The Earliest People in the Southwest

Paleoindian occupations across the Southwest are known largely from surface artifact collections because relatively few in situ sites are known. Clovis is the exception, with one of the world’s highest concentrations of Clovis mammoth kills occurring in southeast Arizona (Murray Springs, Naco, and Lehner). Otherwise Clovis is thinly scattered across New Mexico, Chihuahua, and Sonora. Folsom is the most common Paleoindian projectile point type in the Southwest in terms of numbers, but is largely concentrated in the basins of the Upper Rio Grande valley in New Mexico and Colorado. Unfluted Paleoindian artifact styles are widely scattered throughout the region, but most are concentrated along the Upper Rio Grande valley.