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Murray Springs is located in southern Arizona, near the San Pedro River. It once served as a Clovis hunting camp around 12,000 years ago
In 1966, when extending the mapping area of the Lehner site. 19km to the north. Archaeologists from University of Arizona found the site. What they located was a large quantity megafauna processing, and tool making pieces. They also identified
five buried animal kills, processing locations, and a camp. The site is in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
Other significant artifact finds included: hearths, a bone tool, projectile points, lithic tools, and debitage
The buried animal kills and processing locations contained bones of mammoth, bison, horses, camels, canids and rodents.


Naco Mammoth Site
Was reported to the Arizona State Museum in September 1951 by a local resident. He found two Clovis points and mammoth bones exposed in a local river/draw. It shows evidence of a successful mammoth hunt by Clovis people, likely around 13,000 years ago.
Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site
Located in southeastern Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley. It contains the remains of mammoths, bison, and other animals, along with numerous Clovis artifacts, including stone tools and projectile points.
These sites contribute to our understanding of Clovis hunting and strategies. And, the interactions between humans and megafauna in north America. Discoveries like this, suggest humans actively hunting large animals. Contributing to the extinction of megafauna around the end of the last Ice Age.
Bibliography: Haynes, C. Vance, and E. Thomas Hemmings, “Mammoth-Bone Shaft Wrench from Murray Springs, Arizona”, Science, vol. 159, no. 3811, pp. 186–87, 1968
Haury, Emil W., “Artifacts with Mammoth Remains, Naco, Arizona : Discovery of the Naco Mammoth and the Associated Projectile Points”, American Antiquity 19, pp. 1–14, 1953
Haury, Emil W., E. B. Sayles, and William W. Wasley, 1986, “The Lehner Mammoth SiteJefferson Reid and David E. Doyel, pp. 99–145. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Southeastern Arizona”. In Emil W. Haury’s Prehistory of the American Southwest, edited by J.
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