Haynes Narrates Historic Murray Springs Footage

A video recently released on the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society’s website features Regents’ Professor Emeritus C. Vance Haynes describing 16 mm footage taken in 1967–1968 during excavation of the Murray Springs Clovis Site. Dr. Jesse Ballenger (Ph.D. UArizona, 2010) conducts the interview. Murray Springs, located in Cochise County near the San Pedro River, once served as a Clovis hunting camp approximately 13,000 years ago. The site is unique in many ways. The site is in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The “black mat” is a term coined by Haynes and now widely accepted referring to layers of organic-rich sediment and soils that form in wet environments associated with spring discharge and elevated water tables. The presence of a distinctive “black mat” (a term coined by Haynes and now widely accepted to describe layers of organic-rich sediment and soils that form in wet environments associated with spring discharge and elevated water tables) that formed directly atop the extinct fauna and Clovis tools at Murray Springs indicate that environmental conditions were notably wetter than today. 

Watch the video and read more about Dr. Haynes and Murray Springs here. (Anthro News Digest date: 05/07/2021)