Investigating the Cody Complex at the Capshaw site, a Late Paleoindian site in Texas

Summary

This paper presents the results of an investigation conducted at the Capshaw site, a lithic scatter site, located within the Southern High Plains region in the panhandle of Texas. The Southern High Plains region is well-known for its rich archaeological record of Paleoindian peoples, however the Cody period remains relatively poorly understood. The paper will first describe the history of the site from its discovery in 2013 through archaeological surveys with explorative field school excavations conducted in 2015. Magnetomerty survey was conducted in 2017 as an attempt to locate buried cultural features. Further excavations were carried out later in the Fall of 2017. However, the focus of this paper is to present the results of the lithic and geoarchaeological analyses of the material from the Capshaw site in order to interpret whether Cody peoples used the site as a residential camp, a kill site, or a special activity site by comparing the assemblage to models derived from archaeology and ethnology. The Capshaw site represents a unique set of data which could help answer broader questions regarding Cody period settlement and social organization in the Plains region. Lastly, this paper also comments on the direction of future research about Cody peoples.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21007