Spear-point site in SE Ariz. gets landmark status

About 13,000 years ago, the earliest-known human inhabitants of the New World killed and butchered mammoths and bison near the San Pedro River east of Sierra Vista - a site designated this week as a National Historic Landmark.

The Murray Springs Clovis site was excavated from 1966 to 1972 by a University of Arizona team led by C. Vance Haynes, Jr. and Peter Mehringer, both archaeologists at the Arizona State Museum. It is now part of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Work at the site led to a deeper understanding of the nomadic hunters who were called "Clovis" for the distinctive spearpoints they left behind - first unearthed near Clovis, N.M.

Clovis left little else for archaeologists to uncover, but at Murray Springs, Haynes and Mehringer found an encampment that revealed a range of activities - hearths, tools and megafauna killed by the hunters, including a mammoth and 12 bison.

"It's an unusual record of a variety of activities," said Vance Holliday, a UA anthropologist who continues study of Clovis sites here and in Mexico. "It is well-documented and well-preserved. There is really nothing quite like it anywhere in North America." [...] azstarnet.com/