My first major field experience came courtesy of the Houston Archeological Society (HAS) in 1961. I participated in the excavation of the Jamison site (41LB1) under the supervision of Lawrence E. Aten. That was a memorable experience because I found my first artifacts under controlled conditions and I was able to see the various stages of preparation and actual excavation. The Society published a report entitled Excavations at the Jamison Site (41LB1) by Lawrence E. Aten in 1967. It was the first report published by HAS.
In 1970, I was part of the field crew during the excavation of the Fullen site (41HR82), a shell midden in Harris County on the Texas Gulf Coast. This project was conducted by Anthropology students at Rice University under the supervision of Frank Hole. A report entitled Archeological Investigations along Armand Bayou, Houston, Texas was published jointly by HAS and the Department of Anthropology at Rice University in 1974 as a Technical Report.
I Participated in the excavation of 41MQ41 in 1975, a Southeast Texas site of the Early Lithic Period. This site was found during a survey of the proposed Scott’s Ridge park on Lake Conroe in Montgomery. Harry J. Shafer was the Principal Investigator and Edward P. Baxter supervised the fieldwork. Harry Shafer and Thomas B. Stearns (1975) authored a report entitled Archeological Investigations at the Scott’s Ridge Site (41MQ41), Montgomery County, Texas.
While a resident of Huntsville, Texas and a student at Sam Houston State University, I embarked on a “windshield survey” of Walker County in 1975. I drove as many roads as I could using Texas Highway Maps as a guide. I stopped at all creek crossings and examined rights-of-way for cultural materials and talked with landowners. I wrote a report entitled An Archaeological Survey of Walker County, Texas that was self published in 1976. In the report, I illustrated artifacts that I observed and/or collected. In all, 37 sites are described. Some of the sites were already known to me but they were included in order to add as many sites to the data base for the county as possible. Only a few copies of this report were made, and one is on file at TARL in Austin, Texas.
I was a volunteer at the UTSA field school in 1977 directed by Thomas R. Hester. The focus was excavation of the St. Mary’s Hall site (41BX229), a Central Texas multi‑component site (Paleo‑Indian/Archaic) in Bexar County.
In 1977, I entered the graduate program in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Dr. Harry J. Shafer was the Chairman of my thesis committee.
Logan McNatt supervised the excavation of site 41WA82, a Southeast Texas Ceramic Period site in Walker County, Texas, and I was part of the crew. McNatt authored a report entitled Archeological Investigations at the Kaygal Recreation Area Site (41WA82), Walker County, Texas that was published by the TAMU Anthropology Department in 1978.
Paul Rushmore supervised testing of the Childress site (41BL180), an Archaic site in Bell County, Texas. This project was conducted by members of the TAMU Anthropology Club in 1977. I was a member of the crew. No formal report was written.
In 1978, I conducted an informal survey of the High Pines Ranch in Real County, Texas. Two occupied rock shelters and an open site were recorded. Site 41RE52 is a small shelter that yielded flakes and a possible arrow point fragment in a single exploratory shovel test. It was recorded at TARL, and no formal report was written.
41RE52
The larger shelter was very rich in terms of lithic debris. Several points were found and the only one that was easily identifiable as a type was a Pedernales point found on the surface. There were chert cobbles embedded in the rear wall of the shelter. This shelter was recorded as site 41RE53. It is discussed in an article titled Report of Testing at the Wells Rockshelter (41RE53): A Middle Archaic Site in Real County, Texas that appeared in 1983 in La Tierra (9(4):26-30.
Field Crew at 41RE53
While a graduate student in Anthropology at Texas A&M University, the field school, under the direction of Harry J. Shafer took place at a Mimbres pueblo on the NAN Ranch near Deming, New Mexico (Grant County). My job description was cook but I also participated on a limited basis in the excavation and assisted the Lab Director on occasion. This site was the focus of several later field schools that I did not attend.
In 1979, I participated as a volunteer crew member in the excavation of the McDuffy site (41GM5), a Southeast Texas site of the Ceramic Period in Grimes County. Steve Usrey was the supervisor.
