Science & Tech
The Hartley Mammoth Site in northern New Mexico preserves the buried remains of a young adult female Columbian mammoth and a calf in an unusual, erosion-prone alluvial channel near the Rio Puerco. Discovered in 2013, the site yielded broken bones, bone flakes, punctures, a large boulder interpreted as a hammerstone or anvil, and traces of controlled fire, all argued to reflect carcass processing rather than natural accumulation. Radiocarbon testing placed the deposit at about 37,500 years before present, and a 2022 study concluded the nearby Clovis point was unrelated. Because of its great age and claimed evidence of butchery, the site is central to debate over the earliest peopling of the Americas.
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New Mexico · United States
