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Research Projects
(see also the QUEST Projects page, which has information on a number of the more recent projects)
FOLSOM SITE, NEW MEXICO (29 CX 1, LA 8121)
Research on the Folsom Paleoindian type site, involving renewed field investigations and an analysis of extant collections from the 1920s excavations, was undertaken under the auspices of the Quest Archaeological Research Fund, between 1997 and 2000. The preliminary results of that research show that all excavations to date have been in the kill area, which took place in a small and relatively shallow tributary to the Pleistocene paleovalley of Wild Horse Arroyo as well as in the paleovalley itself. Preliminary butchering of ~32 Bison antiquus took place near where the animals were dropped. The kill area is dominated by low-utility bone elements and broken projectile points; high utility bones and tools for processing meat and hides are rare or absent, and either occur in another, as of yet undiscovered area of the site, or altogether off-site. Faunal remains are generally in excellent condition.
How it may
have looked in Folsom times
(minus the ear tags and power lines, of course)
The bison remains in the tributary are mostly in primary context, underwent rapid burial beneath fine-grained (dominantly aeolian) sediments, which in turn were subsequently armored by a shingle shale; those in the paleovalley experienced postdepositional transport and redeposition. The small lithic assemblage is dominated by projectile points and comprised of material mostly from two sources in the Texas panhandle, several hundred kilometers southeast of the site. It also includes stone obtained from sources at comparable distances north and northwest of the site. A series of radiocarbon ages are available for the stratigraphic units, nearly all from charcoal or noncultural origins; radiocarbon dates on bison bone put the age of the kill at 10,500 B.P. A preliminary report is now available in American Antiquity (Meltzer, Todd and Holliday 2002, from which this abstract is taken), and a substantial monograph which is now in press (and will appear in Spring 2006). See also Quaternary Research (2005), and a recent poster presentation (click here for pdf); additional figures and photographs can be found on the QUEST Projects page;
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MUSTANG SPRINGS, TEXAS (41 MT 2)
Mustang Springs, located along Mustang Draw, in west Texas, was excavated between 1985 and 1987, and tested occasionally thereafter. Work there uncovered an Altithermal age wellfield, represented by nearly 60 water wells, dug by fire-hardened stick or with stone tools into the eroded and deflated floor of what had been in Early Holocene times a spring-fed pond, but which began to dry ~8000 B.P. and disappeared ~ 6900 B.P. The wells were similar in size and shape, but most varied greatly in depth, indicating they were dug during separate visits. All filled naturally with the aeolian sediments that drape the eroded surface from which they were dug. Scattered about the wells were 26 heavily worn and broken stone artifacts, including core remnants, a few formal tools, and flakes with unifacial retouch or usewear, all of Edwards Formation (Cretaceous) chert, which outcrops 28 miles (45 km) east of the site and just above the freshwater source at Big Springs, Texas. There was some evidence of plant processing, notably manos and metate fragments made of local sandstone. Burned caliche (hearth stones), characteristic of virtually all post-Paleoindian Southern High Plains sites, was relatively rare. Radiocarbon ages put well digging between 6840 and 6600 B.P. though later wells may exist since the excavated portion is less than 5% of the estimated total site area. Reports on Mustang Springs, and other Altithermal age sites on the Southern High plains, can be found in Meltzer (1991, 1995).
The Altithermal-age wellfield at Mustang Springs
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SCHARBAUER (MIDLAND), TEXAS (41 MD 1)
Scharbauer, initially excavated by Fred Wendorf in the mid-1950s, is one of the best known sites on the Southern High Plains, having yielded apparently Paleoindian age human skeletal remains along with a distinctive unfluted projectile point - the Midland type point. Vance T. Holliday and I worked there from 1989 to 1992, and over that time 33 cores, augers, and exposures were studied at the Midland site, most in Locality 1 (where the human remains were found). That effort was often hampered by waste-water effluent currently being pumped into Monohans Draw and thus through the site. While we have so far been unable to obtain new samples for radiocarbon dating, our work has linked the stratigraphic sequence here into the regional sequence now emerging, which indicates the human remains from the site are no older than Folsom age. In fact, correlations with radiocarbon-dated sections elsewhere suggest the remains may be younger than Folsom age, possibly even Altithermal in age. More work is planned at the site when (if) the water levels ever recede. Fuller results appear in Holliday and Meltzer (1996).
