 1.5 million years earlier, during a previous Ice Age.

These included the Clovis people’s main food source, the ancient bison (Bison antiquus).  Nearly 25% larger than its present-day descendant, the American bison, the ancient bison stood nine feet high at the shoulder with horns that measured a full three feet from tip to tip.  The lush grasses and ample water supply at Blackwater Draw attracted plenty of bison - which, in turn, attracted Clovis hunters.

BONE BED DISPLAY

In 1990, plans were made to create an interpretive display of the famous bison animal bone bed that would be excavated as an ongoing project by ENMU archaeologists.  Visitors now see it just as archaeologists found it, in place.  As time passes and more excavations are conducted in the bone display, it may look slightly different, revealing more of the story of the prehistoric past.

Researchers are analyzing the excavations periodically and studying the famous stratigraphy.  The sediment layers provide valuable clues to the changing climate through time.  The animal bones and cultural materials from each layer are studied and dated.

Archaeologists have the task of stabilizing these ancient bones that are now exposed to fluctuating temperatures and variable humidity levels of our modern climate.  Preservation techniques are critical for the bone bed display to remain intact in the long term.

THE OLDEST WELL

Below you lies the oldest well in North America - a hand dug hole discovered in 1964.  It dates to about 11000 years ago, when a long drought had dried up the lakebed.  Rather than abandon their centuries-old campsite, the Paleoindians dug for water just below the surface.

Blackwater Draw Museum

After our visit to the Blackwater Draw site, we drove to Portales to tour the Blackwater Draw Museum.  The museum was opened in 1969 primarily to display artifacts discovered at the Blackwater Draw site.  Although a state museum, it is under the direction of Dr. John Montgomery of Eastern New Mexico University-Portales.