Wild Horse Arroyo

Wild Horse Arroyo is an archeological site which was excavated in 1926 near Folson, New Mexico. This site is significant because it was the first time that artifacts indisputably made by humans were found directly associated with faunal remains from an extinct form of bison from the Late Pleistocene. The dating of the site was very accurate stratigraphy, and the site became a sort of anchor around which other sites could be interpreted. The information culled from this site was the first of a set of discoveries that would allow archaeologists to revise their estimations for the time of arrival of Native Americans on the North American continent. The lifeways the discovery implied also created a stereotypical characterization of the early Native Americans that would endure for more than half a century.

References

*Adovasio, J.M. and David Pedler. "The Peopling of North America." North American Archaeology. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p. 45.