The Anzick site (24PA506) in Park County,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, is the only known Clovis

burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

site in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

. The term "Clovis" is used by archaeologists to define one of the New World's earliest

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

cultures and is named after the site near Clovis,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

, where human artifacts were found associated with the procurement and processing of

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

and other large and small fauna.H.M.Wormington, "Ancient Man in North America", Denver Museum of Natural History, Popular Series No. 4, 1949From Kostenski to Clovis: Upper Paleolithic-Paleo-Indian Adaptations. Edited by Olga Soffer and N.D. Praslov. Plenum Press, 1993.

Discovery

In 1961, while hunting

marmot Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, ...

s at a

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

outcrop on the Anzick family property, about one mile south of Wilsall, Montana, Bill Roy Bray found a stone projectile point and bones that were covered with red

ocher Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

. In the same area, in May 1968, Ben Hargis and Calvin Sarver of Wilsall, Montana were removing talus from the same outcrop and inadvertently found the red ocher-covered partial remains of a one- to two-year-old child (Anzick-1) associated with stone (8 fluted projectile points, scrapers, heat treated bi-faces), bone and

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on ...

artifacts, totaling 90, that were radiocarbon dated at about 12,000 years

Before Present Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Beca ...

. Nineteen additional artifacts were found in the area.Juliet Morrow and Stuart Fiedel, "New Radiocarbon Dates for the Clovis Component of the Anzick Site, Park County, Montana" in Paleoindian Archaeology- A Hemispheric Perspective. University Press of Florida, 2006. Two antler rods associated with the burial also radiocarbon dated to the same time. The stone use came from 6 different quarries. In another location in the same area, not associated with the Clovis child, the men found a partial

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

fragment of a 6- to 8-year-old male child (Anzick-2) that radiocarbon dated to around 8600 years Before Present. Dr. Larry Lahren, a North American

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

from Livingston, Montana was the first researcher to examine and record the site (24PA506), artifacts and human remains at the request of Ben Hargis not long after the discovery in 1968.Larry Lahren, "Homeland: An Archaeologist’s View of Yellowstone Country’s Past", Cayuse Press, Box 1218, Livingston, Montana, 2006 The artifacts, not including the human remains, are at the Montana Historical Society and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Human remains

For thirty years, the skeletal remains were in the private possession of a former investigator. Since 1998, they have been in the possession of one of the landowners. Because of the manner in which the site was discovered, its importance was initially dismissed but subsequently confirmed.Larry Lahren and Robson Bonnichsen, "Bone Foreshafts from a Clovis Burial In Southwestern, Montana", Science 186, pp. 147-150, 1974 The remains are known as

Anzick-1 Anzick-1 is a Paleo-Indian male infant whose remains were found in south central Montana, United States, in 1968, and date to 13,000–12,850 years BP. The child was found with more than 115 tools made of stone and antlers and dusted with red ...

Discovery

Human remains

References

Further reading