Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument: Holding History In Your Hand

Home of the Clovis Point and thousands of other scrapers, knives and spear points

Clovis Points are a distinct style of spear point and are among the most famous archeological artifacts in America. They were first unearthed in 1933 by Edgar B Howard in a mass of wooly mammoth bones at Blackwater Draw near the town of Clovis in eastern New Mexico.  Archeologists say these Blackwater Draw points were made 13,000 or so years ago from flint that originated 170 miles away at what is now known as Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument.  Since then, thousands of Clovis-era and more recent tools made from Alibates Flint have been found all across North America.

My girlfriend Craig and I recently camped our way across Texas adding stamps to our National Park Passports, catching a Willie Nelson concert and experiencing the spring warbler migration along the gulf coast.  Located about 35 miles north of Amarillo, Texas, Alibates Flint Quarries is one of the coolest places we visited during our month long journey and joins my list of favorite hidden gems of the Park Service.

The landscape of Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

The story of Alibates Flint Quarries begins almost 300 million years ago.  As with many sparsely vegetated landscapes, you can really see the rock layers carved away by erosion, in this case by the Canadian River and its tributaries.  Layers of red rock laid down as sandstone and mudstone in old rivers and streams around 290 million years ago form the base layer of our geologic layer cake.  Next up is a thin layer of Alibates Dolomite set down by shelled sea animals and corals when this area was under a shallow sea about 260 million years ago.  There is some more recent gypsum layered in and it is all topped off with rounded river rock and sediments that arrived in Texas from the Rocky Mountains within the last 12 million years.  These rounded rocks were later used by the area’s early inhabitants to work the flint.

An example of the river rock used to break apart the flint into workable pieces

Alibates flint is agatized dolomite, or chert, created when silica rich waters replaced the minerals in the dolomite layer with quartz crystals so small that most microscopes cannot see them individually.  This small crystalline structure is the reason this flint is stronger than steel.  In addition to the theory that the flint was created at the same time as the dolomite, there is the thought that the silica originated in the ash from the Yellowstone super-volcano.  No one really knows, but the result is a uniquely colored flint of reds, greys and purples. This unique coloration makes recognition of its tools and projectile points much easier for archeologists when it is found in other places. 

Some of the colors of Alibates Flint

Alibates flint is named for Alibates Creek which was named for Allen “Allie” Bates, a cowboy that worked on a local ranch.  Little did Allie Bates know that his name would eventually be associated with a source of flint that was traded by the local indigenous people to others on the Pacific Coast, as far north as Minnesota and south into Mexico and the northern regions of South America.  The flint is that good.

Working flint is known as knapping which means “to break with a sharp blow.”  Initially, the stone knives, scrapers and spear points were made from flint that was found on the ground’s surface.  Its tight crystalline structure makes it break in a predictable manner.  These first tools and spear points were made starting at the end of the last ice age by nomadic peoples who followed herds of bison and mammoths across what was then a much cooler and wetter grassland ecosystem.   The larger river rocks found in the area served as the striking stones to form the flint into a crude form of the desired final product.  Then using the tip of a small antler as a form of hammer, the final shape is made by pressing away small pieces to form the sharp edges and create the spear point, knife or scraper.  These points are worked on both sides making the edges razor sharp.

You can see the razor sharp edges on this piece of worked flint

The most industrious indigenous peoples to utilize Alibates flint lived in the area from around 1200 to 1450.  They were not nomadic people, rather they built permanent structures and farmed.  Known as the Antelope Creek people, they realized that the flint found sitting on the surface had been subjected to weather and was not as strong as flint dug from the ground.  Over 700 small pits, 10 to 20 feet across, now dot the landscape around the national monument and adjacent lands where the Antelope Creek people quarried flint.  As pieces of flint came out of the ground, they were evaluated and crudely worked seeking the finest pieces to be used for tool making.  As a result, the ground is littered with broken flint left behind as these people worked only the very best flint into crude blanks about the size of a pop tart. These were then traded to other tribes.  Making finished tools for trading was time consuming and, given how sharp, also dangerous to transport.  It was much more efficient to create blanks for trading and let others work the flint into whatever tools they desired.  This incredible slice of cultural history was preserved as a national monument by Congress in 1965.

An example of the trade blanks made by the Antelope Creek people 1200 - 1450

Since we were camping in our little Alto trailer, we sought the closest public campground and ended up at Lake Meredith National Recreation Area.  Also an NPS site and a place we needed to visit for a passport stamp, we had reservations for two nights.  I honestly do not understand why Lake Meredith is managed by the Park Service.  It is a campground and boat launch on a reservoir and I somehow missed the national significance that landed it with the Park Service to manage.  Nonetheless it is only about a half hour or so from Alibates Flint Quarries so was a good spot from which to base our visit.

Park volunteer and our guide, Ron Payne, pointing out one of the 700 or so pits where flint was quarried

A visit to Alibates Flint Quarries gives you the chance to pick up and hold worked pieces of flint left behind by the flint miners and tool knappers.   But you have to go with a guide.  The Park Service provides two guided hikes a day to the flint quarry site from April through September.  There is no cost, though they prefer you make a reservation.  We met at the visitor center at 11 am and joined five other folks on a tour led by Ron Payne, a Master Park Volunteer with over 10,000 hours contributed to telling the Alibates story.  Ron was a wealth of information and he knew where some very cool artifacts were sitting on the ground. 

The trail up to the ridge where we walked on flint

We drove the first few miles, through a locked gate, and then embarked on a one-mile round trip moderate hike along the ridge top to see the quarry pits and have the privilege of picking up and holding a bit of history.  There are literally thousands of worked pieces of flint littering the ground.  Most are larger pieces broken off during the search for that perfect piece that could be worked into a trade blank.  But in some places the littered rock was much smaller indicating where someone worked a piece of flint into a usable tool.  Ron showed us examples of scrapers used on animal hides and some rough spear points that didn’t quite meet the standards of the flint knappers and were thus discarded.  He also showed us examples of the trade blanks.  It was way cool.

Pieces of flint littered the ground everywhere

While NPS does have local flint-knappers that can demonstrate how these tools and spear points are made, the thrill of picking up and marveling at stone that was worked over 800 years ago cannot be topped.  Of course, we placed everything we looked at back on the ground for the next visitors to enjoy.  But for the two hours or so we were on top of the ridge, our imagination was our guide as we tried to visualize life when these flint quarry pits were in full production.  We picked up rocks and mimicked striking pieces of flint.  We held the scrapers and spear points in our hands and tried to imagine using them.  And we imagined how this flint traveled via traditional trade routes to all corners of our country and into Mexico and South America.  The opportunity to spark my imagination while holding 800 year-old tools found where they were made is the very reason I visit national parks.