About the Author

George Crawford, Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Consultant

former Director of Blackwater Draw National Landmark, Eastern New Mexico University.

gtcrawford@yahooDOTcom

M.A Anthropology, University of Missouri 1994

B.A. Anthropology, University of Missouri 1988

George Crawford is the current Director of the Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark, a.k.a. the Clovis site. Crawford has long had interests in pre-industrial subsistence strategies, tool kits, and craftsmanship. His early academic research was almost exclusive to Atlantic Europe and North Africa but for practical reasons changed focus to the prehistory of North America, ultimately becoming interested in the earliest cultures of the Americas. His current work focuses on the interactions of the Southern High Plains and the American Southwest as well as our evolving knowledge of the effects of climate change on hunter-gatherers.

Professional work: Received both B.A. and M.A. from University of Missouri and has worked professionally as an archaeologist for the past 34 years. He served briefly as Project Archaeologist and Cartographer for a contract archaeology firm in Oxford, England while finishing graduate school and soon thereafter joined the staff of the Office of the State Archaeologist of Iowa. He worked at the Center for Archaeological Research at Missouri State University and was involved in several large excavations including very early Paleoindian research. He then took a position at the Clovis site working on field projects in New Mexico and Texas while serving as Adjunct Faculty at Eastern New Mexico University. During this time he created the first comprehensive map of the Clovis site and surrounding landscape, and developed a master plan for future management of the National Landmark. When the position ended, Mr. Crawford worked for several years on Federal and State archaeological contracts in California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Illinois, Missouri, and North Dakota involving large cultural resource surveys and extensive excavations of sites ranging in age from Paleoindian through contact period Plains Villages. In 2008, he returned to the Clovis site to oversee research and management of the Landmark for the State of New Mexico where he was also involved with the Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology at ENMU.