Central Texas Archaic Camp 1

All of the pictures on the following pages were taken while surfacing hunting in Comanche County, Texas the last weekend in October. The Texas drought was one of the longest on record this year in the area. However over the past two weeks slow moving thunderstorms have dumped quite a bit of rain on the area. This rain has revealed the following fire rings from ancient camp sites.

These fields in Comanche County have produced many great surface finds from a Clovis and Corner Tang Knife to Perdiz arrowpoints. However, most of the acreage has never been cultivated. There is a road through one of the pastures where about 200 yards of the road have produced over 90 projectile points in the past couple of years. The most common finds are Pedernales, Marshalls, Marcos, Ensors and Nolans.

After the recent heavy rains, the run-off has taken more of the top soil off and revealed some very interesting burned rock formations. Several of these are still intact   with heavy ash still contained in the center. Burned rock has always been found in the road but it was due to erosion and was scattered. This is the first time the circular patterns have become visible.

I have posted some of these picture on the Artifact Education Exchange (bulletin board) for discussion.

This camp fire ring was one of the only ones that was in a circular pattern and still contains the heavy black ash within the perimeter. The rocks making up the ring are burned rock commonly found in campsites. Most of the time, I find them in the plowed fields so the original placement of these stones has been long disturbed. Notice the heavy erosion cutting away at the edge. The top soil is very shallow in this part of the state and I estimate that these were originally only 1.5' to 2' below the present surface.

This is the view looking down the road into a cultivated field. This confluence of two creeks is to the left of the photo about a quarter mile away. There are many small tributary creeks in the area and they were all running while I was here. You can see I was hunting during a break in the rain. This is the small strip of land that has produced over 90 points in the past few years, all surface finds.

Here is another angle of the first fire ring. Much lithic debris can be found around the area.

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Last modified: August 25, 2007