1999 STAA Field School

Somewhere near Junction, Texas, at the end of the rainbow, the STAA held its 1999 Field School, from September 4th-11th.   Fifty-eight old and new STAA members took part in what almost all of us thought was a great experience.  Our hosts, Bill and Julie Stiver, gave us free reign of their 700 acre ranch near Junction in the rugged western Hill Country.  The Stivers wanted to know more about the abundant traces of the human past that they had noticed all over the ranch.   They also had in mind preserving their archeological resources by finding ways that future visitors might enjoy learning and looking.   

Dr. Steve Black of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin served as the Principal Investigator and ran the archeology part of the field school.  Bill Stiver served as Camp Boss and, along with Field School Committee Chair Don Shirley, made sure the logistics worked smoothly.  Field School Committee Members Karen and Mike Fulghum, Roy Craig, Bryant Saner (Publicist), Diane Couch, and Bobby Rector worked in the weeks preceding the field school to make sure everything would be ready.

One of the sites that the were most interested in was a small natural sinkhole (Photo 2) that had been opened and mapped by a team of cavers several years ago.  The cavers quit digging when they encountered bones – human bones – as Bill had asked.  But Bill now had a dilemma – he wanted to leave the cave open for visitors to enjoy, but knew the fragile and already broken bones would be destroyed before long by the elements and traffic.  He asked the STAA to help him explore the sinkhole and document what was found.

What we found was that the sinkhole had been used on several occasions as a cemetery by hunter-gatherers known to archeologists as the Austin Phase culture.  They lived about 1200 to 800 years ago, used the bow and arrow, and did many of the same things that generations of hunters and gatherers had done in the region.  Sinkholes, natural solution cavities in the limestone, were favored places to bury the dead in a rocky country where its often hard to find enough soil to dig a good hole.   

Bioarcheologist Joan Baker (Photo 3), an advanced graduate student at Texas A&M University, took charge of documenting and handling human remains with respect.   One unusual aspect of the sinkhole was its opening – a two-holer (Photo 4).  Working conditions were cramped (Photo 5) but noticeably cooler than above ground.  After a week of excavation we learned that the sinkhole contained the jumbled and fragmented remains of perhaps 6-8 individuals.  About the only artifacts we found were two finely serrated Scallorn arrow points that could have been grave offerings, or, perhaps more likely, the cause of death of one or more individuals. 

We also investigated the Mortar site – a  bluff-top locality overlooking West Bear Creek where numerous bedrock mortars (human-formed holes where seeds, nuts, and pods were pulverized).   Dan Potter (Photo 6), Regional Archeologist for central Texas at the Texas Historical Commission, and his crew mapped the site and carefully studied each of the holes (Photo 7).  Part of their investigation included experimental work – pulverizing acorns and mesquite pods and creating new grinding facets -- shallow depressions often found side by side with the deeper holes (Photos 8 and 9).  

The Mortar site also had a distinctly flat area free of most surface rocks that we dubbed the Mortar Flats.  Mike Fulghum and his crew (Photo 10) spent the week testing Steve Black’s idea that this area may have been used as a Rancheria where brush or hide-covered huts were built.   Many shovel tests and several test pits later they found precious little evidence of residential life (Photo 11).  Another hypothesis bites the dust.  But in one area they encountered lots of burned rocks – spent cooking rocks – just beneath the grass-covered surface (Photo 12).   The rocks were small in size and thickly scattered over a sizable area.  Persistence paid off on the very last day of the field school when a limestone slab-lined cooking feature was uncovered (Photo 13).   This “hearth” or pit appears to be an earth oven – a layered arrangement of coals, hot rocks, plant? food, and earth.  The lining of mostly intact rocks represents the last use episode.  The pit (or others like it nearby) had been used many times, resulting in the overlying scatter of smaller rocks.  Perhaps the earth oven cooking was related to the nearby mortar holes?   One possibility is that the ovens may have been used to bake acorn cakes.

Meanwhile, down in the valley on an adjacent ranch Frank Faulkner and his crew investigated the remains of an 1880s post office we initially thought was called “Viejo” (Photo 14).  Local historian Fredericka Wyatt set us straight – the post office and small ranching community was called Roca Springs, named after  permanent springs along West Bear Creek. We documented the building and through excavation (Photo 15) and careful study learned that the building had seen at least three episodes of use.  Small rectangular holes at the bottom of two opposing walls provided ventilation for the original wooden floor.  Later, a second floor was built over the first, probably after the building was no longer used as a post office.  A final use episode occurred after the building had burned.  Just across the creek Graffiti Rock (Photo 16) bears the marks left by the pioneers who settle the rugged and remote area. 

Back on Stiver Ranch, Roy Craig and his crew (Photo 17) investigated the Upland Midden site.  This site had a small burned rock midden (mounded pile of discarded cooking rocks), but was on a rocky slope and was some distance from permanent water.  Steve suspected that the site was used mainly as a plant-baking locale and that we wouldn’t find evidence that people had actually lived there.  We found that the midden was larger and deeper than suspected, but was surrounded by very little evidence of occupation except for tool making.   Flint (technically, chert) was naturally present in the immediate area and we found abundant evidence that prehistoric peoples had used this resource to make tools. 

Back down in the valley, Karen Fulghum and her crew (Photos 18 and 19) investigated a similar site dubbed the Valley Midden site.  Steve proposed that, because this site was located on the flat floodplain of West Bear Creek and was only a short walk from permanent water, it was more likely (than the Upland Midden site) to have evidence of occupation – people actually living and camping there.  However, we found instead that this site also seemed to be mainly a place where plant-baking occurred. 

The survey crews led by Ken Harlan and Mike Durack moved too fast to be photographed.  From here on we will let the photographs tell more of the story of the 1999 STAA Field School.