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Texas Prehistoryby Thomas R. Hester and Ellen Sue Turner
Texas prehistory extends back at least 11,200 years and is witnessed by a variety of Indian cultural remains. The "historic" era began with the shipwreck of Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition and the subsequent account written by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Indian culture was not modified, as best we can tell, by Cabeza de Vaca or by the later seventeenth-century French and Spanish exploration. Indeed, the peoples the explorers found were not severely affected until the advent of the Spanish missions and the incursion of Apaches at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is possible, however, that
Spanish diseases, introduced in central Mexico, had begun
affecting the hunter-gatherer bands of northern Mexico,
causing displacement of these and similar groups in
southern Texas. The prehistory of Texas has been studied
by both professional and avocational archeologists for
many decades. The first excavations were apparently at
the "Old Buried City" (the Handly ruins) in
Ochiltree County, directed in the early 1900s by T. L.
Eyerly of the Canadian Academy. The most notable pioneer,
from the academic perspective, of early Texas archeology
was James E. Pearce, of the University of Texas, who
began excavations in Central Texas around World War I.
His techniques were crude and his analyses limited, but
his work provided the first insights into the prehistoric
past of the state. The beginnings of avocational
archeology in the state can be traced largely to Cyrus N.
Ray of Abilene, who was instrumental in founding the
Texas Archeological Society, which continues to play a
major role in fieldwork, training, and publication. His publications provided
thorough site reports and syntheses of broad aspects of
the archeological record. His research brought national
attention to the prehistory of Texas. Krieger's influence
culminated in the first major synthesis of Texas
prehistory, published in 1954. Also of national interest
in the 1940s and early 1950s was the work on "early
man" in the New World (the Paleo-Indian period) by
E. H. Sellards and Glen Evans of the Texas Memorial
Museum. Great strides in learning the cultural history of
ancient Texas came in the 1960s, when archeological teams
carried out excavations in proposed reservoir basins
along many Texas rivers. Notable among these was the work
at Amistad Reservoir on the Rio Grande. The explosion of archeology
that accelerated in the mid-1970s has produced a vast
literature on Texas prehistory, and a wealth of
information on the chronology and cultures of the ancient
Indian peoples of the state. It is important, however, to
understand the scientific approaches used by
archeologists. These make possible the advances in
knowledge that have taken place, and distinguish
archeology from the collecting of Indian relics or the
myths advanced by the rediscovery of Indian culture in
the late twentieth century. A cigar box of
"arrowheads" may be of interest to the
archeologist and, if collected from a specific area, have
some interpretative value, but these relics lack context
and are thus of little value in exploring Texas
prehistory. Similarly, the random digging of a
prehistoric site does not contribute to archeology, but
prevents it-as ripping pages from a book destroys it.
Texas archeology has long been plagued, and was even more
plagued in the 1990s, by commercial digging of sites.
