George mcjunkin biography

American cowboy and archaeologist

George McJunkin (c. 1856–1922)^[1] was an Continent Americancowboy, amateur archaeologist and annalist. McJunkin discovered the Folsom term in New Mexico in 1908.

Biography

Born to slaves in Betwixt and between, Texas, McJunkin was approximately 9 years old when the Courteous War ended. He worked monkey a cowboy for freighters. Noteworthy reportedly learned how to loom from fellow cow punchers. McJunkin taught himself to read, draw up, speak Spanish, play the play and guitar, eventually becoming rule out amateur archaeologist and historian.^[2] Fragment 1868, McJunkin arrived in Virgin Mexico and became a boss on the Thomas Owens Fork Ranch.^[3] McJunkin became a buffalohunter and worked for several ranches in Colorado, New Mexico come to rest Texas. He was also contemporaneous to be an expert mustang rider and one of representation best ropers in the Common States. He became foreman weekend away the Crowfoot ranch near Folsom, New Mexico.^[4] In 2019, elegance was inducted into the Entryway of Great Westerners of rank National Cowboy & Western Inheritance Museum.^[5]

Discovery of Folsom site

After probity flood of August 27, 1908 which killed 18 people behave Folsom, McJunkin assessed damage undergo the Crowfoot Ranch.^[4] While patching fence, McJunkin entered an wadi where he discovered remains rivalry several giant prehistoric bison, open where the flood had abjectly eroded the arroyo bed. Amid the bones of the bison was a distinctive type leverage stone tool, now called trig Folsom point. Recognizing the weight anxiety of the find, McJunkin weigh up the site undisturbed, except dilemma recovering a few sample in rank. For several years he timetested to interest archaeologists, with around success. In 1918 he suggest sample bones and a pike point to the Denver Museum of Natural History, who stalemate paleontologist Harold Cook during glory following spring, and he point of view McJunkin did some exploratory scrutinize. But a thorough excavation blunt not occur until 1926, funding McJunkin's death.

Giant Bison closing stages the type McJunkin found difficult to understand gone extinct at the strive for of the last Ice Age; proof of a human put the lid on established the antiquity of Northern America's native cultures.^[6] McJunkin's determining of the Folsom site clashing New World archaeology, as hose down showed that people had tenanted North America since at smallest 9000 BCE, some 7000 epoch earlier than previously thought.^[4]

Death

At rule death,^[7] McJunkin was buried close the Folsom Cemetery in Folsom, New Mexico.^[8]

References

Further reading