Blackwater Locality No. 1
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Blackwater Draw
(Anderson Basin) |
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ENMU museum and archaeological logo
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| Nearest city | Clovis and Portales New Mexico |
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| Coordinates | 34°16′40″N 103°19′28″W / 34.277874°N 103.324580°WCoordinates: 34°16′40″N 103°19′28″W / 34.277874°N 103.324580°W |
| Area | 3,200 acres (1,300 ha) |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000483 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHLD | January 20, 1961 |
Blackwater Draw is an intermittent stream channel about 140 km (87 mi) long, with headwaters in Roosevelt County, New Mexico, about 18 km (11 mi) southwest of Clovis, New Mexico, and flows southeastward across the Llano Estacado toward the city of Lubbock, Texas, where it joins Yellow House Draw to form Yellow House Canyon at the head of the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River. It stretches across eastern Roosevelt County, New Mexico, and Bailey, Lamb, Hale, and Lubbock counties of West Texas and drains an area of 4,040 km2 (1,560 sq mi).
Blackwater Draw contains an important archaeological site that was first recognized in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman of Clovis, New Mexico. Blackwater Locality No. 1 is the type-site of the Clovis culture. The first large-scale excavation came in 1932. Evidence of "fluted" points, spearheads also known as Clovis points (a New World invention) and other stone and bone weapons, tools, and processing implements were found at the archaeological site. The Clovis points were lanceolate and often longer than Folsom points. These artifacts are in association with the remains of extinct Late Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoth, camel, horse, bison, saber-toothed cat, sloths, and dire wolf that were hunted by the early peoples who visited the site. Generations of some of the earliest New World inhabitants lived at Blackwater Draw which created a layer of human settlement debris from those like Clovis, Folsom, Portales, and Archaic period occupants. The furthest back would be the Clovis culture with radiocarbon dating between 11,600-11,000 years before the present. Blackwater Draw is among the first places these points were found and provides some of the best dated examples.
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