Clovis Comet Debate - The Archaeological Conservancy

The large sandstone slab in the foreground was found in Room 4 at Site 82. The slab was discovered beneath a layer of floor mortar.
dotted by piñon and juniper trees and lots of desert scrub.
“There are no permanent rivers here and we get a very short
growing season with frost until about May and starting up
again in September. So how did they make a living up here?
And what made them leave?”
These and other questions remain unanswered, but data
from Harry’s two prior digs—Lava Ridge, which she excavated
in 2006, and Granary House in 2007—both of which
are near Site 82, combined with evidence from this field
school, have led her to hypothesize that the Shivwits people
lived there year-round and that they traded their surplus
pottery.
The key to both assumptions, Harry said, is found in the
iron-rich, deep red basalt soil. It is a distinctive volcanic material
found in the ceramics at Moapa Valley sites. Research
done in the late 20th century by UNLV professor emeritus
Margaret Lyneis showed that Shivwits pottery had a unique
signature, a combination of that red earth tempered with
crushed pottery produced by people from Mount Trumbull,
about 10 miles east. This pottery is much lighter-colored and
contains olivine, a mineral that, in this region, is found in
abundance only in the Mount Trumbull area, according to
Lyneis. It’s assumed that the Shivwits people traded for the
Mount Trumbull pottery, and then once it broke, crushed it
to use as temper, Lyneis posits.
Harry is also convinced the basaltic soil’s composition
enabled it to retain water, making it sufficiently fertile for
Karen Harry discusses the slab with her students prior to removing it.
34 fall • 2010
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