HCAA General Meeting & Public Presentation
Hosted by the Hill Country Archeological Association
Location
Riverside Nature Center
150 Francisco Lemos
Kerrville, Texas
Date & Time
Saturday, March 21
Doors Open: 12:30 PM
Member Meeting: 1:00 PM
Presentation: Immediately Following
Free and Open to the Public
Featured Presentation
An Archeological Assessment of Cita Canyon Paleontological Site in Palo Duro Canyon State Park
Presented by: Christopher Lintz
Contributions by: Andy Burcham
About the Presentation
Following the Great Depression of 1929, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society secured WPA funds to excavate 15 vertebrate fossil bone bed sites dating 10 to 2 million years ago. The Cita Canyon fossil site employed 20 to 40 laborers for near-continuous field work from 1936 to 1940 under the direction of C. S. Johnston.
Work at the Cita Canyon site investigated six stratified bone beds from 130-foot-tall canyon walls. The site yielded more than a dozen new fossil species attributed to the Blancan Fauna Assemblage dating ca. 4.5 to 2 million years old. Little has been published about the Cita Canyon WPA site work. Mr. Johnston submitted a 187-page manuscript for his Ph.D. dissertation but died before defending his work, and his study was never published.
This presentation briefly discusses the geology and late Cenozoic Epoch environment and animals of the Texas Panhandle to provide context for the Cita Canyon site fieldwork. Emphasis then shifts to Mr. Johnston’s remarkable career, his role in securing WPA funds for paleontological and archeological projects in the Panhandle, and the politics surrounding his death at age 40. The field methods employed during the WPA excavation are reconstructed from available WPA photographs.
Our Guests
Presenter:
Chris Lintz
Chris Lintz is a retired prehistoric archeologist who has worked on archeological projects in 17 states and Puerto Rico over the past six decades. He earned his M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees from the University of Oklahoma documenting the Middle Ceramic period Antelope Creek phase in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle.
Most of his career involved participating, directing, and managing multidisciplinary archeological projects ranging from reservoir projects to military and highway projects. He also spent almost a decade serving as the first professional archeologist for the Wildlife Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Over the past 55 years he has focused his research interests on the sites and cultures of the Southern Plains and adjacent areas, and has published monographs and articles on important excavated projects that languished incomplete in museums. He is an Archeological Steward of the Texas Historical Commission for the Texas Panhandle region and a member of more than a dozen organizations and societies. He resides in Austin, Texas.
Contributor:
Andy Burcham
Andy Burcham is a chemical engineer who retired in 2015 and has focused his attention on the archeology of the Texas Panhandle. In 2016, Andy spent innumerable time at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum transcribing the late Jack Hughe’s multi-decade-long PPHM archeological site forms and daily field trip journals into the site form format used by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL).
In 2019 he joined the Texas Historical Commission’s Archeological Steward Program and he is a member and archeological liaison with the Potter County Historical Commission. Andy is a member of the Texas Archeological Society, the Panhandle Archeological Society of Texas, and the Caprock Canyons Archeological Society.
He is a liaison with Texas Parks to revisit previously recorded archeological sites in Palo Duro State Park and up-date their conditions and impact threats. He has participated in four TAS summer field school excavations in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Fort Davis (x2), and in Kerrville. Andy and his wife live in Amarillo.