The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
depth. The test was stopped because of the
difficultly of shovel testing any further.
In Square #9, the ant den, this
square was excavated to a depth of 34 cm.
where a hard compacted surface was
encountered. At first, thought this was a
floor but found a white bead on this
surface, concluded that this must be the
bottom of the ant nest. The north 20 cm.
of the square was excavated below this
surface to determine it could be a floor
surface. Also extend the test west, to check
for evidence of a floor, but found nothing
to indicate a floor.
SUMMARY
The Federation members and guest
from New Mexico has a good two, three
day, weekend test excavating an interesting
site. The Wagon Wheel RV Park was a
very nice camp for the participants to
camp. The Saturday evening Bisonburger
meals were a great time to visit and enjoy
time together.
The use of the Blackwater Draw
Museum lab space for our afternoon
sessions of lab was a great assistance. The
crews were at the site by seven each
morning with work stopping at 1:00 p.m.
With a short lunch at camp, everyone
would participate in the lab sessions from
2:00 to 4:00 p.m., learning to clean,
identify, and catalogue lithic, bone, and
pottery.
CONCLUSIONS
The Portales Spring site is a bison
kill site, there is no doubt. The number of
bisons butchered can't be determined but
the site has been used for the processing of
bison over a long period of time. The
amount of alluvial, eonion deposits has
protected this site. The site has been
surface collected by the local collectors for
a long time. But in the survey, lithic, and
pottery were still present on the surface.
The small island in the middle of the
draw at the Spring's site provided an
elevated area for the hunters to process the
meat from the kill site in the bog area of
the springs. The Locality #1, the two skull
excavated by the field school crew
members and the twelve excavated by the
members of Llano Society, indicated that
this area was the kill site. The skulls were
detached from the body with the lower
mandible removed with the tongue.
(Figure #2) Then the meat sections
detached from the body, carried out of the
bog area where the meat was striped from
the bones and possibly dried there with the
bones being scattered to get at the marrow.
We didn't find any evidence of drying
racks or post holes needed to support
drying meat.
The amount of shattered and
splintered bone recovered from the nine
square on the island (9 meters by 145 cm.),
the marrow extraction was an maximum
energy function at this site. But in this
excavation, not one hammerstone, or anvil
stone was recovered. A few burned caliche
was present but not in the amount you
would concluded would be used by
hunters at a kill and processing site. The
caliche was small in size and show no
evidence of being burned for long periods
of time or by a hot fire.
The artifacts recovered are in the
15