Unique site

Since the burial site’s discovery, the child’s remains have been dated to about 10,700 years before present. That makes the site the largest and most complete Clovis-era burial site in the western hemisphere. Clovis is the name given to people who designed unique fluted projectile points that were dated to 11,000 to 11,500 years ago. The name comes from the artifacts’ discovery in 1932 at a site near Clovis, N.M., where the points were unearthed amid mammoth and extinct bison remains.

After spending much of his professional career defending the Anzick site as a ritual burial and not a cache, Lahren sees the area in very personal terms. In his book, “Homeland,” Lahren said the Anzick site is “one of the single most important Clovis sites in the New World.”

Why clans of ancient hunters would have been living in what is now Montana’s Park County — what Lahren has dubbed the “Valley of the Mammoth” — thousands of years ago is explained by several factors, Lahren said.