Before Folsom: The 12 Mile Creek Site and the Debate Over the Peopling of the Americas

Abstract

Histories of American archaeology rightly point to the discoveries at the Folsom site as the turning point in the debate of a Pleistocene peopling of North America. However, this was not thefirst site where fluted projectile points were recovered in association with an extinct form bison. In 1895 University of Kansas paleontologists excavated the 12 Mile Creek site in western Kansas and recovered an in situ fluted projectile point with the remains of 13 Bison antiquus skeletons. The site is generally overlooked in the histories of this debate. Published articles and unpublished personal letters reveal that 12 Mile Creek was influential to the Folsom excavators as well as a number of other important researchers. The limited influence that 12 Mile Creek had on the anthropological community was not because of the loss of the projectile point from the site or difficulties in dating the site, but was instead due to the manner in which the investigators presented their results. What differentiated the 12 Mile Creek site from Folsom was that the investigators of the latter site allowed outside researchers to independently validate claims about the site’s age and the association between the artifacts and animal remains.