National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Sites 41LT172 and 41LT354 in Luminant's Kosse Mine, Limestone, Texas Page: 52
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6. Site 41LT354
This effort identified dark organic soil in shovel tests excavated in the southwestern corner of the
site (17, 22, 23, 34, and 35) thought to potentially represent an intact cultural deposit or buried
cultural zone. During the second shovel testing phase, 25 additional shovel tests were excavated at
5-m grid intercepts to define the limits of the organic soil deposit.
Dark, organically rich soil was encountered in most of the 25 shovel tests excavated at 5-m grid
intercepts in the southwestern corner of the site, where the soil typically ranged from a 10YR 2/2
very dark brown to a 10YR 4/4 dark yellowish brown. The area with the highest organic content
was restricted to a 40-m north-south by 20-m east-west area along the southern and western
margins of the control grid. In shovel tests excavated elsewhere across the site, the soil typically
ranged from a 10YR 5/4 yellowish brown to a 10YR 6/4 light yellowish brown. It should be noted
however, that several shovel tests excavated within the southwestern portion of the site had
uncharacteristically lighter-hued soils. Similarly, several of the shovel tests excavated over the
remainder of the site had uncharacteristically darker-hued soils.
The southwestern corner of the site appears to harbor an artifact high density and diversity area.
All of the ground stone as well as nearly all of the fire-cracked rocks, lithic nontools, and lithic tools
recovered from shovel tests came from this area. This apparent pattern, however, may be due in
part to sampling strategy. The southwestern corner of the site received six times as many shovel
tests per square meter than the rest of the site (Figure 7).
Cultural materials were unevenly distributed throughout the vertical column. Table 5 presents the
vertical distribution of the three most common artifact classes recovered from site 41LT354. A
large majority of the cultural materials recovered through shovel testing came from levels 2
through 4. These levels presumably contained the systemic living surface. Below level 4, the artifact
recovery rate dropped precipitously. The presence of artifacts in these levels presumably resulted
from vertical artifact cycling that could be attributed to a variety of sources of bioturbation, such as
burrowing rodents and rooting feral pigs. Postabandonment cultural processes, stemming largely
from land clearing, agriculture, and pasturing, also likely resulted in additional mixing to the soil.
The similarity between the patterned distributions of these artifact classes is notable due to the fact
that larger materials, such as fire-cracked rocks, are more subject to down-migration than up, as
burrowing rodents tend to tunnel below larger obstacles rather than remove them, while smaller
materials, such as lithic debitage, are more likely to cycle both up and down (see Bocek 1986).
Magnetometer Survey
A magnetometer survey was conducted within the 80-m north-south by 60-m east-west control
grid, which was established to contain the portion of the site that was determined to contribute to
the site's overall potential NRHP eligibility status based on previous survey (Dixon and Sherman
2010), and referred to as Area 3. Atkins utilized a Geometrics, Inc. G-858 Magmapper with dual
sensors configured. The G-858 automatically stored and output each sensor reading. The operatorPrivate and Confidential
Atkins 100021558/110187 52
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Atkins North America, Inc. National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Sites 41LT172 and 41LT354 in Luminant's Kosse Mine, Limestone, Texas, report, February 2012; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth839205/m1/61/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.