Study of Perishable Artifacts

OCA secures a $200,000 grant from the US Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management

Research is ongoing into perishable artifacts from caves in the Guadalupe Mountains of SE New Mexico and West Texas. Read more about this project through UNM News and the Associated Press.

Sandal from Guadalupe Mountains (Catalogue No. 2009.46.1)

Interdisciplinary Research in West-Central New Mexico

April 2021: Water Canyon Paleoindian Site (LA 134764) final report released!

Research at the Water Canyon Paleoindian site began with the initial documentation of the site in 2001 by Escondida Research Group (Dello-Russo 2002). Subsequent, and more sustained, investigations began in the spring of 2008, and then continued during both the spring and the fall of 2009 (Dello-Russo 2010), and during spring field sessions in 2010, 2012 and 2013. The Water Canyon site (LA134764) is located in west-central New Mexico, on lands managed by the Energetic Materials Testing and Research Center (EMRTC), a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico As such, the property on which the site is located has restricted public access.
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Additional Water Canyon Paleoindian Site Reports

• Dello-Russo, Robert (2021) - Archaeological Investigations and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Water Canyon Paleoindian Site (LA 134764)


• Dello-Russo, Robert (2002) - A Cultural Resources Inventory of 472 Acres in Socorro County, New Mexico: The Archaeology of the EMRTC/Glint Project Area


• Dello-Russo, Robert and Susan J. Smith (2011) - A Paleoindian Sense of Place: Snapshots of the Early Holocene Environment of West-Central New Mexico


• Dello-Russo, Robert, et al. - Analytical Challenges Posed by the Early Holocene / Late Paleoindian Activity Areas at the Water Canyon Site, West-Central New Mexico: How Do We Know What We Think We Know?


• Mentzer, S.M. and P. Goldberg - Report on the Micromorphological Analysis of Thin Sections from Water Canyon, New Mexico


• Winsborough, Barbara - Diatom Paleoenvironmental Analysis of Sediments From the Water Canyon Paleoindian Site (LA134764)


• Yost, Chad L. - Phytolith Analysis of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Sediments from the Water Canyon Paleoindian Site, LA134764, New Mexico

The Water Canyon Site (LA134764)