Such looting destroys the prehistoric record and greatly
diminishes our prospects of learning detailed information
about the ancient peoples of the state. At quarries or lithic
processing areas, controlled surface collection will
often yield great numbers of large, crudely chipped
bifaces, rocks in the early stage of tool-making known as
quarry blanks. Rarely are projectile points or other
finished tools found, since this is a locality where the
basic levels of stone-working took place-securing good
chipping materials, using a hammerstone to remove the
rough exterior from the cobbles, and roughly shaping the
blanks for further reduction elsewhere. Though they have
long been ignored, lithic processing areas are important
sites for archeological study, as they shed a great deal
of light on a fundamental activity of prehistoric
cultures. One quarry site that is open to the public is
the famed Alibates Flint Quarries, on the Canadian River
in the Panhandle. Even the surface collecting, by
hobbyists, of an eroded campsite can ruin fragile
patterns of tool distribution which, under controlled
conditions, might tell the archeologist a great deal
about site function and the ways in which different parts
of the site were used. Excavation presents an even larger
challenge. Test pits can plumb the depths of the site,
sometimes giving us information on the sequence of
occupations by recovering stone tool types from different
levels. However, to understand the behavior of the
ancient inhabitants and the activities they carried out,
a large block or open-area excavation is necessary. In
it, we can plot in place the projectile points, scrapers,
choppers, flakes, animal bones, snail shells, and other
items and study the patterns of their horizontal
distribution. The distribution often shows the
archeologist where tool-making took place, where animals
were skinned and butchered, where bone tools were made or
wooden spear shafts fashioned. The relationships of the
tools to the areas of the site and to other stone tools
provide, then, contextual information critical to
archeological interpretation. In Texas, research has shown
that in most regions, distinctive changes occurred in the
shapes of projectile points through time. These
artifacts, called "arrowheads" by
nonarcheologists, occur in two forms: as dart
points-large, heavy points ("arrowheads") used
on the tips of spears thrown with the spearthrower or
atlatl, common in the Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods;
and as arrow points ("bird points" to
collectors)-tiny, thin points that tipped arrow shafts,
often made of cane, when the bow and arrow was introduced
to ancient Texas cultures around A.D. 700. This weapon
appears to have wholly replaced the spearthrower, as it
was more accurate and more effective at longer distances
(tiny arrow tips could penetrate a bison, a man, or a
smaller creature). Many of the dart and arrow points can
be sorted into "types" of distinctive shapes
that are restricted in distribution in both time and
space. This makes the points "time-sensitive";
they are often valuable chronological aids for
archeological research. The Lewisville Site near Denton
is another Clovis campsite. The Folsom Complex, around
8800-8200 B.C., is distinguished by Folsom fluted points
and is known from sites where now-extinct forms of bison
were killed and butchered (Bonfire) or from campsites
(Adair-Steadman) where the points are found along with
other stone tools. The Clovis and Folsom materials might
be considered to fall within the early part of this
period. Although fluting ceases to be an important trait
of Paleo-Indian points after Clovis and Folsom, later
Paleo-Indian points maintain an overall lanceolate,
parallel-sided form, often with careful parallel flaking
and with the basal edges dulled to facilitate hafting.
One unfluted type that may well be "early
Paleo-Indian" is Midland, known from excavations at
the Scharbauer Site, near Midland, in the early 1950s. A
portion of a human cranium found at that site may be
linked to this early cultural pattern. The Scottsbluff points in East
Texas are from around 6500 B.C.; in the lower Pecos and
South Texas, hunters and gatherers used Golondrina
points, radiocarbon dated at 7000 B.C. Excavations at
Baker Cave, a dry rockshelter on the Devils River
drainage, has yielded a wide array of information on the
climate, which was essentially modern though probably
drier, and the diet of peoples there 9000 years ago (the
Golondrina Complex). A well-preserved cooking pit yielded
the remains of small game, especially rabbits, rodents,
and several species of snakes; the cave also yielded
charred walnut and pecan hulls as well as other organic
remains. The Angostura projectile point marks the end of
the Paleo-Indian period; radiocarbon dates from the
Wilson-Leonard Site and the Richard Beene Site near San
Antonio date it at around 6800 B.C. The peoples who made
these points, like the peoples of the Golondrina complex,
were hunters and gatherers who used resources quite
similar to those of the modern era. This appears to have been a time when Indian cultures became more specialized on a regional basin. For example, most regions appeared to be typified in the Middle Archaic by one or two distinctive points: Gary and Kent points in East Texas, for example, Pedernales in Central Texas, Langtry in the lower Pecos, and Tortugas in South Texas. In some regions, specific types of site are present, especially the burned-rock middens of Central Texas (apparently used for cooking wild plants of various sorts, especially the bulbs of sotol) and shell middens on the Texas coast. Additionally, cemeteries with large numbers of interments begin to appear late in the period, perhaps reflecting territoriality on the part of some hunting and gathering societies. Similarly, trade connections are established and artifacts of stone and shell are brought from distant areas, especially Arkansas. The Late Archaic (1000 B.C.-300 B.C.) sees the continuation of hunting and gathering in most of Texas, again distinguished by certain types of projectile points and stone tools. In East Texas, pre-Caddo sites mark the beginning of settled village life shortly after 500 B.C. Cemeteries are more notable in some regions, such as Southeast Texas. Bison appear to be an important game resource in Central Texas and in the lower Pecos, where another bison-kill occurs at Bonfire Shelter. Other bison-kills are known in the Panhandle and South Plains at this time. The Transitional Archaic (300 B.C.-A.D. 700) marks an interval which in some ways is little more than a continuation of the Late Archaic. Still, it features distinctive
point styles, such as Ensor, Darl, Frio, and Fairland.
