HCAA GENERAL MEETING, May 17, 2014, 12:30pm
Lecture Title: North America Before Clovis
Speaker:
Dr. Michael Collins, Research Anthropology, Texas State University (learn more)
Location:
Riverside Nature Center – 150 Francisco Lemos, Kerrville, Texas 78028
Abstract:
The Gault and Friedkin Sites in Central Texas comprise a small but important part of an emerging mosaic of seven distinct temporal-spatial patterns in th
e older-than-Clovis archaeological record of 
North America. This record begins more than 20,000 years ago and places Clovis near the middle, rather than the beginning, of the span North American Prehistory. Of particular interest is the diverse adaptations and the specific environments for each pattern.
Biographic Sketch:
Michael B. Collins, PhD, Research Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University, is a prehistorian specializing in the study of the earliest cultures in the Western Hemisphere from the perspective of geoarchaeology, stone tool technology, and diverse archaeological approaches. His current research stance has developed over the more than 50 years of his archaeological career, beginning in West Texas during the drought of the 1950s. Wind erosion laid bare vast areas of the Southern Plains, exposing fossils of Pleistocene mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, and bison and many archaeological sites of all ages. Fascination with these finds stimulated an interest that has led Collins to work in the Near East and Europe as well as North, Central, and South America. He has published close to 200 articles, book chapters, reports, reviews, and monographs, many of which relate to the archaeology of Texas.