Blackwater Draw

Blackwater Draw is located in the southernmost region of the High Plains on the Llano Estacado, an area that extends for miles over the northeastern part of New Mexico and the northwestern part of Texas. The Llano Estacado covers over 50,000 square miles of some of the flattest and most featureless land on earth. Blackwater Draw was a drainage channel during the Pleistocene period that was full of streams and flowing water. Towards the end of the Pleistocene period the climate started to change and this climatic change, which brought in warmer and dryer weather, caused the water flow to decrease substantially.

This decrease in the amount of water created small seasonal lake basins called playas. These playas were usually a result of seasonal runoff. They became popular hunting and resting spots for early North Americans and the megafauna that coexisted with them. The artifacts, soil samples, and faunal remains indicate that sites at Blackwater Draw date back to 11,000 - 12,000 years ago. Blackwater Draw was the first site that was found in North America that represented the Clovis culture, which is the oldest known culture in North America. Blackwater Draw continued to be a hot spot throughout all the major prehistoric cultural periods that are distinguished. Up to this point, no human remains have been found at Blackwater Draw, but because of the abundance of hunting tools, animal bones, and other artifacts found throughout the draw, archaeologists have been able to formulate theories of everyday life for these early Americans.

Archaeological evidence at Blackwater Draw was first discovered in 1929 by a fourteen year old named James Ridley Whiteman. Whiteman sent a Clovis point and an associated mammoth tooth fragment to the Smithsonian Institution in 1929. It caught the attention of E.B. Howard who made his first visit to Blackwater Draw in the summer of 1932. Howard had received a call from a Clovis, New Mexico resident named A.W. Anderson, who found a folsom point at a site in the Blackwater Draw. During his visit, Howard, A. W. Anderson and George Roberts visited many spots at Blackwater Draw.

Howard returned to the University Museum in Philadelphia in the fall of 1932 with plans of returning to New Mexico the following spring. His plans changed when the New Mexico State Highway Department opened a gravel pit in Blackwater Draw to supply gravel for a road project that was being constructed between Clovis and Portales, New Mexico. This site is now referred to as Blackwater Locality #1. Digging at this gravel pit turned up numerous animal bones. The discovery of these animal bones brought Howard back to New Mexico to do more research at Blackwater Draw.

The classifications of these animal bones were undetermined, so in January of 1933 the bones were sent to the U.S. National Museum. The results of the examinations done at the museum identified the bone to be that of now extinct megafauna from the late Pleistocene period. Some of the animals that were identified were mammoth, bison, camel, giant turtle, large horses, short-faced bear, giant beaver, and peccary. Howard and other professionals, including J.L. Cotter also from Pennsylvania, conducted excavations under the sponsorship of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The information gained from these excavations showed a definitive relationship between humans and extinct animals. This information sparked some national publicity in Blackwater Draw but that publicity was short-lived, and by the end of 1937 the excavations stopped and the site was abandoned for over ten years.

In 1949 excavations began again by a group from the Texas Memorial Museum. This group was headed by E.H. Sellards and G.L. Evans. The excavations during the fall of 1949 and summer of 1950 were concentrated on the cultural and stratigraphic sequence of the site. Sellards and Evans were able to clearly identify the different levels of strata at Blackwater Draw. They differentiated the different cultural levels including the Clovis Complex, which is at the deepest and oldest level dating from about 10,900 - 11,700 years ago.

The next oldest level that was right above the Clovis Complex is the folsom Complex and it dates from about 10,000 - 11,000 years ago. After the folsom Complex comes the Paleoindian Tradition, or what Sellards called the Portales Complex. After the Paleoindian was the Archaic Period and onward to more modern periods. After establishing the stratigraphic sequence they were then able to separate the different projectile points and other hunting tools that were found at different levels. The points that were previously called “folsom-like” are now called “Clovis Fluted”. These points were also compared and associated with animal remains that were found. It indicated that the Clovis Fluted points were associated with mammoth remains while the folsom points were associated with bison.

Sellards continued to excavate and study Blackwater Draw throughout the 1950's and into the 1960's. During the latter part of the 1950's he concentrated more on the analysis and dating of soil and artifacts using the new radiocarbon dating methods that were starting to emerge. His devotion to Blackwater Draw was uncanny and compelled him to work on the site until his death early in 1961, at which time he was past eighty years of age. During the 1950's and 1960's excavations were also preformed by individuals from Texas Tech., Eastern New Mexico University, El Llano Archaeological Society, and the Museum of New Mexico. Some of these people include Fred Wendorf, A.E. Dittert Jr., and Arthur J. Jelinek.

During the 1960's and 1970's excavations continued at a pretty steady pace. Most of these excavations were able to produce more mammoth and bison remains at different locations. Most of these excavations were done by Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) headed by Dr. George Agogino. One of the most important discoveries came in 1964 when they found the oldest hand-dug well in America. This well dates back to the Clovis age. Other wells have been found from different time periods and these wells indicate changes in the water table that have occurred over those time periods.

In 1978, Eastern New Mexico University, along with matching funds from the New Mexico Preservation Office, purchased the 157 acres that Blackwater Draw covered. Along with that purchase, ENMU also acquired the control of the Blackwater Draw Museum, which was first opened in 1969 and is still owned by the State of New Mexico. While ENMU was in charge of the archaeological research, the Smithsonian Institution was in charge of the geological research. The research done by the Smithsonian Institute was directed by Dr. Dennis Stanford, with the principle investigator being Dr. Vance Haynes from the University of Arizona.

Studies by ENMU students during the 1980's determined that Blackwater Draw still contained a large amount of cultural materials and animal remains that were still in situ. Evidence of buried campsites were also found. These campsites along with all of the in situ remains showed that Blackwater Draw had and still has the potential of long term research for many years to come. In 1982, Blackwater Draw became part of the National Register of Historic Places and has more recently been declared a National Historic Landmark.

Today both the museum and site are under the direction of Dr. John Montgomery with Dr. Joanne Dickenson being the on-site Curator. Since 1988, Montgomery and Dickenson have focused on developing the site for security, access, interpretation, research, and conservation. Security and conservation of the site includes not only protecting the physical remains of the site, but also the long-term protection of the site as a landmark. Conservation projects have been done by a number of groups ranging from conservation specialists to volunteers.

The development of public access to the site includes maintenance and construction of basic public needs such as rest areas and parking lots and also to make to site more accessible to people with disabilities. Research of the site will focus on implementing new research techniques and designs that can be used to analyze previously gathered and curated material from the site and also develop the direction of where the research is headed. Interpretation of the site is probably the most important aspect of long term research when dealing with prehistoric sites. Interpretation provides the public with the significance and importance of the site, and the interest and support of the public is always important when dealing with a cultural heritage site like Blackwater Draw.

Blackwater Draw is a National Historic Landmark that is recognized as a world-wide resource of significant cultural and historical value. It is filled with information that represents every major period of prehistory in North America. Do to the vast amount of information that is yet to be obtained, ongoing research by ENMU and other archaeologist will be conducted for many years to come.

REFERENCES

David Hurst Thomas, Exploring Native North America, 2000 Oxford University Press

http://www.enmu.edu/~durands/bwdraw/blackwater.htmlBlackwater Draw Home Page,

Eastern New Mexico Tourism Association, Blackwater Locality #1

http://www.enmta.com/discover.htm

James J. Hester, Blackwater Locality #1, 1972 Fort Burgwin Research Center, Inc.

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