Archaic Hunters and Gatherers of the Balcones Canyonlands: Data Recovery at the Cibolo Crossing Site (41BX377), Camp Bullis Military Reservation, Bexar County, Texas

Summary

This report documents the two seasons (December 1996 to February 1997 and January to July 1998) of data recovery excavations, analyses, and interpretations conducted by Prewitt and Associates, Inc. for the Cibolo Crossing site (41BX377) at the Camp Bullis Military Reservation, Bexar County, Texas. The Cibolo Crossing site is a deep, stratified site situated on a terrace of Cibolo Creek. Artifacts, features, and other materials recovered from the site represent seven defined components spanning the Paleoindian to Late Prehistoric period. The site was used as a short-term, task-specific (hunting?) camp during the Paleoindian and first part of the Early Archaic periods. Frequent flooding during the early Holocene rendered the locality undesirable in terms of a base camp or habitation site. By the middle Holocene, the terrace had aggraded to a level beyond the reach of all but the highest floods and late Early Archaic hunters and gatherers using Martindale dart points occupied the site on a relatively long term basis, as evidenced by a greater amount of cultural debris representing a variety of activities. Soon after this time period, the surface of the site was severely eroded. The site was subsequently occupied as a base camp by early Middle Archaic hunters using Bell-Andice dart points. After a ca. 2,000–3,000-year absence, hunters and gatherers returned to the site during the Late Archaic period. The site was used in much the same way, as a habitation site where a variety of activities were conducted. It is suggested that use of the site through time, whether as a hunting or base camp, focused on the exploitation of higher-ranked resources, such as bison and deer, that were abundantly available at low costs throughout the Cibolo Creek basin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• National Archeological Database (NADB)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Cultural Resource Office, Joint Base San Antonio

Contributor(s): Wulf A. Gose

Principal Investigator(s): Elton R. Prewitt; Karl W. Kibler

Repository(s): Fort Sam Houston

Prepared By(s): Prewitt & Associates, Inc.

Record Identifiers

NADB Citation ID(s): 000000328014; 000000328013

NADB Document ID(s): 854455; 854454

Notes

General Note: The information in this record was originally migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and has since then been updated.

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