Archived General Meetings

PRESENTATION TITLE: What Archeobotany Can Tell Us About Ancient Texas (and other places too)

SPEAKER: Leslie L. Bush, Paleoethnobotanist

The Texas plants we enjoy today have been used for food, medicine, and crafts for millennia by the Native people of Texas. Written accounts by Spanish missionaries and European explorers, Native oral traditions, and archaeological investigations provide windows into the many fascinating uses of our Texas native plants. Leslie outlined how archaeologists recover and identify plant remains and talked about particular finds in central Texas of plants used for food, fibers, dye, healing, and weapons.

LESLIE’S BIO: Leslie L. Bush is a paleoethnobotanist, an archaeologist specializing in identifying bits of plants preserved on archaeological sites, usually in the form of charcoal and occasionally as waterlogged wood or other plant parts. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2001, and her dissertation was published by the University of Alabama Press. Through her consulting practice, Macrobotanical Analysis, she has worked on sites in eighteen states, including Maryland, Florida, Iowa, Montana, Indiana, and Texas. Leslie is currently involved with investigations associated with improving Highway 271 in Titus County, Baylor University’s work at rock shelters in central Texas, and the Texas Historical Commission’s work on Fort St. Louis/Presidio La Bahia.

TITLE: Bonfire Shelter: A Jumping Off Point for Understanding Ancient Americans in West Texas more info

SPEAKER: Dr. David Kilby, Associate Professor, Texas State University

The Ancient Southwest Texas Project (ASWT) at Texas State University began a new fieldwork initiative at Bonfire Shelter in 2017. The site is compelling for two primary reasons. First, it may preserve evidence of the oldest and southernmost “bison jump” in North America; however, there is disagreement as to whether a 12,000-year-old layer of bones represents one or as many as three hunting events, and whether or not they truly represent bison jumps. It is an unprecedented adaptive strategy for North American Paleoindians if they do. Second, a lower layer includes remains of mammoth and other Pleistocene megafauna of ambiguous origin. Previous researchers have argued that these 14,600-year-old remains also reflect human activity, but this has never been verified. If the lowest deposits were confirmed as human-related, the site would rank among the earliest in America. This presentation will review the new investigations at Bonfire Shelter by ASWT, and present some tentative conclusions along with some lingering questions.

DAVID’S BIO: David Kilby is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University and is Co-Director of the Ancient Southwest Texas Project. His research focuses on the archaeology of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Ice Age foragers and the changing physical environment of the North American Southern Plains, West, and Southwest. He is currently undertaking new investigations at Bonfire Shelter in West Texas.

He has also pursued research on Clovis caches throughout his career. David’s current fieldwork includes Blackwater Draw in New Mexico (the Clovis Site) and two new Paleoindian sites in the Texas Panhandle. He is the editor of the books Clovis Caches: Recent Discoveries and New Research and Geology, Archaeology, and Climate Change at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, and the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles on Paleoindian archaeology.

TOPIC: “Connellee Peak (41MY5): A Geographically Aberrant Middle Ceramic Period Mesa Top Community in Motley County, Texas”

SPEAKER: Dr. Christopher Lintz, Research Associate, Texas State University

The Connellee Peak site is a small mesa top occupation located in the Middle Pease River drainage in Motley County that has been historically known at least since 1886. The occurrence of flakes, bone, chipped and ground stone tools, prehistoric pottery, and ashy deposits on top of the mesa, as well as more than a dozen deep mortar holes in talus slope boulders attest to prolonged and intensive prehistoric occupations at the site.

Abundant historic graffiti occurs on the sides of the mesa, and even a few turn-of-the-century photographs document that the mesa has been a favorite recreation area since the 19th century. The mesa top sediments were extensively vandalized by a family of relic hunters and their friends between 1947 and 1993 when the patriarch died. The local bank in Matador displays three frames containing more than 500 projectile points attributed to this site, which document dominant prehistoric occupations spanning the Late Archaic through perhaps Late Ceramic Periods (ca. 3,000 to 300 years ago).

A collection of more than 1,800 plain and cord-marked potsherds from Connellee Peak was given to a family friend during the excavations. Over the years, considerable efforts at matching and restoring vessel portions have reduced the pottery assemblage to 1,531 sherds from the Late Prehistoric/Middle Ceramic Period (AD 1200 – 1550). No sherds attributed to the Early or Late Ceramic Periods, nor precise trade wares from East Texas or the Southwest are evident in the ceramic assemblage.

