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DavidCampbell · Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: My Lucky Site

This rainy, dreary Labor Day turned out to be my lucky day. Around noon I decided to go out walking in the wet weeds to stave off the stir craziness after two straight days of drizzle. Not that we did not desperately need the rain and cooler temperatures, but I had been getting antsy to get out and find something. My neighbor, Sam Lucky, has a small herd of pinto ponies which have gnawed his pasture down to bare dirt on the stepped slopes leading down toward Caney Creek. I had found an intriguing bit of debitage in one of those bare spots several months ago, so I naturally gravitated in that direction today. The first thing I found was a glassy blue black flake of exotic (ie. not from around here) flint. It was not long before I found several telltale chips of white novachert and the familiar gray tinged with red quartzite. Following the eroded horizon of exposed red clay around the base of the first "terrace" I found the broken tip of what looks to be a large to medium dart point made of an exotic flint with concentric brown rings interspersed with light gray. By that time I was getting pretty drenched from the persistent drizzle and headed back to the house to see if I could call Sam and get permission to do a little shallow trenching to find the main campsite. His phone had been disconnected and his dogs were screening visitors at the fenceline so I decided to contact him by snailmail later when the rain let up.
Flushed with success, I could not sit around the hacienda for long, so a couple of hours I went back equipped with my trusty ten inch bolo "trowel" for a little light probing. It wasn't long before I found an end scraper and a core of gray quartzite along with some kind of bone or tooth which was semi lustrous despite being quite ancient according to the relative context. My first impression was that it was part of a mammoth molar but that may be desperately wishful thinking. I kept finding bits and pieces of debitatage and was about to head back in when I found a couple of fairly large pebbles which had the appearance of burned clay. Probing a few inches deeper with the bolo knife, I found lumps of charcoal fused to light colored burned clay. At that point I figured I'd better stop before I screwed up what could possibly be a hearth. Assuming I get Sam's permission, I'll go back with a trowel and grid off a meter to excavate more carefully. I did however label my surface finds today with date and location so that I won't be puzzled when I rediscover them a couple of years later in my pathetic collections of flakes, fragments and odd rocks. Wink

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David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

Sweet, David! (notice the comma Frank Razz

)

If you've got a hearth on private property, and the owner is cool with it, then your gonna have all kinds of fun!! How many terraces up from the current creekbed is the possible hearth? Are there different soils to differentiate where the hearth is stratigraphically?
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Charlie Hatchett
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DavidCampbell · Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:26 pm Post subject:

By terraces I mean berm like landforms which farmers use to slow erosion on sloping land. That's what I'd always assumed they were until a former resident told me the land had never been terraced. The soil layers are quite distinct where exposed and the topsoil has eroded down to the first clay layer where I found the hearth. And yes, I intend to have a great deal of fun with it as soon as I get clear permission to excavate. That "tooth" or whatever it is really got me fired up as it is the first time I've found organic material near artifacts here. I'm crossing my fingers that this hearth doesn't turn out to be the result of some ancient natural fire; that seems to be a common fate for most interesting hearths, especially if there are inconvenient artifacts nearby.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

DavidCampbell · Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:43 pm Post subject:

Late this evening I followed a cloud of dust arising from below my house and the noise of a tractor. It turned out to be my neighbor, Sam Lucky mowing down weeds to stimulate grass replacement in his lower pasture. We had a productive conversation in which I agreed to let him rehabilitate my lower field into a productive hay field for his horses. He was more than agreeable to let me lightly excavate the suspected hearth I'd found and probe for more artifacts as long as I didn't dig anything deep enough to injure his horses. Looks like I'll do just that this week. He also told me he'd found a rather deep hole in his pasture while mowing and two "soap trees" behind his house which are not native to this area but rather Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. Sounds to me as if there were at least a couple of Caddo permanent settlements here and probably groups well before that judging by the artifacts. Looks like I'm on a role again.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

Excellent news, David!! Very Happy

It's a good time of the year for digging.

