Miami-Mammoth Kill Site

Miami-Mammoth Kill Site. . In 1933, a local farmer plowing a wheat field began uncovering large, chalky bones. Knowing them to be too large to be cow or buffalo bones, several area residents, including county judge and amateur archeologist J.A. Mead, investigated the site and made a significant discovery; a man-made stone artifact was found alongside the bones of what were mammoth elephants. The investigators identified the artifact as a Clovis fluted spear point, similar to items discovered in 1932 at the Blackwater draw site near Clovis, New Mexico. In 1934, Dr. E. H. Sellards of the University of Texas became involved. Securing funding through the Works Progress Administration, he led an extended excavation of the Miami site beginning in 1937. Landowner C.R. Cowan asked only that the site be refilled following the dig. , Known initially as the C.R. Cowan site, the Miami site was found to be a playa lake filled with blue clay up to about two feet below ground level. The clay had formed from vegetation that once the pond. The remains of three to five adult mammoths, as well as the bones of at least one baby mammoth, were found at this site. Among the bones were man-made hunting tools, such as a spear point found less three inches from a mammoth’s atlas vertebra. Archeologists found two other spear points and hide scraping tool. , The artifacts alongside the bones indicate that the animals were killed at a watering hole. The evidence is significant, showing the contemporary existence of man and mammoth in North America. It also demonstrates that early man was an efficient, experienced hunter, information that has been used in the debate over the causes of extinction of late Pleistocene era animals approximately 12,000 years ago. The site remains one of the most significant early man sites in North America.