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TEXAS CLOVIS FLUTED POINT SURVEY
In 1985, I initiated a survey of Clovis fluted points in Texas. That survey continues to the present, and currently there are well over 400 Clovis fluted points recorded by the Texas Clovis Fluted Point Survey. Clovis fluted points occur throughout the state, with concentrations on the High Plains, Coast, and along an arc through central Texas following the Balcones Escarpment along which high quality chert and freshwater were readily available. That distribution does not correlate with later Paleoindian remains, except very generally, implying differences in land use strategies over Paleoindian times, and suggesting Clovis adaptations may be quite different than those of the Paleoindians who followed. The majority of Texas Clovis points were made of Edwards chert from central Texas, with a minority fashioned of Alibates agatized dolomite and Tecovas jasper from the High Plains. The most recent published report, including morphometric analyses and summary data, is Meltzer and Bever (1995). However, as almost a decade has passed since that work appeared and considerable new data has been acquired in the interim, Bever and I are busy on an update.
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Another research project focuses on North American Paleoindians who were living on a rich, but vast and, in terms of other people, utterly empty continent. This research is aimed at trying to understand the processes, rates, and evolutionary rules of adaptation of groups who apparently spread rapidly across the continent, yet lacked neighbors and accumulated knowledge of their environments; see Meltzer 2002 (Jablonski ed.) and Meltzer 2003 (Rockman & Steele, eds.) for recent iterations. Current work is proceeding on several fronts, including modeling population expansion as it was constrained by the demographic and landscape learning challenges facing a relatively small population spread thinly over a large area, and how those challenges were met; attempting to determine the broad spatial and temporal patterns of colonization; and, working with geneticists, linguists, and social anthropologists, in an effort to arrive jointly at a better understanding of the colonization process and the different lines of inquiry and evidence that bear on it (see Meltzer 2004, in Barton et al.)
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HISTORY OF THE HUMAN ANTIQUITY CONTROVERSY
In the effort to understand current interpretations of Paleoindian adaptations, I began, in the early 1980s, to explore the historical development of American archaeology, to see why Paleoindian adaptations were viewed as they were. That historical inquiry led naturally to the earlier (pre-1927) controversy over human antiquity, which began with the innocent but naive view that America might have a Paleolithic comparable in age and evolutionary grade to that of Europe, exploded into open scientific warfare in the 1890s (both within and between disciplines of archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics, and geology), and grew increasingly protracted and bitter, ending only with the Folsom discovery in 1927. Its resolution strongly influenced subsequent interpretations of Paleoindian adaptations. Moreover, this turn of the century dispute cut to the conceptual core of the discipline, and thus offered an especially powerful lens with which to track the early development of American archaeology. Over the last decade or so I have conducted an extensive, long term study of archival and historical data on the controversy and all its participants. Early results of that inquiry have been published in several places (Meltzer 1991 [In Dillehay and Meltzer, eds.], 1994, and references therein). However, the bulk of the material is currently being assembled for monograph entitled, The Discovery of Deep Time: North American Archaeology, 1862-1937 (the volume is now one-third complete). I hope one day to carve out the time to finish the darn thing.
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EPHRAIM SQUIER, EDWIN DAVIS, AND THE MOUNDBUILDER QUESTION
Several years ago my historical research went a bit further back, when I was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution Press to write an introduction for a 150th anniversary re-issue of Squier and Davis’s (1848) classic Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (that's the book's frontispiece below). This was the first publication ever issued by the Smithsonian, and much was riding on it. It would signal the tone and set the precedent for how the Smithsonian would interpret its enigmatic behest to "increase and diffuse knowledge." It would be the first major work in the still-undisciplined discipline of archaeology, and thus unavoidably a landmark for this field and American science generally. This, and more, were riding on a book devoted to the "Moundbuilders," whose origin, antiquity, and identity were vigorously debated in a literature of fantasy, bad poetry, antiquarian studies, and best-selling romantic novels. And it was a debate with an edge, exacerbating tension between Native Americans and Euroamericans, and raising pointed questions about the inerrancy of the Biblical account of history. Squier and Davis had no easy task, working in a field that hardly existed, and on a subject that hovered dangerously close to the raw nerves of religion and racism. But in the end, they proved to be talented observers, surveyors, collectors, and writers, with the result that Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley instantly became an archaeological classic. In introducing this classic work (see Meltzer 1998), I explore the historical, archaeological, and social context of the Moundbuilder question; the theoretical axes Squier and Davis were grinding; the details of the book’s production, including the increasingly ugly proprietary dispute that erupted between Squier and Davis and forever poisoned their relationship; and, the book’s aftermath, notably, what it meant for American archaeology, and for its authors - including Squier’s sorry end in a New York insane asylum.
(This page created and maintained by D. Meltzer; last modified, November 2004)