The cave of Pendejo is an archeological site of the New Mexico which would have delivered indices of human occupations former to the Clovis period. Doubts were emitted as for the anthropic seniority or with the character of certain vestiges which were discovered there.

General presentation

The cave of Pendejo opens in a calcareous cliff Permien not giving on Rough Canyon and of old glacial lakes which attracted herds of Mastodonte S, of Bison S, horses ( Equus caballus ), and of now extinct Camélidé S. Pendejo is located at about fifty kilometers in the south of Alamogordo, the New Mexico and approximately 15 kilometers in the North-East of the southernmost end of the mountains of Sacramento. The cave is directed North-South with a 13 m 6 m broad depth and with a height of approximately 8 m in height. Before the Excavation, the ground was covered with approximately 2,50 m of dry deposits. Twenty-two stratigraphic units extremely well defined were highlighted in the cave. 72 dates with the carbon-14 were obtained starting from charcoal, of vegetable wood and other remainders. 60 of these datings go back to the period of pre-Clovis.

The excavation of the cave was carried out between 1990 and 1993 pennies the direction of Glenn DeGarmo, person in charge with the Office of environmental management of New Mexico. During the excavations, the recovered materials were analyzed by an interdisciplinary panel of scientists in specialities as complementary as the Géologie, the Climatologie, the Paléontologie, the Botanique and the Palynologie (study of the spores and pollens). It was thus possible to date and reconstitute the natural framework and the environment of the first inhabitants of the site.

Scientific analyzes

A total of 171 charcoal samples, of wood, bones of animals transformed into tools, sheets, seeds, fibers and residues were gathered from 19 of the 22 principal stratigraphic units for dating with radiocarbon. The samples were placed in flasks sterile and sealed before analysis. The samples were subjected to the laboratories of the University of California with Los Angeles, to the research laboratory of the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (laboratory working for the University off California for the Department off Energy' S National Nuclear Security Administration .
Les ages extends in a fork going 33.000 years to more than 55.000 years.

• a point of pointed or lance was discovered in a bone of horse of a species now disappeared, Equus alaskae . The unit rested in a stratigraphic layer and was gone back to 36.000 years.

• a humérus of bison of Pendejo revealing 5 notches hammered by means of a stone was gone back to 51.000 years.
• the phalange of an extinct horse ( Equus alaskae ), gone back to 32.000 years, found was prepared and split for being boiled for soup, current practice in the old cultures.
• Of the human hair was also found in the stratigraphic units being located between 13.000 years and 20.000 years.

Controversies

The age and the anthropic nature of certain vestiges put at the day in the cave of Pendejo were disputed by certain authors:

• for Brian S. Shaffer and Barry W. Baker, prints of hand in clay constituting the only proof of human presence with - 36.000 years are doubtful.
• for Dena F. Dincauze, which took part in the excavations, there exist serious problems of rehandlings post-dépositionnels related to the presence of burrows of rodents having been able to lead to the displacement of certain vestiges towards older layers.

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