Naco Mammoth Kill Site

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Naco Mammoth Kill Site
Nearest city Naco, Arizona
NRHP reference No. 76002285 [1]
Added to NRHPJuly 21, 1976

The Naco Mammoth Kill Site is an archaeological site in southeast Arizona, 1 mile northwest of Naco in Cochise County. The site was reported to the Arizona State Museum in September 1951 by Marc Navarrete, a local resident, after his father found two Clovis points in Greenbush Draw (eroded by the Greenbush Creek, a tributary of the San Pedro river), while digging out the fossil bones of a mammoth. Emil Haury excavated the Naco mammoth site in April 1952. [2] [3] [4] [5] In only five days, Haury recovered the remains of a Columbian Mammoth in association with 8 Clovis points (including the 2 originally found by the Navarettes). The excavator believed the assemblage to date from about 10,000 years Before Present. An additional point was found in the arroyo upstream. [6] [7] The Naco site was the first Clovis mammoth kill association to be identified in Arizona. [5] An additional, unpublished, second excavation occurred in 1953 which doubled the area of the original work and found bones from a 2nd mammoth. In 2020, small charcoal fragments were found adhered to a mammoth bone from the site. AMS radiocarbon dating produced a mean date of 10,985 ± 56 years Before Present. [8]

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References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. Haury, Emil W., "Artifacts with Mammoth Remains, Naco, Arizona : Discovery of the Naco Mammoth and the Associated Projectile Points", American Antiquity 19, pp. 1–14, 1953
  3. ERNST ANTE, "Artifacts with Mammoth Remains, Naco, Arizona : Age of the Clovis Fluted Points with the Naco Mammoth", American Antiquity 19, pp. 15–18, 1953
  4. JOHN F. LANCE, "Artifacts with Mammoth Remains, Naco, Arizona : Description of the Naco Mammoth", American Antiquity 19, pp. 19–24, 1953
  5. 1 2 Paleoindian Studies and Geoarchaeology at the University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona
  6. Haury, Emil W., "The Naco Mammoth", Kiva, vol. 18, no. 3/4, pp. 1–19, 1952
  7. Naco Mammoth Kill Site - The Southeast Archeological Center - National Park Service
  8. Huckell, Bruce B., et al., "The Naco Clovis Site: Old Excavations and New Dates", PaleoAmerica, vol. 8, iss. 3, pp. 1-13, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1080/20555563.2022.2058903

Further reading