uniface
Silver Member
Copied & posted his articles about Texas scrapers a while back. Here's another one -- enjoy 
From time to time I have written articles about some of the various cherts and stones used by the Native Americans to make tools and projectile points. Generally speaking when an archeological site is partially or totally excavated, most of the stone artifacts found in the excavations are made of local material. This is true especially in Central Texas where the high-grade Edwards Plateau chert is so abundant. However, the farther east one looks at sites, the material recovered from excavations will be more diversified coming from many sources. Here in the Trinity basin, we have numerous areas which have a shallow covering of what is referred to as Uvalde gravels or in some cases, just plain upland gravels. I personally don’t have the expertise to be able to separate the two types. Archeologically we see a lot of tools and projectile points made out of the quartzite cobbles found in these upland areas. However, the farther back in time we go, we find artifacts associated with the Paleo and Early Archaic groups are more likely to be made out of exotic chert. In this case exotic means the better high-grade material imported here from other areas. Some of those early groups were willing to make a few tools out of the quartzite but rarely did they use the material for projectile points.
Recently, I have been trying to get either a good picture or an actual sample of a stone known as Duck River, Tennessee, chert. About 15 years ago, I saw a broken Dalton point found in Hill County on the other side of Hillsboro made out of a very different looking piece of chert. One archeologist who happened to be present at the time made the statement this piece looked like Duck River material. Needless to say, if this was chert from Tennessee found near the Brazos River, this would be an interesting discovery to find an artifact dating to around 10,250 years ago made out of a material from many, many miles away on the other side of the Mississippi River. Today I decided to type in Duck River chert on the Internet to see if someone had put a photo of the stone on the Internet. So far I have not been successful but low and behold on page seven, there was one of the articles written by me for the Corsicana Daily Sun. I hate to admit this but it actually startled me to make this discovery. To find people in other states reading some of my material is a little bit unnerving. I sure hope I was accurate in what I wrote. This particular article was the one I wrote about the Harahey Knife and just to make sure I cover my bases, the illustrations used came out of my favorite typology book “A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians” by Ellen Sue Turner and Thomas Hester. I have discovered not every projectile point found in Texas, especially North Central and East Texas, is in this book simply because there have been a few points usually found in other states north or east of Texas occasionally found in this area. When this happens, one needs to search for illustrations in books from other states.
Recently, I have been writing about how projects which require, first of all, surveys to see if anything significantly associated with archeology will be destroyed when the project is built. If sites are found, a general plan or outline will be formulated by one of the two main governing agencies, the Corps of Engineers or the Texas Historical Commission, so that the project can receive a construction and clearance permit. In the case of the Richland/Chambers Lake project, there wasn’t any doubt a number of significant sites would be found during the initial survey which would require further excavation or mitigation. Since the lake project was so large, roughly 45,000 acres, everyone involved knew it would require several years of work. In one sense this was a great way to approach this project. The first season survey and testing, then deciding which sites should receive further work. Then first part of the second season was spent excavating parts of a number of sites. Then the last half of the second season, do all of the necessary lab work such as washing, numbering and bagging artifacts along with analyzing the recovered material. Once this was done, a general meeting was held between all interested parties to see what should be done in the next season. By this time, they realized some of the sites initially thought to be significant turned out not to be as good as they hoped while others showed to be more promising. The plan for season two was then drawn up with the new modifications put into place. Shortly after the meeting was held and the new plans were submitted, the field crew went back to work. Occasionally during each season a brief meeting was held by all the parties to see if any revisions were needed. Some modifications were instigated from time to time in an effort to get the most amount of information for the dollar invested out of each site. Needless to say, none of the sites were totally excavated and there wasn’t a need to completely excavate a site. Get as much information as you can and leave part for the future. If per chance 20 or 40 years from now the lake is drained, archeology will have progressed whereby we might have a better understanding if future excavations were carried out on these sites.
Finally, after the final season’s field work was completed, everything had to be washed, numbered and bagged because one of the requirements for the owner of a project like this is all artifacts have to be curated in a safe storage location. There are only a few organizations recognized as acceptable depositories. In the case of Richland/Chambers Lake, Southern Methodist University is charged with this responsibility so all of the materials recovered from the project are stored at SMU. For the archeologists involved with the project, they must analyze all of the artifacts, both prehistoric and historic and then publish their findings. For the Richland/Chambers project a five-volume set of books was written. Volume I is an overview of the entire project, both historic and prehistoric, and Volume II and III reported all of their findings in the prehistoric excavations while Volume IV and V covered the historic discoveries. The books were printed for the various parties involved in the project but they cannot afford to make extra copies for the general public. However, from time to time, I may see one of the volumes for sale on the Internet. Now to the original question: Why aren’t there any displays of some of the artifacts available to the general population? Several reasons: Money is number one, two is where do they put this display and who mans it. Security of artifacts is a big issue. They have to be contained in a very secure environment and a facility big enough to house a display requires not only an initial expense for the facility, there is an ongoing cost associated for the daily maintenance of a structure. Then someone needs to be with the display at all times while the facility is open Also, there will be other expenses from time to time. Here in Navarro County we should be thankful for the Reading Collection housed at Navarro College. It is a very nice large collection available to the general public.
