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The 'Folsom Tradition' is a name given by archaeologists to a specific Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America. Named by Jesse Figgins in 1927.
Numerous Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some restricted to the Great Plains and Great Lakes of the modern United States of America and Canada as well as adjacent areas to the west and south west. The Folsom Tradition was characterised by the peoples use of Folsom points as projectile tips and their activities are generally known from kill sites where slaughter and butchering of bison took place and Folsom tools were left behind.
Some kill sites exhibit evidence of up to 50 bison being killed although the Folsom diet also included mountain sheep, marmots, deer and cottontail rabbit.
A Folsom site at Hanson, Wyoming also revealed areas of hardstanding which indicate possible dwellings.
The type site is Folsom, New Mexico in Colfax county (29CX1), a marsh-side kill site found in about 1908 by George McJunkin (an ex-slave Cowboy who had lived in Texas as a child). The excavation by archaeologists did not occur until 1926.
The Folsom Tradition is thought to have derived from the earlier Clovis culture and dates to between 9000 BC and 8000 BC.