Diggers

For the most part, archaeologists are scholars who work among ruins and study in musty museums, surrounded by books and bones. But in the Southwest, almost everybody is an archaeologist: Girl Scouts, G.I.s, Indians and postmen all have the digging fever. Cowhands hunting for straying cattle hunt for dinosaur bones. Gatherers of pine nuts look in the debris of anthills for the tiny turquoise beads of vanished early Americans.

Spearhead & Rib. Postmaster Oscar Shay, an enthusiastic amateur of Portales, N. Mex., recently found what is probably the first authentic bone of Folsom Man, a mysterious race of hunters who lived 10,000 years ago. Shay went bone-hunting with Jerry Ainsworth, a student at Eastern New Mexico College. Near a small stream called Blackwater Draw, they found the skeleton of a "dire wolf," a husky, toothy, carnivorous beast that died out toward the end of the glacial period.

Dire wolves are respectable finds for any amateur digger, but among the bones of this one was something even choicer: a stone spearhead with oddly fluted sides. It proved that the dire wolf had been speared and possibly killed by a Folsom hunter. It also hinted that other Folsom remains might be found near by. In Pleistocene times Blackwater Draw must have been a sizable river, just the place for ancient hunters to use as a camp site.

When not busy selling stamps and sorting mail. Postmaster Shay kept digging systematically near Blackwater Draw. At last he found what looked like a human bone. He took it to Archaeologist Frank Hibben of the University of New Mexico, who identified it as a human rib. Since it came from the same stratum as the dire wolf that had tangled with a Folsom hunter. Dr. Hibben believes that it is a Folsom bone, the first ever found. He hopes that further digging will turn up the rest of the skeleton. Then science will get a real look at shadowy Folsom Man, who has been known thus far only by his typical fluted spearheads.

Leg Bone & Helmet. While the Shay discovery was in the works, other Southwestern amateurs were busy. Two high-school teachers of Tucumcari, N. Mex. found a dinosaur leg bone 4 1/2 feet long. A group of officers from Sandia Base, poking in a cave near Socorro, N. Mex., found all sorts of 1,200-year-old Indian stuff, including yucca-fiber ropes and a pouchful of oddments that were the professional equipment of an ancient medicine man.

Near Tucson. Ariz., two Boy Scouts found a cave with seven human skulls covered with bat guano. Just to be safe, they told both the sheriff and the archaeologists. The skulls proved to be intermediate between crime and science: a few hundred years old. Jose Abeyta, head of the council of San Juan Pueblo, turned up a Spanish helmet from the days of the early conquerors.

Each year the digging fever grows. Archaeologist Emil Haury of the University of Arizona gets a stream of valuable finds from construction men, Indians and soldiers on maneuvers. Recently he was asked to speak before a meeting of the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association to tell them what their cowhands should look for while out on the range. Besides giving advice, the archaeologists make a plea: don't mess up a promising site. Tell the professionals. They'll help you and give you credit.

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