PALEOINDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL SONORA, MEXICO

Abstract

This paper reports the results of survey and test excavations in northern Sonora focused on Paleoindian archaeology. Twenty-four sites and collections were investigated, mostly in the western foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental and on the alluvial plains west of the foothills in the area of Hermosillo. Three (SON:K:15, SON:0:3:1, and SON:N: 11:20–21) are large site complexes covering a minimum of 3 km2. All three produced Clovis artifacts, and SON:N: 11:20–21 yielded unfluted Paleoindian projectile points. The other 21 localities represent isolated finds or unmapped sites and yielded 24 fluted and 12 unfluted specimens. The fluted points are similar to the Clovis style. Some of the unfluted points have similarities to Clovis but otherwise are most similar in style and technology to the Golondrina and Dalton types. Folsom artifacts are as yet unknown from Sonora. The relation between the Sonoran Clovis sites and those to the north is unclear, but there is a physiographic connection between the upper San Pedro Valley (with the Murray Springs, Naco, and Lehner Clovis sites) and the sites reported here via the Rio Sonora.