Society Activities

TAS Field School

2003 TAS Field School

Excavations at Presidio San Sabá, Menard, Texas

Tamra L. Walter and Grant D. Hall

This summer more than 480 professional and avocational archaeologists joined forces with Texas Tech during the 2003 TAS Field School.  This year's field school was held at the site of Presidio San Sabá (41MN1) in Menard, Texas.  The fort originally established in 1757 was occupied until 1770.  Initially the fort's function was to protect the missionary effort at San Sabá and to help reduce the number of raids being carried out at San Antonio.  Although Mission San Sabá was destroyed shortly after it was established, the presidio remained open until 1770 when it was finally abandoned.  Occupied by various groups after its abandonment including Spaniards, Native Americans, Mestizos and Texans the fort was used for shelter and penning animals.  During the 19th century the town of Menardville was founded and much of the original presidio stone was taken from the site for construction town buildings and even the town cemetery wall.  In the 1930's efforts were made to rebuild a portion of the presidio.  As a result the northwest corner of the fort was rebuilt however due to poor construction the fort collapsed just years after it was built.

This year's excavation focused largely on recovering data from the plaza inside the walls of the fort.  During the TAS field school a total of sixty-five 2.2 meter units were opened inside the presidio compound with intact  Spanish deposits recovered in the majority of these excavations.  Large quantities of Spanish colonial ceramics, military-related artifacts and faunal remains (including and entire horse head!) were recovered during our excavations.

Prior to the TAS excavations, Texas Tech University held three field schools at the site not including the 2003 Tech Field School.  Finding and exposing original architecture and defining activity area within the site were primary goals for these previous investigations.  Although sections of what is believed to be the original northwest bastion were uncovered and several rooms along the inside walls of the fort have been exposed, these investigated areas constitute only a small portion of the site.  Furthermore, only limited excavations were completed within the presidio plaza/ Given the size of the fort, roughly 348x324 ft, obtaining a good representative sample from with the walled compound was beyond what a 5-week field school could achieve in one summer.  The TAS, however, provided a work force that could accomplish in one week what the Tech filed school would have taken years to complete.

Three primary goals were established for the TAS field season at the presidio.  First, we wanted to determine the presence or absence of intact deposits across the site.  Conveniently located on what is today the Menard golf course, a golf green dominated the southern half of the presidio and a paved country club road that extends east-west across the fort bisects the site.  Assessing the amount of damage incurred by these modern disturbances was an important objective for this year's field school.  A second major goal was to recover information regarding the daily activities of the presidio residents.  Exposing and defining features inside the fort walls will be a crucial part of understanding the daily lives of those who lived at the presidio.  Our final goal was to continue to focus on exposing original architecture not related to the 1930's reconstruction and also to search for evidence of the first "temporary" fort (Weddle 1999) built some 5 years before the stone presidio was erected.

With these goals in mind, the site was divided into seventy 10 meter squares.  Within each 10 meter square a 2x2 meter unit was laid out in the southwest corner.  Seventy 2x2 units were established, 65 of which were actually excavated.  The large sample provided by this excavation strategy is helping to shed light on many of the questions concerning the layout and preservation of the site but, not surprisingly it is also raising a myriad of new questions.

To our great surprise many of the units in and around the golf green yielded intact Spanish deposits containing bone, ceramics, gunflints and a variety of metal artifacts.  Only a few units were devoid of Spanish materials.  Interestingly, parts of the original west and east walls were uncovered although the east gate entrance continued to elude us.  Cobble pavements were found in several areas strategically placed just outside the rooms along the inside fort walls.  These rooms presumably served as soldier's quarters and workshops.  The pavements probably helped to keep mud out of the inside of the rooms and served to drain off water.  The remains of what may be a burned post in addition to several post hole features uncovered just north of the country club road offer some of the first possible evidence for the original fort.  Distinguishing these features from jacal structures that might have been built after the stone fort was constructed or from fences or pens put up in the presidio after it was abandoned will require further excavations.

Excavation units near the south wall of the presidio exposed additional architectural features.  Sections of a very thick wall were encountered in at least two units in this area.  The presence of the wall suggests that rooms may have been built along the south wall.  Maps of the fort, including Nicolas Lafora's and José Urrutia's (both made in 1767 during a military inspection of the site), do not show rooms along this wall.  The walls could represent rooms that were added later or they may form part of the powder magazine.  The powder magazine would have been placed away from living quarters in case of an explosion.  Although the maps do not show rooms along the south wall they do however show a curious singular building in the southwest corner of the fort, close to where the sections of wall were uncovered.  It is very possible that at one time this building may have functioned as a powder magazine or arsenal of some type.  Obviously, this area will need to be investigated further during future excavations.

