George McJunkin

McJunkin taught himself to read, write, speak Spanish, play the fiddle and guitar, eventually becoming an amateur archaeologist and historian.

Recognizing the significance of the find, McJunkin left the site undisturbed, except for recovering a few sample points.

In 1918 he sent sample bones and a lance point to the Denver Museum of Natural History, who sent paleontologist Harold Cook during the following spring, and he and McJunkin did some exploratory digging.

Giant Bison of the type McJunkin found had gone extinct at the end of the last Ice Age; proof of a human kill established the antiquity of North America's native cultures.

[6] McJunkin's discovery of the Folsom site changed New World archaeology, as it showed that people had inhabited North America since at least 9000 BCE, some 7000 years earlier than previously thought.