The closest recorded site with cord-marked pottery occurs some 75 km to the north in the Red River Drainage. The Connellee Peak cord-marked pottery has a remarkably high incidence of punctated, incised, and modeled decorations relative to the Antelope Peak Phase peoples in the Canadian River drainage of the central Texas panhandle. Although decorated pottery is rare in most Classic Antelope Creek assemblages, sites in Southern Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and the eastern edge of the Texas panhandle display a wide range of decorations that have been inadequately investigated or rigorously documented.

This talk describes the mesa, associated features and petroglyphs, and the decorated cord-marked ceramic assemblage from Connellee Peak. Comparison of the ceramic decorative motifs draws comparisons with those found elsewhere in a preliminary attempt to determine if the Connellee Peak occupation represents a displaced group or a newly recognized group of people with a distinctively different range of motifs in their cord-marked ceramic assemblage.

CHRIS’ BIO: Dr. Chris Lintz, PhD Archeologist from Austin, Texas, is a Research Associate with the Texas State University Anthropology Department. Chris is newly retired from the Wildlife Division of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. While there, he conducted and oversaw the cultural resource studies on 1,200 square miles in 51 Wildlife Management Areas across Texas and also conducted archeological studies for federally-funded wildlife habitat enhancement grants on private lands. He has conducted archeological projects in many states and Puerto Rico in his over 50-year career. He graduated with a B.A. from Arizona State University and earned MA and PhD degrees from the University of Oklahoma.

TOPIC: Constructing Power in the Preclassic Maya: Monumental Architecture and Sociopolitical Inequality at Early Xunantunich, Belize

SPEAKER: Zoe Rawski, Anthropologist, UTSA

This research focuses on the origins of sociopolitical inequality and, eventually, divine kingship at the site of Early Xunantunich in Belize. Rawski examines this topic primarily by analyzing public monumental architecture and how these buildings change over time. She also emphasizes the importance of ritual performance, feasting, and the exchange of exotic goods in the consolidation of sociopolitical power and discusses how this played a role in the development of kingship in the region. She will also discuss some of the exotic materials found, including a set of late Preclassic jade diadem jewels, which are an indicator of early kingship in the region. More on Xunantunich: Xunantunich Maya Site Belize, Xunatunich Wikipedia

ZOE’S BIO: Zoe Rawski is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She received her M.A. from UTSA in 2018 and her B.A. from Hunter College in 2013. In 2017, Zoe was named a National Geographic Young Explorer. Her research focuses on the role of monumental architecture in the rise of sociopolitical inequality and dynastic rulership in the Maya lowlands. She is particularly interested in the strategies implemented in the Preclassic to centralize power and legitimize an emergent Maya elite. She has conducted research at various sites across Belize, most recently focusing on the Preclassic Center of Early Xunantunich in the Mopan Valley, where she is completing her dissertation project.

This Meeting Will Review Our HCAA Site Work:

TITLE (PART 1): Kemosabe: A Rich Multi-Component Site Along The Guadalupe River, Kerr County – Over 7,000 Years Of Archeology

SPEAKER: Steve Stoutamire, Retired Geologist, MS Geology, BA Anthropology, Texas Archeological Stewardship Network, Member of Texas Archeological Society and Hill Country Archeological Association

Kemosabe is an 88-acre archeological project along the Guadalupe River, West Kerrville, Texas. Five years of investigations by the Hill Country Archeology Association reveal that it is a rich multi-component site with solid cultural representations from the Earl Archaic through Late Archaic. Hints of Late Paleo-Indian and Late Prehistoric culture also occur. Kemosabe is similar to the nearby Gatlin Site (41KR621), hailed in literature as one of the 3 most significant Early Archaic sites ever found in Central Texas. The majority of culture at Kemosabe and Gatlin is within sediments of the second river terrace. Approximately 350 cubic meters of soil was hand excavated at Gatlin compared to 84 cubic meters, thus far, at Kemosabe. The artifact density per cubic meter appears more prosperous at Kemosabe, however. Pending final logistics, the TAS 2020 Field School is planned to be held at Kemosabe.

TITLE (PART 2): Stones, Slaves, Caves, Log Cabins, and Arrowheads: Archeological Sites in Kendall County and Beyond.

