Texas (Other Keyword)
1-25 (49 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In May 1817, French privateer Louis-Michel Aury was at a crossroads. After disembarking filibusters on the northern coast of New Spain and reconnoitering a new camp location in Matagorda Bay, he returned to Galveston Island only to learn it had been usurped by the famed pirate Jean Lafitte. Aury retreated to Matagorda Bay with more than a dozen vessels and...
Analysis of a late Archaic hearth feature at the Debra L. Friedkin Site in central Texas (2017)
The Debra L. Friedkin Site (41BL1239) near Salado, Texas, is the oldest known, continually occupied site in North America. While the previous focus of excavations and analyses at the Friedkin Site has been on Paleoindian strata, this site also has extensive early and late Archaic components, and recent excavations in 2015 and 2016 uncovered a 3 m x 5 m series of five overlapping hearth features in the late Archaic strata (14C 4,000-1,250 B.P.). Projectile points, tools and organic materials...
Antioch Colony and the Archaeology of Texas Freedmen Descendants (2018)
In the aftermath of the Civil War, a small group of black families founded Antioch Colony in rural Hays County, TX. This enclave of kin-related households rapidly became a beacon for other emancipated blacks who were drawn to the colony’s church and school. The settlement’s growth and stability hinged upon the success of farming households to work together, stay out of debt, and retain their hard-earned land. Archaeological and oral history research focused on the descendants of these pioneering...
Archaeological Investigations of the Treviño-Uribe Rancho (41ZP97), San Ygancio, Zapata County, Texas (2017)
Recent archaeological investigations of foundations and anomalies encountered during a previous ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey at the Treviño-Uribe Rancho (41ZP97) provided insight into the lives of ranchers on the Spanish Frontier in the borderlands region. In 1820, Jesús Treviño was granted the land as part of the Nuevo Santander Colony (c. 1748-1835). By 1830, Treviño constructed a one-room, fortified shelter as an outpost. Additions to this structure created a...
Archaeology of the American Southwest: Comparing the Mythology of the Frontier with Daily Life in Fort Davis, Texas (2018)
The mythology of the frontier has captured the imaginations of generations of Americans. Images of cowboys, ranchers, and gold miners have become the idealized subjects of wild west shows, dime novels, paintings, and films. Even today, the legends of Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, and Calamity Jane are still widely known. In an attempt to examine how these romantic myths have shaped the lives of those living in the Southwest, this poster presentation will analyze 20th century cultural material...
Archaeomagnetic Directional Studies as a Tool for Understanding Feature Form and Function: A Case Study of Two Burned Rock Features in a Multicomponent Site in East Texas, USA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Directional archaeomagnetic techniques were used to propose use-history models for two burned rock features at archaeological site 41AN162, in Anderson County, Texas, USA. While common in the region, such burned rock features are rarely associated with cultural artifacts that indicate their function. Archaeologists have...
At the Precipice of Change: 50 years of Underwater Resource Management at the Texas Historical Commission (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Perspectives on the Future, and the Past, of Underwater Archaeology in the Cultural Resource Management Industry" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. With one of the earliest state-level underwater programs in the nation, the Texas Historical Commission’s (THC) Marine Archeology Program (MAP) has been a leader in underwater regulatory management and guidance for 50 years. In resource management, changes in...
Between the Mythic and the Material: Texas Exceptionalism and Early Austin History (2017)
Popular histories portray the Republic of Texas capital city of Austin between 1839 and 1846 as a crude frontier town, characterized by Anglo-American heroism and material deprivation. By stressing these aspects of Republic-era life, such histories omit many facets of early Austin’s social history, including enslaved forced migration and individualism that diverge from this narrative. This research carefully examines extant objects, architecture, and primary source documents to suggest an...
