Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T14:57:02.018Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New Light on the Midland Discovery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Fred Wendorf  and
Alex D. Krieger
Fred Wendorf
Affiliation:
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, N., Mex.
Alex D. Krieger
Affiliation:
Municipal Museum, Riverside, Calif.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Additional excavation in 1955 confirmed the previously reported stratigraphic sequence at Midland, Texas. Within the gray sand, which had yielded a fragmentary human calvarium, there were found additional flint flakes, burned rocks, and animal bones. Besides several small mammals, a four-horned antelope (probably Capromeryx) was present in the gray sand; horse bones occurred in the gray sand and overlying red sand. These finds make the two radiocarbon dates published in the 1955 Midland report, giving an age of about 7000 years to the gray sand, even less acceptable than previously thought. Experimental dating by the uranium daughter products technique suggests an age of about 20,000 years for the gray sand, somewhat excessive in terms of cultural correlations although supported by a single radiocarbon date and not unreasonable for the faunal assemblage. Ten radiocarbon dates from the Midland, Blackwater Draw, Lubbock Lake, and Plainview sites are discussed in terms of three possible correlations of the geological, climatic, faunal, and cultural events in the Southern High Plains.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , July 1959 , pp. 66 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Broecker, W. S. and Kulp, J. L. 1957 Lamont Natural Radiocarbon Measurements IV. Science, Vol. 126, No. 3287, pp. 1324–34. Washington.Google Scholar
Evans, G. L. 1950 Late Quaternary Faunal Succession in the Southern High Plains [Abstract]. Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 61, No. 12, Part 2, pp. 1457–8. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Evans, G. L 1951 Prehistoric Wells in Eastern New Mexico. American Antiquity, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 1–9. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Haury, E. W. 1953 Artifacts with Mammoth Remains, Naco, Arizona, 1: Discovery of the Naco Mammoth and the Associated Projectile Points. American Antiquity, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 1–14. Salt Lake City.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haury, E. W. 1956 The Lehner Mammoth Site. Kiva, Vol. 21, Nos. 3-4, pp. 23–4. Tucson.Google Scholar
Krieger, A. D. (Assembler) 1957 Early Man. In “Notes and News,” American Antiquity, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 321–3. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Oakley, K. P. and A. E., Rixon 1958 The Radioactivity of Materials from the Scharbauer Site, near Midland, Texas. American Antiquity, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 185–7. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Rosholt, J. N. Jr. In press. Radioactive Disequilibrium Studies as an Aid in Understanding the Natural Migration of Uranium and Its Decay Products. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, United Nations, New York.Google Scholar
Schultz, J. R. 1938 A Late Quaternary Mammal Fauna from the Tar Seeps of McKittrick, California. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 487, pp. 111-215. Washington.Google Scholar
Sellards, E. H. 1952 Early Man in America: A Study in Prehistory. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Wendorf, Fred, Krieger, A. D., and Albritton, C. C. 1955 The Midland Discovery: A Report on the Pleistocene Human Remains from Midland, Texas. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Wormington, H. M. 1957 Ancient Man in North America, 4th edition. Denver Museum of Natural History, Popular Series, No. 4. Denver.Google Scholar