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Region 12

Meet the Regional Director — Paul M. Smith

Regional News — March 2008

For the last six months and particularly on September 9, the Southern Texas Archeological Association (STAA) has worked with the Center for Archeological Research (CAR) in the development of the site at Floresville, Tx known as the Rancho de las Cabras.  This site, one of the missions of San Antonio distant stock ranches, promises great potential with its 18th century ranch house and other buildings.  CAR and STAA have used it for public awareness and excavation training, showing an extension of the mission system from San Antonio.

On September 24, STAA and the Hill Country Archeological Association (HCAA) held a joint meeting with barbeque and a speaker at Kerrville.  Dr. Harry Shafer spoke on “Woodland Cultures in East Texas and Central Texas Connections” to the attendees.

Archeology Month brought STAA to Mission San Jose on October 6 for the invited public to participate in native skills such as spears thrown with an atlatl and petroglyph painting, among other opportunities.  Flint knapping was demonstrated and questions answered by the knappers, Bill Csanyi, Paul Smith, and Beth Stenstrom.  Dr. Steve Tomka and Marybeth Tomka were among the speakers who made presentations.  Compared to previous years’ thousand plus, the attendance was less than six hundred.

The HCAA Archeological Fair on October 20 saw a reduction in attendance from previous years’ 500 plus to less than 300.  Many native skills were demonstrated and participation was included in headband construction and petroglyph cave painting.  Flint knappers, Bill Csanyi and Paul Smith, identified artifacts and demonstrated the making of artifacts. Dr. Brit Bousman spoke about “History of Archeology/Artifacts from the Jacque Boucher de Perthe Site in France.”

Jose Contreas and Paul Smith recorded four sites, two in Uvalde and two in Kimble counties on October 7. T he Kimble sites were the result of a new landowner requesting a ranch land review with the identification of campsites with debris.

STAA was extremely busy for the 90 days prior to the TAS State meeting in San Antonio’s Menger Hotel on October 26-28.  Their leadership demonstrated a highly successful meeting for housing, breadth of lecture subjects, and a hundred other events behind the scenes.  The state meeting will be covered in depth in this bulletin.

The HCAA held their bi-monthly meeting on November 17 with CAR’s Antonia Figueroa speaking about the second look at the Pavo Real site closely adjacent to Loop 1604 in northern San Antonio.  They were so close that they had to wear hard hats and blaze orange vests and use backhoes to remove 10 feet of fill to reach to reach the natural surface.  This activity was a continuation of a TxDOT excavation, which revealed several Clovis and some Folsom artifacts in 1979 and 1980.

STAA continues fieldwork with a February 23-24 weekend session at the Ingram Ranch near Goliad where they found a Late Prehistoric site with perdiz points and bison bones.

STAA laboratory sessions on selected weekends started again on March 1 at the UTSA Center for Archaeological Research (CAR).

CAR’s Legacy Program worked last summer with school children and adults at Floresville’s Rancho de Las Cabras (the 18th Century San Antonio Mission Espada ranch headquarters), a National Parks Site. In summer 2008 it will be the UTSA Field School site. For more information use the link http://car.utsa.edu/lascabras.doc.

HCAA continues site surveys in Real, Kendall, Kerr, and Gillespie counties with chert quarries and occupation sites noted.  Their laboratory sessions organize the results of excavations and train members in artifact recognition.

HCAA met January 19 with Dr. Clark Wernecke, Project Director of the Gault School of Archeological Research, speaking on “The Gault Site: What has it told us so far?”  The HCAA elected their 2008 officers with Dorothy Grayson as President and Steve Stewart as Vice President.  The Treasurer is Bill Csanyi and the Secretary is Jill Furse. Board Members are Jose Contreas, John Forister, and Stephanie Ertel.  Awards were presented at the January meeting with Deborah Bauer as Volunteer of the Year, Jose Contreas as Archeologist of the Year, and the President’s Award to Woody Woodward.  Reed and Fracha West received the Archeology Preservation Award.

STAA met on January 19 with Dr. John Arnn, a staff archaeologist from the Archaeologist Studies Branch of TexDOT, presenting “Reconstructing Toyah Archaeology 1947-2007: Towards a Holistic Approach.”  Brett Cruise, Cultural Resources Coordinator for the Historic Sites Division of the Texas Historic Commission, spoke on “A Most Desperate Fight: Lieutenant Henry J. Farnsworth and the Battle of Round Timber Creek, November 6, 1874.”  The new officers were elected Chairman is Bruce Moses with Vice Chairman/Programs, Jennifer Rice. Margaret Grecco is Secretary and Cathy McCool is Treasurer/Budget/ E-mail. Committee chairs and other contacts can be found at the web site www.STAA.org.

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Paul M. Smith     E-mail: region12@txarch.org

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