SPEAKER: John Benedict, Retired TAMU Biologist, BA Biology, Ph.D. Arthropod Biology, Texas Archeological Stewardship Network, Member of Texas Archeological Society and Hill Country Archeological Association

The Hill Country Archeological Association aims to survey and record new archeological sites before being lost to construction, looting, and erosion. Many of our members are engaged in this activity. I will discuss some newly recorded historic and prehistoric archeology sites in Kendall and surrounding counties. These range from a historic slave cabin to a cemetery for former slaves, to prehistoric rock art, to burned rock middens and sinkholes explored for grave sites of prehistoric peoples. Some of these sites represent the first people to live in this area, while others are the first German immigrants to settle here in the 1850s. Others were the first English settlers who came from Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi, some with their slaves, and settled here to grow cotton or set up grist mills to grind grain for flour or make bricks or shingles from bald cypress or charcoal for cooking, or raise cattle and sheep. They all have a story to tell and have left behind bits and pieces of their lives that tell us how they lived and maybe a little of who they were.

SPEAKER: Dr. Elton Prewitt, Research Fellow at TARL, University of Texas, Austin

TOPIC: The Mystery of Painted Pebbles in Prehistoric Cultures

Small painted stones found in dry rock shelters throughout the Lower Pecos Canyonlands have intrigued avocational and professional archeologists for nearly a century. Traditionally interpreted as ritual objects, they often are attributed to women’s roles in increased rituals involving fertility and water abundance, with specific motifs linked to natural phenomena relating to life cycles. Post-painting breakage of painted pebbles is common. Once they were used for their intended purposes, they were no longer sacred and were returned to secular use as mundane tools. Many pebbles, whether whole or broken, display pitting and scratching suggestive of knapping tools.

In this talk, I discuss the history of pebble investigations, the previously defined styles of painted pebbles, and their variability through time. I explore the differences in painting techniques, the colors used, and the kinds of stones selected in the sample of over 700 specimens currently under analysis. Some problems encountered during the analysis of painted pebbles are reviewed, including preservation and post-excavation/collection treatment. Some of the component elements observed and their variation in placement are described. While interpretations of the meaning of the painted images are far from being identified, a few suggestions for avenues of research are provided.

My collaborators on this project are Dr. Jean Clottes of Foix, France, and Dr. Carolyn Boyd, who holds the Shumla Endowed Professorship at Texas State University in San Marcos.

ELTON’S BIO: Mr. Prewitt (B.A., M.A.) is a Research Fellow at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin. A Registered Professional Archeologist, the retired co-founder of Prewitt and Associates, Inc., also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University. He currently serves on the boards of directors of the Shumla Archeological Research and Education Center and the Gault School of Archeological Research.

His area of interest is Texas archeology, and over the past 55-plus years, he has worked in every part of the state. He has authored or co-authored numerous monographs, articles, and book chapters and has delivered over 90 papers, lectures, and talks. His specialty areas include southern plains prehistory, projectile point morphology, regional Texas chronologies, and portable art.

A native of Kirbyville, Mr. Prewitt makes his home near Austin with his wife, Kerza.

TOPIC: Bison: Human Predation and Climate Change

SPEAKER: Dr. Harry J. Shafer, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M

This talk is about bison predation by prehistoric Indians and climate. Bison were valuable resources for food and trade to central Texas Indian groups but were not always present. Over the past 12,000 years, the climate has gradually warmed, but during that time, several cold episodes dramatically affected bison movements into central Texas.

The ebb and flow of bison presence and absence significantly impacted the economy and lifeways of the native Indian groups. Trade, establishing territorial rights, and internecine warfare were all consequences of bison presence. In this talk, I highlight the material expressions left behind during the bountiful and lean times that help us tell the story of central Texas’ dynamic past.

HARRY’S BIO: Dr. Shafer is the Curator of Archaeology at the Witte Museum. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin. He was employed for 10 years as an archaeologist at UT-Austin before moving to Texas A&M University in 1972 to establish the archaeology program. He retired after 30 years of teaching at Texas A&M University and moved to San Antonio.

His research specialty is material culture, especially lithics, ceramics, architecture, and mortuary patterns. His field research areas include Texas, the Mimbres and Jornada areas of the American Southwest, and southern Maya Lowlands in Belize.

Dr. Shafer has authored or co-authored over 300 monographs, journal articles, book chapters, and posters. He has written two books, Ancient Texans: Art and Lifeway Along the Lower Pecos, and Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin, New Mexico, and has co-authored two books, Maya Stone Tools and Field Methods in Archaeology and edited Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. He co-owns an archaeological consulting business Abasolo Archaeological Consultants with Dr. Thomas Hester in San Antonio Texas.

