Records of the Thunderbird Site, Warren County, Virginia
name: label: Creator
content: Gardner, William M. (William Milton), 1935-
label: Creator
content: Walker, Joan M.
label: Creator
content: Thunderbird Research Corporation
place: label: Place
content: North America
label: Place
content: Virginia
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeology
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The archaeological field notebooks, maps and photographs pertaining to the Thunderbird Collections (some 50,000 Paleolithic Clovis stone artifacts excavated at the Thunderbird site in Front Royal, Warren Country, Virginia were donated to the Smithsonian in May of 2005 by Dr. Joan Walker, President of the Thunderbird Research Corporation. The Thunderbird Research Corporation was founded in 1975 in order to raise funds to purchase the property on which the site was located so that it could be protected from development.  Dr. Dennis Stanford, Director of the Smithsonian's Paleo-Indian Program, Department of Anthropology, NMNH, was the contact person through whom these records and the accompanying stone artifacts were donated and transferred to the Smithsonian. The accession of these materials was formalized on September 4, 2007 by the Department's Collections Advisory Committee as Accession No. 2035656.
creator: label: Creator
content: Gardner, William M. (William Milton), 1935-
label: Creator
content: Walker, Joan M.
label: Creator
content: Thunderbird Research Corporation
culture: label: Culture
content: Paleoindian Tradition: Clovis (archaeological culture)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Thunderbird Site, Warren County, Virginia
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 13 Linear feet ((30 document boxes), plus 20 rolled maps and drawings, and 4 oversize map folders)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1971-2003
label: Date
content: bulk 1971-1979
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.2010-03
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The records of Thunderbird were received partially organized by material type. The processing archivist kept existing groupings where useful but made shifts where obviously needed.  Few original folder titles were retained; titles in brackets were provided by the archivist and were typically an elaboration of an existing folder title.

Some maps, photos, and other documents were separated prior to the processing of the collection for conservation treatment. After treatment was completed, the materials were reunited with the collection in 2011. These materials were inventoried in 2012 and added to this guide.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection comprises the field and administrative records of the Thunderbird site near Front Royal in Warren Country, Virginia. The collection accompanies approximately 50,000 Paleolithic Clovis artifacts that have been formally accessioned by the Department of Anthropology, Division of Archaeology (see Accession No. 2035656) and it includes field records, notebooks, maps and photographs. These records document work on the site by Dr. William Gardner and his wife Dr. Joan Walker between 1971 (when Dr. Gardner discovered the site) and roughly 1986. Excavations on the site were directed by Dr. Gardner for more than fifteen years. The collection is separated into series and includes some research from neighboring archaeological sites. 44WR11 is the technical designation for the site (44 refers to Viginia; WR is 'Warren County); and 11 is the number designating the site on the Virginia archaeology registry.)