Notably, more than 20 features were identified during this summers' field school.  Comprised primarily of architectural features, daub concentrations, cobble pavements, ash stains and bone middens, the identified features were located across the site including the children's units north of the paved road.

In addition to our excavations, a ground conductivity survey was completed across the site by Bob Crosser and Dick Gregg.  Crosser and Gregg identified anomalies in front of the main entrance gate along the west wall.  Estimated to be anywhere from 20 to 150 cm below the surface.  The anomalies looked suspiciously like graves.  Two 2x2 meter units were immediately open in the targeted areas.  Not surprisingly these anomalies were found near the end of the field school leaving little time for TAS to investigate.  However, after the TAS field school ended.  Tech continued to work at the site for three more weeks and continued to search for the anomalies indicated by Crosser and Gregg.  No anomalies were encountered however and both units were discontinued after a depth of more than 1 meter was reached.

According to Lafora's 1767 map, a chapel was located in the southwest corner of the presidio near the guard house and captain's quarters.  The location of the cemetery however, is not known although presumably it would not have been too far from the church.  The cemetery may have been moved after the presidio was abandoned and it is possible that little remains of the camposanto.  A few very small fragments of human bone were uncovered just south of the northwest corner of the presidio in what appears to be a large refuse midden with profuse amounts of animal bone, ceramics and metal.  The skull of a horse was also found within this feature.  Although a complete analysis is not yet available, a preliminary assessment revealed that only a few fragments of the lower skeleton of the horse were present.

Tech continued to excavate in this area after TAS participants returned home.  Two additional 2x2 units and a 1x2 unit were opened in order to obtain a larger sample from the feature.  This feature may represent a cemetery that was moved and then later filled in with trash by other Europeans and Indians who were known to pass through the area and often times seek shelter in the abandoned fort.  A rigorous analysis of the cultural materials recovered from the feature will be needed to support this theory.

By far, this midden feature has produced more faunal remains than any other area or feature within the site.  Initial inspection of the animal bone indicates that deer, cow/bison, sheep/goat, fish and bird are all represented in the sample.  Alana Lynch, a graduate student from the University of Florida, will be completing the faunal analysis for the site.  At this stage only preliminary statements can be made about the faunal collection taken from the site.  Lynch (personal communication), however, believes that what we are seeing at the site is a situation where the people living at the presidio were struggling to maintain their breeding stock while at the same time prevent starvation.  Many of the bones that were recovered from the site indicate that they were being butchered at a very young age (many under 1 year).  An intensive analysis of the faunal sample is currently underway and will help to address these issues.

Working alongside the TAS, the Texas Tech field school students were concentrating on exposing the architectural remains in the southwest corner and on recovering information from one of the presidio rooms along the north wall.  Nearly 75% of the room in the southwest corner was exposed revealing a hard-packed dirt floor, two post holes and an exterior cobble pavement.  Curiously, the two postholes are outside the south wall between two walls that extend southward beyond the room.  The purpose of these post holes and their association with the two extending walls is unknown but they could be related to an additional bastion that might have been added sometime after 1767 (no bastion is recorded for this corner on the 1767 maps).  Large quantities of daub, faunal remains (including an articulated calf skeleton!), large pieces of majolica ceramic plates, metal artifacts (e.g., a cross, lead shot, sprue), gunflints and glass artifacts were all collected from the excavations in the southwest corner.

In addition to the work accomplished in the field, a tremendous amount of work was also completed in the lab.  Supervised by Joel Butler, a graduate student from Texas Tech University, TAS participants volunteering in the lab processed nearly all the artifacts recovered during the field school.  Artifacts were cataloged and washed and labeling was also completed for some of the artifacts.  Given the large amount of cultural materials collected, the volunteers in the lab are to be commended for all of their hard work and effort.  Please join us again next year!!!

Overall this year's field school was a great success.  It went above and beyond our expectations.  The large sample recovered from the presidio is allowing a much better understanding of this very complex site.  We now have a clearer picture of the site's state of preservation and potential areas for excavations.  Next year we hope to obtain an even larger sample of the site by concentrating not only inside the compound walls but also outside the fort.  We will continue to work in the southwest corner of the site and perhaps extend excavations into the southeast corner of the presidio where the second bastion was located.  Also, the intriguing architectural finds along the south wall of the fort will undoubtedly be a focus for the next TAS field school.  Units that were not opened this year will most likely be excavated next summer.  The golf green will be moved next year so that we may also investigate this portion of the site more intensively.

We could not have asked for a better field school and both Grant and I are enormously pleased with the results from this year's excavations.  We would like to thank everyone who attended this year's TAS field school for all of their hard work and effort and the people of Menard who have supported us greatly throughout the past four years.  We look forward to seeing all of you again next summer.