TITLE: With My Own Two Hands: A Survey of Domestic, Military, and Agricultural Lithic Artifacts in the Ancient Near East

SPEAKER: Dr. David Maltsberger, Ph.D., Professor, School of Religion and Philosophy, Wayland Baptist University, San Antonio campus

The lithic story of the Ancient Near East extends from the Paleolithic period into later periods when copper, bronze, and iron implements began to appear alongside earlier stone tools. Yet, the widespread use of stone tools and weapons did not entirely diminish in the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Domestic hand tools, agricultural blades, mace heads, and sling stones provide insights into the extended functionality of these utilitarian collections that allowed for the settlement and conquest of the Near East despite changes in social structures and political rule.

Beginning with a survey of the development and spread of stone tools across the cultural spectrum, we will examine how various lithic assemblages that appeared by the Neolithic Period evolved and remained an integral part of the life of the peoples of the Levant for millennia side by side with their more durable metal counterparts.

DAVID’S BIO: David Maltsberger is a Professor in the School of Religion and Philosophy at Wayland Baptist University’s San Antonio campus. Since 1984, he has participated in and served as principal investigator on archaeological projects in Israel, Jordan, and Turkey. His work has included studies of Late Bronze Age scarabs and seals in Israel, several surveys of Jordanian megalithic funerary monuments of the Early Bronze Age, and, more recently, studies of Greco-Roman sacred iconography in SE Turkey. He and his wife, Elaine, live in Boerne and have four adult children.

TITLE: An Investigation into Late Prehistoric Trade Fair Sites in Texas

SPEAKER: Eric Schroeder, BA, MA, MS, Anthropology, Archeology, Geography

Archeologists have used the term “trade fair” to describe a cluster of spatially distinct contemporaneous artifact assemblages within a particular site representing distinct cultural groups engaged in exchange. Such an inference has been taken as somewhat tenuous, as it is based largely on conjecture and lacks the robustness to be considered a meaningful archeological pattern. This talk seeks to enhance our understanding of prehistoric trade fair sites by proposing an improved model of this phenomenon – one that incorporates ethnohistoric and ethnographic data on native trade practices.

ERIC’S BIO: Eric Schroeder is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, writing his dissertation on how prehistoric mobile populations in Texas between A.D. 1250 and 1700 organized their internal politics. His work focuses on the particular strategies tribal and group leaders employed to establish and maintain leadership and control over intertribal coalitions. In addition to his academic interest, Eric is a long-time professional in archeology and historic preservation and operates his own archeological consulting firm out of the Austin area. Eric was raised in West Texas, where, as a young lad, he learned the value of a good, hard day’s work as a farmhand on his family’s farm. He is a retired US Army combat veteran living in Bastrop County with his wife, Susan.

TITLE: The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas

SPEAKER Dr. Carolyn E. Boyd, Research Director and founder of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center

The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created some of the most spectacularly complex, colorful, extensive, and enduring rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate painting that spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River. In discussing the White Shaman Mural, Carolyn E. Boyd takes us on a journey of discovery as she builds a convincing case that the mural tells a story of the birth of the sun and the beginning of time—making it possibly the oldest pictorial creation narrative in North America.

Unlike previous scholars who have viewed Pecos rock art as random and indecipherable, Boyd demonstrates that the White Shaman mural was intentionally composed as a visual narrative, using a graphic vocabulary of images to communicate multiple levels of meaning and function. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as insights from ethnohistory and art history, Boyd identifies patterns in the imagery that equate, in stunning detail, to the mythologies of Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec and the present-day Huichol. This paradigm-shifting identification of core Mesoamerican beliefs in the Pecos rock art reveals that a shared ideological universe was already firmly established among foragers living in the Lower Pecos region as long as four thousand years ago.

DR. BOY’S BIO:Dr. Carolyn E. Boyd is the Research Director and founder of a nonprofit corporation, Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center (www.shumla.org). The organization’s mission is to preserve through documentation and education the prehistoric art of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. She serves as Research Professor at Texas State University. Boyd received her doctorate in archaeology from Texas A&M University based on her analysis of the 4,000 year-old rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas. She is the author of Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, published in 2003 by Texas A&M University Press and The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative, available through the University of Texas Press in the fall of 2016. She has published in numerous peer reviewed journals, such as Antiquity, American Antiquity, Latin American Antiquity, Revista Iberoamericana de Lingüística, and Archaeometry and has contributed chapters in several edited volumes. Boyd teaches Field Methods in Rock Art, a three-week field school offered through Texas State University, gives numerous lectures around the country and abroad, serves on graduate committees, and is the Principal Investigator for the Lower Pecos Border Canyonlands Archaeological Project.