FOSSIL BISON AND ASSOCIATED ARTIFACTS FROM PLAINVIEW, TEXAS

Abstract

A quarry containing fossil bison and associated artifacts was discovered on the High Plains of n.-w. Texas in 1944 and excavated in 1945. The bone bed, ranging in thickness from a few inches to 11/2 ft., is in a former stream channel at the base of valley fill. At the top of the bone bed the bones are more or less broken while at lower levels and at the bottom the bones are usually complete and often in articulation. Whole skeletons are preserved but are difficult or impossible to separate from the associated skeletons. Excavations of 62 running ft. (about 500 sq. ft.) of the bone bed yielded parts of skeletons of 100 bison (estimated), together with 26 artifacts. The associated projectile points bear some resemblance to Folsom and Yuma types but are distinctive from both and have been described as Plainview points. The bison is notably larger than the largest individuals of the modern sp. and is referred to Bison taylori. The only other vertebrate fossil found in the bone bed is a wolf, but nearby localities in the same horizon have yielded Parelephas columbi and Equus sp. Freshwater invertebrates of several spp. are abundant in the bison bone bed and in the same horizon at other exposures in the vicinity.