The Creek Journal

Ago

A few years ago we began to wonder more and more about the history of this little Canyon through which flows Hamilton Creek and into which we had moved our life. We built a home, imported sheep and chickens, burried irrigation pipe, and pulled waters from the Creek out onto lean, sandy soils to coax a few vegetables, some berries, some tree fruits, and enough grass for lambs to grow to butcher-size.

But who else had lived along these waters? Hungry immigrants from Tennessee and Kentucky, indefatigable ranchers like Samuel Holland, restless Mormons, Noah Smithwick, soot-faced cedar choppers, Civilian Conservation Corp laborers, and a neighbor or two losing their demented minds on land where they had been born and barefoot raised.

And before them? Tonkawa and others chased by Apache. All of them chased by Comanche. The Comanche chased by their hollow dream of riding their horses into some victorious future. And before them, Spanish looters crazed by religion and greed.

And before them....? The more we studied history, the more we were led back into pre-history. And pre-history is buried in our sand and clay if not scattered across barren hilltops. So we set to digging.

A spear point freshly exposed to sunlight. After a long time.

The atlatl dart point (below) is from the Texas Middle Archaic (ca. 6300 to 4500 years ago), and the Bulverde and Montell points date from the Late Archaic (ca. 4500 to 1250 years ago). The site where we're excavating contains mostly Late Archaic artifacts, with a few that are younger or older.

Travis

Bulverde

Montell

Bone bead

A chert perforator, or drill

But we also found a couple pieces of rare Archaic art: a small copper artifact (perhaps a pendant to be worn?) about the size of a playing card; and one half of a ground stone, remarkably thin and smooth, and with a biconically-drilled hole in one end, presumably for helping someone wear the piece as a "gorget."

Side (a) of the fractured Stone Gorget

Side (b) of the Stone Gorget

We sent off a tiny sample of the copper artifact to experts in New Jersey and Chicago for analysis. By using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, one can tease out some of the elements associated with the copper. When proportions of those elements (like silver, zinc, antimony, or arsenic) are measured, then you have something resembling a "fingerprint" that can be matched with native copper sources around the continent. This copper artifact's source is likely some place in the Great Lakes area, 1100 or 1200 miles away. If this proves to be the case, it would make this copper artifact the farthest-travelled copper artifact in North America.

Then we had to begin the process of finding a date for the copper artifact (now we are referring to it as a copper pendant). A few feet away from where we found the copper, we uncovered what looks to be the jawbone of deer. So we sent it away to Washington state to be analyzed using carbon-14 dating technology. Turns out that the deer belonging to this mandible probably lived between 1686 BC and 1520 BC (about the time of Abraham or Moses in another part of the world). And the bone was recovered in a layer of soil 9 cm above the copper, making the copper presumably older than the dates for the deer. So maybe 2000-1600 BC? If this turns out to be the case, it would make it the oldest copper artifact ever found in Texas.

But we have a ways to go before we can make such claims with confidence.

The mandible of a deer (?) which we had carbon-14 dated to 1686-1520 BC.

A profile view of the midden within the cutbank of Hamilton Creek.

The unidentified dart point (likely to be Late Archaic) has been fractured in the heat of fire. Small pieces of the chert pop off, leaving the divots easily seen here below.

A dart point showing "potlidding" likely caused
by fires associated with the midden.

15 1x1 meter contiguous units at the Creek Cabin site.
The screens for sifting through soil are under the gray sun canopy.

An otolith, presumably from a freshwater drum.

Freshwater Drum (Aplodinotus grunniens) I caught a
quarter mile upstream from the archeological dig.

Aplodinotus grunniens
with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper
one hour after it hung from that hook.

Along with the archeology, we've been locating, gathering, and eating as much local food as we can.

Piquin chili pepper (Capsicum annuum)

"The pepper—which was declared the official state native pepper in 1997 by then-Governor George W. Bush—grows wild throughout the South Texas brushland... No bigger than the tip of a pinky finger, the pequin can pack a mean punch, clocking in at 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville Heat Units—up to 10 times hotter than the jalapeño. Some may know it as the pequin, chile tepin, chile petín, bird pepper, bird’s eye pepper, or even the chiltecpin (a name used by Nahuas, descendants of the Aztecs, that means “flea pepper”)" (Texas Highways).

We've been taking to making salsa from the piquin:

Simmer for a few minutes a pound of tomatillo.
Take 30 piquin peppers and two garlic cloves, and toss them around in a hot skillet for a few minutes.
Pour the tomatillo, piquin, garlic, and a bit of salt into a blender, and have at it.

This makes some of the most delicious salsa we've had yet.

Especially good with homegrown yardbird. Obviously not wild food that Texas Indians might have enjoyed; nonetheless, we've found that raising about 30 birds a year is a good idea.

Chicken, mustard greens,
and sourdough bread

Plum harvest (to be made into 40 jars of syrup).

Potato harvest kept in a cool, dark closet under the stairs.

Cute (harvest in a year).

Dead juvenile beaver found near the Creek.

As I was typing this blogpost, the poor cicada flew into the window,
succumbing to a fatal case of traumatic brain injury.

By far, the best book we've ever read
on the philosophical subject of death.

Archeology Site

A young couple sat laughing in a springtime evening—

sipping drinks at the end of the BBQ—

she, now sharing the latest talk in astronomy—

he, telling of his trip—

the lovely places he stayed along the way—

the necklace he bought her.

And their children chasing fireflies

with the neighbors’ kids in the yard.

(insert here a separation of 3640 years +/- 50)

Two men (or perhaps two women) on the ground—

hunched over in the hot sun—

sweat and and dirt-smeared faces—

scraping away with simple tools.

A hole in the ground, perhaps a cooking hearth—

finding burnt bones and a “copper pendant:

likely of ceremonial use for a sacred ritual.”

One of the archeologists stands up, looks around,

and scratches his backside.

September and October Season (2021)

Animals

For the first time since we've been living along this Creek, we spotted early one morning a porcupine. Then our neighbors upstream saw one on their game camera. Then September 20 I picked up this one, dead, a few hundred yards up the hillside on the county road where it had been hit by a vehicle in the night.

And then there are the animals we didn't see, but someone else probably saw. Like the animal that may have been brought down by a prehistoric hunter, maybe as far back as 800 BC or thereabouts. We dug up this atlatl spear point downstream, up on a high bank, about five inches deep in soil we've been excavating on the hunch that prehistoric people often camped along these spring-fed waters.

Late Archaic Castroville point from 2000-2800 years ago.

Here's more on the Castroville point.

The year 2021 was a tragic year for the sheep. Five have been killed by coyotes. We added barbed wires and electric wires to the fence, but coyotes kept climbing it. We finally took to penning them up in a small high-fence area and letting them out by day to eat.

September 21 (young ram)

September 30 (young female lamb)

Coyote

When a sycamore leaf is on a low branch,
beneath a perched vulture

Below is a video of our honey bees drinking away at the sheep's water bucket. (One of the sheep in this movie is no longer with us.)

Plants

Mostly yellows and purples, this season.

Ironweed (genus Veronia)

Larger Bur-Marigold (Bidens laevis, daisy family)

These yellow ones next to the recently swollen Creek (big rains yesterday) join a small crowd of yellow flowers about the hills and within this little canyon. But this Bur-Marigold seems new to us. How can this be? For a decade now we've been living close to all the Creek life, and here is this bright yellow flower doing its thing unmistakably, without disguise, without excuse.