XRF Analysis of Residue from a Late Early Archaic Thermal Feature at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Gillespie County, Texas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2021 through 2023, the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio (CAR-UTSA) in consultation with the Intermountain Regional Archaeology Program of the National Park Service (NPS) conducted survey and subsequent testing at the Lyndon B Johnson National Historical Park in Gillespie County, Texas. One of the sites tested during the project was 41GL317, a site that contained an abundance of burned rock features, several of which dated to the end of the Early Archaic and the beginning of the Middle Archaic periods. The subject of this poster is Feature 16, a thermal feature that returned a median radiocarbon date of 6716 cal BP. This feature was distinguishable from the other burned rock features excavated in several ways, including the presence of an unusual, multi-colored powdery residue on the individual rocks. CAR collaborated with UTSA's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to conduct X-Ray Fluorescence analysis of these residues. This poster presents the results of that analysis along with comparison to other features. We then explore the implications of these analyses for the potential function of Feature 16 and associated activities that may have been carried out by the inhabitants of the Park.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53704