Keep us updated Bro.
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Charlie Hatchett
www.preclovis.com
http://forum.preclovis.com/

"Pregunte la Autoridad"

DavidCampbell · Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject:

I went out to the Lucky Site to excavate the suspected hearth which I had lost for about a week due to rains obliterating signs where I had pulled up the first nodules of burned clay and charcoal. Having rediscovered it yesterday by a lucky probe after tediously pacing back and forth for a few hours, I returned today. Carefully removing five inches of loam and clay I reached a layer in which no more nodules were to be found. I had begun with a rectangular unit 12X6 inches centered on the spot my probe had found the first nodules just below the surface about 2 inches. Since I was limited by my agreement with the owner not to create a hazard for his horses, I backfilled the hole and began another one at the same depth and width but half the length. Again I stopped when I ceased to find any more significant nodules. The shallow depth was disappointing as was the lack of any diagnostic artifacts, faunal material or debitage. Since there was nothing of any cultural significance to be found, I must conclude that this was a relatively recent natural fire. On the plus side I did find a large red quartzite cobble near there Sunday with two large consecutive flake scars. I'm almost positive this was a tool related to the artifact fragment and debitage I've found there previously. Also I suspect that the main site should I be lucky enough to find it is going to be in the Caddo or Fourche-Maline period. Not quite as exciting as my previous site but I'll take what I can get.
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David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

DavidCampbell · Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:23 pm Post subject:

Another lucky day, though not at the Lucky Site, but right behind my house. I went to check if the water had dried out of the two and half foot deep trench I'd been working on and there it was right at the last place I'd excavated down to the blue arenaceous clay. It was a VERY thick biface with a concave base, somewhat resembling the humpbacked scrapers from the Sulphur River, made of tan orthoquartzite unlike the mottled gray and red stuff I'd previously found. We took digital photos of both sides and as soon as I add some other notable pieces I've found lately, I'll get hardcopies made and scan them. Very encouraging after such a long dry spell, find wise.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

DavidCampbell · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:44 am Post subject:

Sunday the 18th, I went to check out the Lucky site to see if any more artifacts or debitage had eroded out since the last rain. I was encouraged by the large Gary point I found a week earlier down in Caney Creek which matched in material a broken point I'd found at the Lucky site. After a couple of hours of collecting tiny flakes of exotic flint and novaculite I finally began to follow the trail upslope where I found a fairly large nodule of worked Tecovas flint. I began to dig down about 6 inches to the first mottled red and tan clay layer and I found about a dozen significant worked flakes and partial cores. The most significant was a large flake of white novaculite, which I knew from previous experience indicated a work area. In addition to Tecovas flint, I found debitage of red jasper and the usual red and gray mottled quartzite as well as a large flake of dark gray flint whose origin I do not know but it isn't local. I think I've finally found a main work area and it is probably going to turn out to be Fourche Maline, hopefully something earlier will be beneath that.

Toward the end of my four hour dig, one of Sam Lucky's paint ponies snuck up on me and began to nibble on my boot. Startled, I rolled over quickly and narrowly missed getting kicked in the head as the equally spooked paint lashed out with both hind hooves before trotting off.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

DavidCampbell · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:02 am Post subject:

I returned to Caney Creek and the Lucky site yesterday. Of the two, Caney Creek turned out to be the most productive. In addition to three quartzite tools/cores I found a piece of completely mineralized bone. Somewhere on the creek I think there is probably more of a fossilized mammoth as parts of one were found just south of the creek in a field during plowing. These parts are presently on display at the Fannin County Historical Museum. The gravel bars are relatively recent alluvial deposits since digging down one quickly encounters black mud typical of the creek bottoms and uplands to the south. The very bottom of the creek exposes blue clay deposits which no doubt overlay older blue shale as exposed on the Suphur River in southern Fannin County. There are more extensive gravel bars to the west of where I found these artifacts but it will take some serious machete work to access them.

The Luck site produced more debitage, notably of red jasper and mottled orthoquartzite. I'm somewhat hampered by my agreement not to dig too deep and backfill my shallow probes right after I finish. Still I've narrowed down the work area and I expect to find more in the days to come.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."

Charlie Hatchett · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 898 Location: Austin, Texas

DavidCampbell · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 8:03 am Post subject:

I finally hacked my way through a forest of giant ragweeds and visited the Lucky Site again yesterday. Immediately I found a flake of yellowish chert which I think is Tecovas and later I found many more of the mottled gray and red quartzite which is more typical of this site. About the only real items of interest I found were a gray chert end scraper and a clast of black chert both materials being non-local. It's beginning to look as though this is a work site for expedient tools probably for a buffalo kill but again I've found very little in the way of bone in this area and none of it definitively showing butchering activities. The mixture of gray quartzite and finer cherts makes me think this is a multi-occupational site spanning many centuries from maybe Fourche-Maline to late prehistoric Wichita or Caddo. If I were able to excavate as deeply as my old site, I'm sure I would find older material indicating a seasonal campsite over the centuries. None of these surface finds are terribly exciting.
_________________
David Campbell
"The going's getting weird, so I'm turning pro."