Lecture Title: “Mission Period Arrow Points and What They May Tell Us About The People”
Speaker: Dr. Steve Tomka, CRM Project Manager, Raba Kistner Engineering Consultants & former Director of UTSA Center for Archeology Research
Location: Riverside Nature Center – 150 Francisco Lemos, Kerrville, Texas 78028
Abstract:
Archaeologists have for a long time assumed that distinct spear and arrow points reflect or are related to distinct groups of people that made them in the past. Many archaeologists disagree with this perspective. While we do not understand the details of the relationships between people’s identity and the material culture they produce, Tomka will be talking about the implications of historic indigenous groups that joined the Spanish missions of South Texas and the arrow points they made and used. He maintains that the varieties of Guerrero points that are seen in the missions reflect distinct groupings of people that came into the missions from different parts of NE Mexico, South Texas and the Central Coastal Plains.
Bio:
Dr. Tomka earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. He spent many years in Bolivia studying llama herders at 14,000 feet above sea level. Throughout the years, however, his day job was working in Texas archeology, first at Texas Archeology Research Laboratory at UT-Austin, next at Prewitt and Associates, Inc. a private consulting firm in Austin, and then as Director of the Center for Archaeological Research, a research facility of the Department of Anthropology at UTSA. He also taught at UTSA. After his years as Director of the Center for Archaeological Research, Department of Anthropology at UTSA, he now does archeology at Raba Kistner Environmental Inc. in San Antonio. He is working on a book on the five missions of San Antonio and is also studying prehistoric ceramics in his spare time. His main interests are stone tool manufacture, use and repair of weapons and their technology.
The public is welcome to attend this meeting and there is no charge.