Anna Schauteet, Texas Historical Commission – Archaeology Division

During the spring 2014 semester, I completed an internship in the archaeological division of the Texas Historical Commission. I had many projects, such as helping to check the artifact database of the La Belle, one of the ships that was a part of La Salle’s ill fated colony; clearing brush at a newly-discovered, Nineteenth-Century cemetery at a park in south Austin; curating plain rim pottery from an archaeological site here in Texas; and excavating at the Eagle Bluff site.

Although these other tasks made up a lot of my internship, my main project was to write the artifact description section for Eagle Bluff’s site report, which is a reference document that provides the geographical background of the site, tells what is found during excavation, categorizes the artifacts discovered, and, ultimately, discusses interpretations of archaeological findings.

The Eagle bluff site is located on a ranch in Hondo, Texas and as a whole, measures about 200 x 150 meters (Leatherman, 2013). From excavation, evidence of consistent Native American use of the site for nearly 7 millennia has been discovered (Mercado-Allinger, 2013). The earliest occupational group of the site might be Toyah-related, but this has yet to be verified (Jones, 2014). The reason for this is that, so far, there is not enough evidence to link any of the known historical groups in the area to the archaeological record (Jones, 2014). Although we do not yet know the specific group of people who had settled there, by creating this site report we will begin to establish an overall site occupation history.

The site is divided into four excavation areas. This essentially means that there are four separate pits of excavation and they are labeled accordingly as area 1, 2, 3, and 4. For this project, I focused on area 2, which consists of 6 sub units that were created for documentation purposes during excavation (Fig. 1). Area 2 has produced artifacts from the Late Historic, Early Historic, Late Prehistoric, and the Late and Middle Archaic periods. This is a time span from about 6500 BP to the early 1700’s (Leatherman, 2013). So far, in my work I have gotten down to level 6 in the unit, which is 70-80 cm deep, but our deepest unit in area 2 is about 350 cm deep.

To create the artifact description, one must first go through all the lots and assign artifacts to their relevant typologies (categorical labels). A “lot” is the group of artifacts that are found in a specific level during excavation. For debitage, these typologies include primary flakes, which have cortex remaining all along the dorsal side of the flake; secondary flakes, which have some cortex remaining that does not cover the whole side; tertiary flakes, which have no cortex remaining at all; and shatter, which are pieces of debitage that do not fit the mold of a traditional flake because they lack the bulb of percussion and ripples of normal flakes. Finally, as all these are sorted into the categories mentioned, one is also looking for edge-modified flakes. These are flakes that have been modified on the edge to be utilized as a tool.

After all of these categories have been differentiated, the primary, secondary, tertiary flakes, and shatter are all counted and weighed. This helps to give the researcher knowledge of how much debitage is being found in each level and, ultimately, can reveal the degree of occupation that was occurring during a certain period of time. Then, the flakes and shatter are placed in their own bags with tags that specify what they are.

Next, forms must be filled out for the artifacts that have been classified as “special”. The in depth analysis of certain artifacts over others varies depending on the research question presented. In this case, the special forms are used to insure detailed analysis is completed on certain artifacts because not only do these artifacts give us vital information in the present, but they could also tell us something in the future. So, having detailed information recorded about them will make this future research much more accurate. The edge-modified flakes have a specific form that asks for the length, width, weight, and color of the flake. The form also asks for a sketch of the flake with indications of whether it is the ventral or dorsal view of the flake, where the length and width measurements were taken, where the base of the flake is located, and where the modification is (Fig. 2). Some other artifacts that require their own artifact forms include projectile points and bifaces. The biface forms are similar to the edge modified flake forms, with the only difference being the categories.

Anna documenting a projectile point.
Anna documenting a projectile point.

Identifying the projectile points proved to be the most difficult task, because even the slightest variation on the point could make it a different typology. Also, these forms go into much more depth, asking for the length, width, thickness, weight, grain of the chert and the color of the whole point. Then, the form asks for the type of point, type of base, and if the stem is concave or convex. Next, the form asks for the measurements of length, width, and thickness taken individually from the stem and blade of the point. The last part of the projectile point form is the sketch which asks to indicate where the length and width measurements were taken from, any broken edges which may be present, and any retouching or reshaping which may be present on the point (Fig. 3).

Over the duration of my internship, I provided descriptions for hundreds of artifacts and, even with my work, there are still hundreds to go. Once all of this data has been collected and documented, someone will come along and type up the artifact description chapter. This chapter is what will go in to the actual site report. Ultimately, although my part of the process is important, it is only the beginning of the many stages that make up a site report.

From this project, my knowledge has been greatly expanded. Not only have I acquired new skills for completing archaeological tasks, but I now also understand in depth why these processes are important. As an archaeologist, everything that you discover can tell you something, even down to the dirt. So, in depth analysis and the recording of these findings are essential to properly interpret the truth of our history, which is the goal behind everything archaeologists do in the field and in the lab.

Anna at the Texas Historical Commission
Anna at the Texas Historical Commission

References