A History of Crosby County 1876-1977 Page: 7
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shall, Fairland, Lerma, Edgewood, with
Ensor and Ellis being most conspicuous.
(3) Neo-American Period: This stage
includes cultural manifestations which
possessed pottery and small light arrow-
points known by many people as "bird-
points." Permanent settlements and higher
civilization was developed. Neo-American
people were doing a lot of trading with
other cultures many miles away. Art and
crafts were more highly developed. We
have excavated many different types of
pottery from these sites in Crosby Co. At
this date the writer doesn't know if these
people were making their own pottery or
trading for it. We do know a large percent
of Rio Grande Glazed Polychrome pottery
excavated here came from the famous
Pecos site in New Mexico. Neo-American
surface sites are numerous in this county.
The writer knows of seven Neo-American
sites located in Blanco Canyon with an
occupational stratification between 3 to 24
inches deep. Soil of these seven sites is
dark from impregnation of culture debris
and charcoal. Bone, charcoal stain, flint,
obsidian, fire fractured rock, pottery and
other artifacts make up the occupation
deposit. We have excavated olivella shell
beads from the Pacific Coast, turquoise,
pottery, and obsidian from New Mexico,
alibates flint from the Panhandle of Texas
and Central Texas flint. From these many
different artifacts we know they were doing
a lot of trading. The bow and arrow was in
full use during this stage and small light
arrowpoints or so-called "birdpoints" were
used to kill buffalo, deer and turkey as well
as warfare. The most common arrowpoints
excavated from these sites are the 3-
notched Harrell and Fresno type points.
We also find bone weaving tools, cut bone,
bone awls, pipes, manos and grinding
stones, core and flaking tools, scrapers,
knives, shaft straighteners, and several dif-
ferent types of flint. On numerous other
Neo-American surface sites we find Perdiz,
Garza, Lott, Bonham, Albo, Rockwall,0
' I
4
ARPOWNWFlRO
*ti
Historic Period - Showing Metal Points, iron spear, Comanchero trade point, Military buttons,
French trade beads, English trade beads, musketballs and small tinkler bell. 100 to 300 years old.
Wayne Parker collection.Scallorn, Toyah, and 2-Notch Harrell
arrowpoints. The Neo-American Indians
were using alibates, Tecovas Jasper, obsi-
dian, chert, Central Texas flint, petrified
wood and river pebble stone to flake their
artifacts. The Neo-American Stage was
from 400 to approximately 2000 years ago.
(4) Historic Period: This stage is used to
embrace all remains associated with
objects of European, American and Span-
ish origin such as metal, glass beads,
guns, metal knives or any item that came
from the Anglo American. This stage
began at the first contact with white man
and ended when Indians were starved,
defeated, killed and placed on reserva-
tions. Historic sites are very rare in Crosby
Co. The sites are singularly barren of camp
debris. Stone circles or "tipi rings" haveU
Neo-American Period - Showing bone awls, beads, music rasp, pipe, drill, scrapers, arrow points,
knife, pendants and glaze - Polychome pottery sherd. 300 to 2,000 years old. Wayne Parker col-
lection.been found, but it seems, as a general rule,
nomadic hunters of the Historic Period left
extremely few artifacts or burials in one
place. We do find steel projectile points,
glass trade beads, cartridge shells, coins
and metal military buttons at random on a
few sites. One Historic burial has been
excavated south of Crosbyton with glass
trade beads, a whelk shell, elk tooth pen-
dants, a brass buckle and cinch and an
iron axe. This Comanche cave burial was
dated a few years after 1790. The four His-
toric tribes in this area were the Kiowa,
Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne and the
most dominant was the Comanche. It is a
known fact that the Comanche, a people
originating from Wyoming and Montana,
invaded the domain of the early Apache.
The Apache were driven out of this area to
the Southwest. By about 1810 the
Comanche had complete control of the
West Texas area as well as Crosby Co. The
Historic Stage here lasted approximately
334 years. The American Indians traveled
by foot until the Historic period. The Span-
ish Conquistadors by accident or fate
made Indians a gift of the horse. By 1840
Plains Indian cultures by means of horses
and iron tools had reached the peak of
their development. Oct. 10, 1871 was the
last battle between the army and
Comanches in Blanco Canyon. On a sultry
summer day in June, 1875, a small band of
Comanche Indians surrendered to military
authorities at Fort Sill. So ended the reign,
for some 15,000 years, of Indians in
Crosby Co. Their buffalo, horses, tipis and
personal pride had been destroyed. They
had held out to the end, but the end was
now upon them. The Indians had entered
the road of the White Man.
The writer of this article on Crosby Co.
archaeology has collected Indian artifacts
for 30 years. Some 70 prominent sites
have been recorded on United States geo-
logical survey maps. These maps are prop-
erty of Crosby County Historical Commis-
sion, State of Texas.
Artifact collectors should keep data
records, each piece should be numbered
and the data entered into a ledger. Keep-I~~
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Num r At
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Crosby County Pioneer Museum. A History of Crosby County 1876-1977, book, 1978; Crosby County, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth91041/m1/11/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .