Archaeology in the Top of Texas: The 2008 and 2009 TAS Field Schools
By Scott Brosowske
Introduction
After a twenty-year absence, the Texas Archeological Society (TAS) will once again return to the upper Texas panhandle for their 2008 and 2009 summer field schools. For those not familiar with the archaeology of this vast and somewhat remote region, it is apparent that the panhandle has lagged behind many other parts of the state in terms of the amount of information known about its past peoples. This has largely been a result of the absence of a major university that actively conducts archaeological research in the area and limited amounts of projects, such as reservoir and construction projects, which have required extensive archaeological field work by cultural resource management companies. To help fill these gaps in knowledge, the upcoming field schools will examine a number of research issues that currently remain unknown or poorly understood. Accordingly, participants in the upcoming 2008 and 2009 TAS field schools will have the opportunity to conduct important field research that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on future generations of archaeologists working in this region.
In contrast to typical TAS field schools, the upcoming field schools in 2008 and 2009 will investigate a variety of different archaeological sites. These sites include localities repeatedly occupied over several hundred years by mobile hunter-gatherers, 700-year-old villages inhabited by sedentary horticulturalists, and historic Indian and U.S. military encampments established during the 1860s. While at first glance this may seem like a lot of work to accomplish in two short field seasons, the reader should bear in mind that the scale of investigations planned for most of these sites is really quite limited and should be completed by small crews in a matter of a few days. Even so, since there are many unknown variables, such as weather conditions during the field school or the number of people actually involved in each field school, the proposed research strategies are very flexible and can be adjusted as is necessary.
The fieldwork planned for the field school includes: 1) open block excavations at three sites, 2) limited test excavations at several sites, 3) pedestrian survey, and 4) the recording of previously identified sites. Two archaeological field laboratories will be established to process the cultural materials collected during fieldwork. The following provides a brief introduction to some of the sites that will be studied and the types of the research questions we wish to address through these investigations.
|
