10,500 – 3,200 years ago Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico, 45 miles from the New Mexico border.

by | Apr 17, 2017 | Short-writing or Quotes

10,500 years ago,in the borderlands of northern Mexico have uncovered a camp used by ancient hunters revealing insights into some of the earliest human history in the Greater Southwest. Near the Santa Maria River in northern Chihuahua, researchers have unearthed more than 18,000 artifacts, including thousands of stone flakes, cores, and hammers, along with 370 projectile points, and a dozen stone ovens. But the most surprising find has been the grave of a teenage girl, who was interred among the rocks, alone and unadorned, some 3,200 years ago but no evidence of any structures and also no ceramics.. Her remains, researchers say, may help unlock the history of the people who brought agriculture to this arid region, and who were the first known farmers of corn in the Chihuahuan Desert 45 miles south of the New Mexico border. But they did uncover 12 stone ovens, along with an incredibly dense concentration of tools and stone fragments, suggesting that the site had been used as a kind of tool-making camp intermittently over thousands of years. The camp consisted of several separate working areas, each scattered with a variety of stone chips, cores, and tools. In all, 18,488 artifacts were recovered, including hundreds of stone points that were fashioned in recognizable styles that date back more than 10,000 years. About 20 centimeters [about 8 inches] below the surface, the researchers uncovered the remains of a girl between 12 and 15 years old. She was buried in a flexed position, with no grave goods or other offerings. Ref

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