Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark And The TYPE SITE Of The Clovis Culture; Excavated Since 1932 And Owned By Eastern New Mexico University, With An Associated Museum On US Highway 70 Between Portales And Clovis · Portales, New Mexico

In 1932 a road crew cutting gravel from a dry lake bed between Portales and Clovis exposed fluted spear points lying among mammoth bones, and the excavation that followed defined the Clovis culture and gave it its name. Blackwater Draw is the type site: when an archaeologist anywhere in the Americas calls a point Clovis, the standard is here. It also produced a clean stratigraphic sequence with Folsom and later Archaic material stacked above the Clovis layer, which settled arguments about the order of things that could not be settled anywhere else. The site has been dug on and off for ninety years and is owned by Eastern New Mexico University. What a visitor gets is a covered excavation area where the bone bed is exposed in section, interpretive panels, a short trail around the old gravel pit, and a separate museum a few miles away on US 70 holding the material. It is a thin visit for an enormous idea.

42987 US Highway 70, Portales, Portales, New Mexico, 88130, United States

Seasonal and limited. The site and its museum have generally been open on a reduced schedule, often Friday to Sunday and daily only in the warmer months, with both closed for parts of winter and over university holidays. Hours are set by Eastern New Mexico University rather than by a parks agency and have changed more than once. The site and the museum are several miles apart on US 70 and may not keep the same hours. Call before driving out.

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