Controversial prehistoric discovery made in Las Vegas shows tools of early man were used 12,000 years ago

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – While digging for garden soil, a Las Vegas farmer was shocked to find mammoth teeth, but now the rest of his discoveries are expected to cause a controversy as it may change 12,000 years of history.

During a Protectors of Tule Springs meeting Tuesday night, Dr. Steve Rowland, a UNLV geoscience professor and paleontologist, helped present newly analyzed findings from a 30-year-old archeological dig field report from the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary .

The new findings identified by Dr. Amy Foulks, a retired CSN anthropology professor and Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary volunteer, showed a collection of artifacts that she claimed to be man-made tools. Precisely chippage, or stone tools, were believed to be used for arrowheads and spear points during the Clovis period . The Clovis people are thought to have lived in North America around 12,000 years ago during an era called the Pleistocene .

“This is a big deal for two reasons,” Foulks said. “[Las Vegas] is not known for any humans that were here at the time… On an international level, even though Clovis is the most well-recognized earliest human presence in North America, it’s not by any means well known.”

Foulks pointed back to the Tule Springs Expedition of 1962-63 , also known as the “Big Dig,” as a major reason most experts don’t seek man-made artifacts in Southern Nevada.

“They were trying to find remains of early humans, really, the fossils were just a plus,” she said. “They never actually found the remains of these early Clovis, or even pre-Clovis humans, and they kind of stopped looking, and nobody ever looked again here in the valley.”

Around 25 years later and about two miles south of the “Big Dig” Bill Gilcrease, a farmer and founder of the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary and Orchard, started to excavate land near an old dry spring vent which created nice, rich garden soil. Digging into the dirt he saw what he believed to be Ice Age fossils, later contacting archeological experts.

“An amateur club eventually did about 18 months’ worth of digging,” Foulks said. “Several scientists did come and visit the site and express interest in what it potentially could yield, but nobody actually investigated scientifically except for one graduate student who did a geological reconstruction of the springs and their sediments and the stratigraphy.”

The artifacts, which included mammoth teeth and man-made tools, languished in Gilcrease’s shed which eventually started to collapse. Helen Mortenson, a former director of Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary, noted the findings were in danger and eventually took all the materials to a storage unit.

In 2016, the materials would be transported once more from the storage unit into the care of the Las Vegas Heritage Museum where they were inventoried—not analyzed.

“They basically gave every bag or every individual artifact number,” Foulks said. “But they did not analyze anything. They didn’t actually look to see what it all meant.”

Digging in an office closet

In 2013, Foulks began volunteer work at the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary and said she knew of the significance of the area.

“I knew that there was mammoth found on the property, but that was nothing new to me,” she said. “I’d heard about the Big Dig, and so I just didn’t really think anything of it.”

Following over a decade of volunteer work, Foulks saw the property change directors a few times before Jennifer Langford took on the role.

“On my third day at the sanctuary as director, a woman by the name of Helen Mortenson appeared,” Langford said. “She’s told me, ‘Jennifer, I need you to have the Gilcrease fossils analyzed.’”

Langford said she started to dig through the paperwork and binders in her office closet until something caught her eye.

“This was completely opposite of what have I always been told,” she said. “I looked at it again, and I remembered that I actually have a volunteer that is an expert in cultural materials.”

The binder was passed along to Foulks who read it by the duck pond at the property and after a few minutes, she yelled Langford’s name.

“Do you know what’s in here,” Foulks asked Langford. “This is absolutely huge for the Las Vegas Valley.”

Foulks analyzed the materials linked to the field report over the course of eight months. She cited the materials as man-made in nature and featured the discovery in a Tuesday presentation, which is expected to be published in a new report later this year.

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