Although this period is important in the Archaic
sequences of Central and lower Pecos Texas, it is not
part of the East Texas archeological record, where
village sites such as the George C. Davis Site of the
Gibson Aspect (see CADDOAN MOUNDS STATE HISTORIC SITE)
make their initial appearance and fully develop only
during the subsequent Late Prehistoric period. These
sites often have large mounds, flat-topped ones sometimes
used to support structures and conical ones for burials.
Such sites mark the introduction of, and reliance upon,
agriculture which leads to this population growth and the
emergence of social and political systems. The Toyah Phase is of
particular interest because it represents a widespread
bison-hunting tradition in Central and South Texas from
around A.D. 1300-1600; in addition to Perdiz points, its
material culture includes end scrapers for hideworking,
beveled knives for bison butchering, and a distinctive
bone-tempered ceramic. On the central Gulf Coast, the
Rockport Complex represents a population that may be
ancestral to the historic Karankawas; these peoples
hunted and fished along the bayshores and oftentimes
moved inland to hunt bison. An asphalt-lined, thin-walled
pottery called Rockport Ware is diagnostic of this
complex. In the Rio Grande Delta, the Brownsville Complex
is unique for its trade with frontier Mesoamerican
cultures (e.g., the Huastecs of Veracruz), which began
around A.D. 1300-1400. Representatives of the Brownsville
Complex made shell beads and other ornaments in large
numbers and traded these to the Huastecs in return for
pottery vessels, jadeite ornaments, and obsidian, all
found in Brownsville Complex sites in the lower Rio
Grande valley. In the Panhandle and Llano
Estacado, settled villages (also engaged in bison
hunting) are found in the Antelope Creek Phase on the
Canadian River around A.D. 1400 and in Andrews County.
Village sites with links to southeast New Mexico appear
around the same time. In the Trans-Pecos, a sequence of
settled horticulturists with strong ties to the Southwest
Mogollón culture begins in the early centuries A.D. and
develops more fully around A.D. 600. It is marked
especially by pithouse dwellings. Down the Rio Grande,
near Presidio, another center of agriculturally based
villages, the Bravo Valley Aspect, dates to around A.D.
1200-1400. The specimen can then be linked
to a specific obsidian quarry. In the Panhandle, most of
the obsidian comes from sources in the Jemez Mountains of
northern Mexico, and was part of Plains-Pueblo trade in
Late Prehistoric times. However, some of the obsidians
found in South and Central Texas can be definitively
traced to sources in southern Idaho (Malad), Wyoming
(Obsidian Cliff), and central Mexico. These facts reflect
long-distance trade networks, especially in the case of
the Idaho and Wyoming obsidian, which were part of a
north-south trade system through the Great Plains that
continued into Historic times. Rock art sites incorporate such historic motifs as churches and horse-borne Indian warriors or Spaniards. With the advent of the Spanish mission system, the Indians who adopted mission life continued for a while to make stone tools, and a distinctive point type, Guerrero, is often found in missions, ranchos, and Indian campsites of that era. However, by the late eighteenth century, stone tools gave way to glass, and brass and iron points replaced those chipped from stone, thus signaling the end of an 11,000-year tradition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lawrence E. Aten, Indians of
the Upper Texas Coast (New York: Academic Press, 1983).
This page was last updated March 17, 2003. |