In 1980, following my graduation from Texas A&M University with a Master’s Degree in Anthropology, I was a crew member on a mitigation project at Rye Patch Reservoir near the town of Lovelock, Nevada in Pershing County. This reservoir impounds waters of the Humboldt River. Three sites (26Pe366, 26Pe450, and 26Pe670) were investigated under the direction of Mary Rusco and Jonathan Davis, directors of the Nevada State Museum. Following this project, I remained in the Reno area and was a crew member for a few small area surveys, also for the Nevada State Museum.
Heartfield, Price & Greene, Inc. (HPG) in Monroe, Louisiana hired me to conduct a cultural resources inventory of the Pearl River basin in Louisiana and Mississippi. This project lasted approximately eight months and involved conducting research at libraries, museums, and research facilities in all counties and parishes bordering the Pearl River. In addition, I visited archaeologists at the various universities and agencies that had relevant information. G. R. Dennis Price was my supervisor at HPG and I reported to Dottie Gibbons, Staff Archaeologist at the Corps of Engineers in Mobile, Alabama. The report was entitled A Cultural Resources Inventory of the Pearl River Basin, Louisiana and Mississippi, published and submitted to the Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, in 1982.
Following the successful completion of this project, I was assigned similar duties for a cultural resources inventory for the previously undocumented segment of the Pearl River. Mr. Price was my immediate supervisor for this project as well. The report documenting this project was entitled A cultural resources inventory of the proposed dry impoundment area north of Ross Barnett Reservoir and field reconnaissance of the Pearl River in the vicinity of Jackson, Mississippi. It was published and submitted to the Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, in 1982. While at HPG, I conducted archival research and edited reports for projects in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi as well as a crew member on a field survey in Missouri.
When my job at Heartfield, Price & Greene, Inc. was terminated, I returned to Nevada and worked part time for a local contract firm in Carson City. My duties were typing site forms and helping prepare reports for past projects. The contract for a major project did not materialize so I returned to College Station to seek employment in Texas.
In the summer of 1983, I was a volunteer at Hovenweep National Monument. My duties included walking the trails to look for lost tourists and signs of vandalism and general chores for the staff. Joe Winter, Professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico, visited the monument with several students to document previously recorded sites for condition and accuracy of location and sketch panels of rock art. I was allowed to join the team for a couple of days and it was a great experience.
Texas A&M was awarded the contract for a survey of the Eastern Training Area at Fort Hood in Bell and Coryell counties. I was part of a six person crew who spent about eight months surveying 24,000 acres of this large installation in 1983 and 1984. Numerous sites (n=468) were recorded and our work was reported in Archaeological Survey at Fort Hood, Texas: Fiscal Year 1983, the Eastern Training Area authored by David L. Carlson, Shawn Bonath Carlson, Frederick L. Briuer, Erwin Roemer, Jr., and William E. Moore that was published by that appears as Research Report Number 11 in the Fort Hood Archaeological Resource Management Series.
Following the Fort Hood survey, I continued to work for the Anthropology Laboratory at A&M as a Secretary and later as a Research Assistant. In 1987, I left to start my own contract firm Brazos Valley Research Associates (BVRA) in Bryan, Texas.
In 1989 while I was conducting research at TARL, Marolea Adams called asking about the possibility of someone coming to her place to look at artifacts that they started finding when they cleared a wooded area for pasture. Carolyn Spock took the call and let me talk to Ms Adams. I made arrangements to visit the site and was impressed with the artifacts they found, especially a small dart point that appeared to represent a reworked Angostura. The site is located on a high ridge overlooking Winters Bayou, a drainage where numbers sites have been documented including 41WA55 just across the drainage on a low knoll. I received a grant from the Texas Archeological Society’s Donors Fund to conduct testing. A report was written with the assistance of John E. Dockall who examined the lithics and Linda Wootan Ellis who analyzed the ceramics. I published it as the first report in my Contributions in Archaeology Series under the title Archaeological Testing at the Derrick Adams Site (41WA100): A Late Prehistoric Site in Walker County, Texas. Few copies were produced, and one is on file at TARL.