Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona. C. Vance Haynes and Bruce B. Huckell (Editors), 2007, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, xv + 308 pp., $25 (softcover)
✍ Scribed by C. Andrew Hemmings
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 108 KB
- Volume
- 23
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0883-6353
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Murray Springs is among that select handful of intact well-stratified Clovis sites with preserved bone that have been professionally excavated in the last 80 years. The stratigraphic sequences of the San Pedro River Valley sites are important to our understanding of the entire Clovis landscape, and the publication of this monograph now allows for a fine-grained understanding of the Pleistocene landscape in southeast Arizona and a portion of the human activity on it.
Editors Vance Haynes and Bruce Huckell are to be commended for seeing this volume through to publication despite a considerable time lag, and the dispersal of the many investigators, since the original excavations. Whatever the criticisms of the volume, and there are some, the original data are presented in superb detail.
The ten chapters and seven appendices are presented in a straightforward manner, progressing from a history of investigations, environmental considerations, and specific paleontological and archaeological studies, ending with a more comprehensive discussion of Clovis in southeastern Arizona. The appendices mostly provide additional background or supportive information.
Individual chapters cover (1) the history of exploration ( Haynes); (2) Quaternary geology (Haynes); (3) modern vegetation (Woodward); (4) molluscan faunas (Mead); (5) animal kill and processing areas (Hemmings); (6) bison ages (Wilson, Todd, and Frison); (7) hunting camp areas (Agenbroad and Huckell); (8) Clovis lithic technology (Huckell); (9) Clovis paleoecology (Huckell and Haynes); and (10) an afterword by Vance Haynes. The appendices are (A) radiocarbon dating (Haynes); (B) the nature of the Black Mat (Haynes et al.); (C) obsidian sourcing (Shackley); (D) vertebrate specimens (Hemmings); (E) Area 9 and Trench 13N investigations (Huckell and Haynes); (F) illustrated artifact identification numbers (Haynes); and (G) project personnel, volunteers, and visitors (Haynes).
There are an outstanding number of photographs, tables, and charts, several in color, with considerable text devoted to proper explanation of what is being shown. Throughout the volume the presentation of detailed original data is world class. Of particular importance to Quaternary scientists is the extensive geology chapter by Vance Haynes. The inclusion of the project personnel appendix is noteworthy both for giving credit to the normally unsung workers and because it includes a who's who of later 20thcentury Quaternary scientists.
To the readership of Geoarchaeology the level of detail throughout this volume will be admired and extremely useful. This technical virtuosity may be dense reading for the non-specialist, but no one ever gets smarter by reading pap. The localized usage of formations and their members is not entirely standard but Vance Haynes adequately confronts this issue and forges ahead with an abundance of information. In the final analysis, the detailed descriptive information and interpretations are more important than the nuanced labeling issue.
The methodology employed during this excavation and its comprehensive reporting in the chapters by Haynes and Hemmings deserves acknowledgment. The fieldwork performed more than 30 years ago still stands in the first rank of quality Paleoindian site investigations.
There are some maddening editorial discontinuities and minimal but significant factual inaccuracies related to the broader Clovis archaeological record that need to be briefly addressed. Because the various chapters were written and sometimes revised over a span of four decades, the authors do not always use standardized numbering systems (field and/or catalog numbers on artifacts, for instance) or consistent usage of nomenclature. Appendix F clears up the artifact issue but you need to know to refer to