Bonfire Shelter Archaic Occupations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Bonfire Shelter in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas provides evidence of sporadic human occupation of the site across the Archaic period. The deposits known as the Intermediate Horizon, bound by two bison bone beds dating to ca. 12,000 BP and 2500 BP, do not reflect the persistent site reuse seen at other rockshelters in Eagle Nest Canyon. Bonfire lacks features typical of those other rockshelters such as accumulation of burned rock midden deposits from repeated plant baking, bedrock mortars, rock art, and burials. Instead, only four isolated thermal features have been identified and recorded from the Intermediate Horizon. These features provide an opportunity to describe discrete events related to subsistence activities, how those may have changed across the Archaic, and differential use of rockshelters in the canyon. This paper presents the most recent interpretations of these Bonfire Archaic features and new radiocarbon dates placing them into the greater context of contemporaneous occupations of other Eagle Nest Canyon sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39726.0