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_256181915.html
From time to time I have written articles about some of the various cherts and stones used by the Native Americans to make tools and projectile points. Generally speaking when an archeological site is partially or totally excavated, most of the stone artifacts found in the excavations are made of local material. This is true especially in Central Texas where the high-grade Edwards Plateau chert is so abundant. However, the farther east one looks at sites, the material recovered from excavations will be more diversified coming from many sources. Here in the Trinity basin, we have numerous areas which have a shallow covering of what is referred to as Uvalde gravels or in some cases, just plain upland gravels. I personally don’t have the expertise to be able to separate the two types. Archeologically we see a lot of tools and projectile points made out of the quartzite cobbles found in these upland areas. However, the farther back in time we go, we find artifacts associated with the Paleo and Early Archaic groups are more likely to be made out of exotic chert. In this case exotic means the better high-grade material imported here from other areas. Some of those early groups were willing to make a few tools out of the quartzite but rarely did they use the material for projectile points.
Recently, I have been trying to get either a good picture or an actual sample of a stone known as Duck River, Tennessee, chert. About 15 years ago, I saw a broken Dalton point found in Hill County on the other side of Hillsboro made out of a very different looking piece of chert. One archeologist who happened to be present at the time made the statement this piece looked like Duck River material. Needless to say, if this was chert from Tennessee found near the Brazos River, this would be an interesting discovery to find an artifact dating to around 10,250 years ago made out of a material from many, many miles away on the other side of the Mississippi River. Today I decided to type in Duck River chert on the Internet to see if someone had put a photo of the stone on the Internet. So far I have not been successful but low and behold on page seven, there was one of the articles written by me for the Corsicana Daily Sun. I hate to admit this but it actually startled me to make this discovery. To find people in other states reading some of my material is a little bit unnerving. I sure hope I was accurate in what I wrote. This particular article was the one I wrote about the Harahey Knife and just to make sure I cover my bases, the illustrations used came out of my favorite typology book “A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians” by Ellen Sue Turner and Thomas Hester. I have discovered not every projectile point found in Texas, especially North Central and East Texas, is in this book simply because there have been a few points usually found in other states north or east of Texas occasionally found in this area. When this happens, one needs to search for illustrations in books from other states.
Recently, I have been writing about how projects which require, first of all, surveys to see if anything significantly associated with archeology will be destroyed when the project is built. If sites are found, a general plan or outline will be formulated by one of the two main governing agencies, the Corps of Engineers or the Texas Historical Commission, so that the project can receive a construction and clearance permit. In the case of the Richland/Chambers Lake project, there wasn’t any doubt a number of significant sites would be found during the initial survey which would require further excavation or mitigation. Since the lake project was so large, roughly 45,000 acres, everyone involved knew it would require several years of work. In one sense this was a great way to approach this project. The first season survey and testing, then deciding which sites should receive further work. Then first part of the second season was spent excavating parts of a number of sites. Then the last half of the second season, do all of the necessary lab work such as washing, numbering and bagging artifacts along with analyzing the recovered material. Once this was done, a general meeting was held between all interested parties to see what should be done in the next season. By this time, they realized some of the sites initially thought to be significant turned out not to be as good as they hoped while others showed to be more promising. The plan for season two was then drawn up with the new modifications put into place. Shortly after the meeting was held and the new plans were submitted, the field crew went back to work. Occasionally during each season a brief meeting was held by all the parties to see if any revisions were needed. Some modifications were instigated from time to time in an effort to get the most amount of information for the dollar invested out of each site. Needless to say, none of the sites were totally excavated and there wasn’t a need to completely excavate a site. Get as much information as you can and leave part for the future. If per chance 20 or 40 years from now the lake is drained, archeology will have progressed whereby we might have a better understanding if future excavations were carried out on these sites.
Finally, after the final season’s field work was completed, everything had to be washed, numbered and bagged because one of the requirements for the owner of a project like this is all artifacts have to be curated in a safe storage location. There are only a few organizations recognized as acceptable depositories. In the case of Richland/Chambers Lake, Southern Methodist University is charged with this responsibility so all of the materials recovered from the project are stored at SMU. For the archeologists involved with the project, they must analyze all of the artifacts, both prehistoric and historic and then publish their findings. For the Richland/Chambers project a five-volume set of books was written. Volume I is an overview of the entire project, both historic and prehistoric, and Volume II and III reported all of their findings in the prehistoric excavations while Volume IV and V covered the historic discoveries. The books were printed for the various parties involved in the project but they cannot afford to make extra copies for the general public. However, from time to time, I may see one of the volumes for sale on the Internet. Now to the original question: Why aren’t there any displays of some of the artifacts available to the general population? Several reasons: Money is number one, two is where do they put this display and who mans it. Security of artifacts is a big issue. They have to be contained in a very secure environment and a facility big enough to house a display requires not only an initial expense for the facility, there is an ongoing cost associated for the daily maintenance of a structure. Then someone needs to be with the display at all times while the facility is open Also, there will be other expenses from time to time. Here in Navarro County we should be thankful for the Reading Collection housed at Navarro College. It is a very nice large collection available to the general public.
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/news/local_story_256181915.html
Amazon Forum Fav đź‘Ť
Upvote
0