Blazing Trails and Chasing Scoundrels: Kathleen K. Gilmore’s contribution to Spanish Colonial Archaeology in Texas and the Relentless Pursuit of Presidio Captain Felipe Rabago y Teran. (2017)
No history of Spanish Colonial archaeology in Texas is complete without addressing the accomplishments of Dr. Kathleen K. Gilmore. When reviewing her nearly 50-year career as an archaeologist, one is hard-pressed to find a Texas mission, presidio, rancho, or settlement that Dr. Gilmore did not visit, research, excavate, or write about. Among her most important projects were the missions and presidio of San Xavier in present-day Milam County. While researching the site, Dr. Gilmore became...
Bold Rascals: The Archaeology of Blockade Running in the Western Gulf (2016)
Archaeological study and historical research have combined to present a detailed picture of blockade running in the western Gulf of Mexico during the American Civil War. From the beginning of the conflict until weeks after Appomattox, the Confederate coastline west of the Mississippi was a hive of blockade-running activity, first with sailing vessels and later with steamships. The wrecks of the paddle steamers Will o’ the Wisp, Acadia, and Denbigh, all dating from the final months of the war,...
A Bridge of Ships: The Emergency Fleet Corporation and Texas' WWI Shipbuilding Legacy (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Nuts and Bolts of Ships: The J. Richard Steffy Ship Reconstruction Laboratory and the future of the archaeology of Shipbuilding" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Despite 5,000 miles separation from the battlefields of Europe, Texas waters hide the legacy of at least 32 shipwrecks associated with WWI. To offset Allied merchant losses to German U-boats during the war, the United States Shipping Board...
'Bring Out Your Dead': Contagion and 19th Century Texas Ports (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Disease has long played a powerful role in the shaping of communities, spurring moments of unity for the common health or bringing devastation, sowing deep distrust amongst families, groups of different religious and ethnic backgrounds, and neighboring communities. Before the rise of air travel, coastal port cities often...
Buttoning Up The Social Fabric: Clothing Fasteners Of An Alsatian Immigrant Household (2017)
Excavations of the Biry House of Castroville, Texas have produced a diverse assemblage of clothing buttons dating from the 1840s through the 1930s. This paper explores how these buttons are being used to create a more holistic understanding of the lives of these Alsatian immigrants and their descendants. Such buttons are a common occurrence among domestic assemblages of the 19th and 20th century, but these humble artifacts may actively shape the narratives of individual lives and the communities...
The Castro Colonies Heritage Association's Living History Center: An Introduction to the Archaeological Project (2017)
In the 1840s, empresario Henri di Castro brought Alsatian settlers from the Rhine Valley to south Texas, where the new arrivals joined established Mexican families, German immigrants, and displaced Apache. Today, the Castro Colonies Heritage Association (CCHA) is transforming a 19th-century property into a Living History Center, intended as a focal point for Alsatian heritage tourism. In partnership with the CCHA, Binghamton University archaeologists have completed three excavation seasons at...
Clovis knapping behaviors: What were they thinking!? (2016)
Clovis biface manufacturing represents a complex flaked stone reduction technology (Bradley, et al. 2010:64) where extant evidence has established that Clovis knappers possessed a high degree of skill in their craft. Most Clovis behaviors have been gleaned from data-rich Clovis caches and kill-sites. However, quantitative data is limited on Clovis flaked stone debris, and thus, remains an open research issue. One issue raised is the careful preparation of striking platforms during biface and...
The Contents and Distribution of Middens at Mission Concepción, San Antonio, TX (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Plus Ultra: An examination of current research in Spanish Colonial/Iberian Underwater and Terrestrial Archaeology in the Western Hemisphere." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper presents the results of recent archaeological testing and summarizes the findings of several decades of CRM excavations at the Franciscan Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña, which was re-located to San...
Death in Texas: Burials Patterns Within the Campo Santo of San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio (2018)
In 2016 and 2017, CAR-UTSA conducted limited exploration of a portion of a Campo Santo associated with San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio. As a component of that work, we reviewed a summary of parish records that provided information on roughly 1,800 interments. Focusing on the period between 1809 and 1848, during which time San Antonio transitioned from an outpost on the northern frontier of Mexico to a town under US jurisdiction, we explore three broad categories of death. These are...
