During the early spring of 1938, a collector from Van Horn, Gilbert Monk, carried on superficial excavations at the Baylor Rock Shelter twelve miles north of Van Horn in Culberson County, Texas. His digging yielded crude yucca sandals, fiber cordage, undecorated pottery sherds, fragments of compound darts, a tumpline forehead band, a cache of chipped flints including a drill, a projectile point, and three knives, and a complete atlatl.
It is the resemblance of this last specimen to the Cimarron atlatl, and the general emphasis on the atlatj-bow chronology that suggested to the writers the desirability of describing this implement in some detail, although a complete excavation of the Baylor Shelter and a description of the other artifacts is planned for the near future.
The atlatl is complete except for the finger loops (see Figure 9). I t is made of a hard, straight-grained wood, possibly mesquite, and is highly polished.