El Sauz chert: physical and chemical characterization of a long-used lithic resource in south Texas (2016)
El Sauz chert is a lithic resource in south Texas that was used to make stone tools dating from Early Archaic (3500-6000 BC) to Late Prehistoric (AD 700) times. Located in Starr County, Texas a few miles north of the Rio Grande are two chert quarries associated with altered rhyolitic ash of the Catahoula Formation. Given its restricted occurrence, El Sauz chert offers a unique opportunity to study prehistoric exchange and resource procurement. Tools of this chert are common east of the...
Exploring Occupation Patterns in the Lower Pecos and Central Texas Regions over the Last 9,000 Years using Radiocarbon Dates (2017)
We use summed probability distributions derived from radiocarbon sequences as a gross measure of prehistoric occupation patterns for two regions in Texas. The first sequence consists of over 325 dates from the Lower Pecos Region, located along the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers. The region has over 40 years of radiocarbon dating, with dates in this database coming from multiple excavation projects that were frequently focused on shelters and cave. The second dataset comes from the Upper San Antonio...
Faunal Data from Calder Alley, San Antonio, Texas (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Plus Ultra: An examination of current research in Spanish Colonial/Iberian Underwater and Terrestrial Archaeology in the Western Hemisphere." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Raba Kistner recently conducted excavations in Calder Alley, located in downtown San Antonio, Texas, between the Presidio San Antonio de Béjar (traditionally known as the Spanish Governor’s Palace) and San Pedro Creek. Excavations...
"A Formidable Looking Pile of Iron Boilers and Machinery": The Conservation and Reconstruction of USS Westfield. (2017)
During the American Civil War, USS Westfield served as the Union's flagship for operations along the Texas Gulf Coast. On January 1, 1863, Westfield was destroyed by her captain at the Battle of Galveston to avoid capture. In 2009, the disarticulated artifact debris field was recovered from the Texas City Channel in advance of a dredging project. After five years of extensive conservations efforts, these artifacts were reconstructed into a large exhibit at the Texas City Museum. This...
From the Prehistoric to the Hippie-era: An Archaeological and Historical Inventory of Peaceable Kingdom, Washington County, Texas (2013)
Peaceable Kingdom (PK) is a 250-acre property situated within the Brazos River drainage basin in Washington County, Texas. Initially part of land owned by one of Stephen F. Austin’s original 300 colonists, the property has experienced a unique and colorful history including an African-American freedom colony and a 1970's school for self-sufficient living. In the summer of 2012 the Texas Tech Archaeological Field School launched a full-scale pedestrian survey of PK in order to inventory all...
Gender And Adaptation On The Texas Frontier (2017)
The Biry House in Castroville, Texas is an archaeological site which presents a unique perspective on frontier life through the eyes of Alsatian immigrants who were thrust into a strange and sometimes hostile new environment. This study examines the ways in which the frontier setting may have affected gender roles and daily responsibilities. It will also examine how these might have changed over time as the residents of the Biry House adapted and settled into their surroundings over successive...
Generations of farming in Jim Crow's East Texas (2017)
Life following emancipation in the southern United States during the late nineteenth and twentieth century was marked by painful static continuities and contradictions as people worked to dismantle deeply engrained structures and ideologies of white supremacy. The following considers this period of transformation on a local scale, looking at the household consumption choices of the Davis family, members of the Bethel African American community in East Texas. They and their fellow black neighbors...
Geoarchaeological Investigation at Buffalo Ranch Site, Burleson County, Texas (2017)
The Buffalo Ranch site is exposed at the base of a cutbank along the Brazos River in Burleson County, Texas. Here, two transitional Paleoindian- Early Archaic Wilson and Big Sandy projectile points along with other artifacts were found eroding from a silty sand deposit believed to be a prehistoric natural levee. This layer and its associated artifacts lie approximately 14 m below the ground surface. Its stratigraphic position indicates an age of approximately 8000 to 8500 14C yr B.P., which is...