Saturday, October 24th @ 10:00 AM – 10:50 PM     MIKE WATERS  Omni Westside Hotel, Houston Texas (open to the public)

“The Hogeye Clovis Cache”

Michael Waters and Thomas Jennings

Roughly thirteen thousand years ago, Clovis hunters cached more than fifty projectile points, preforms, and knives at the toe of a gentle slope near present-day Elgin, Bastrop County, in central Texas. Over the next millennia, deposition buried the cache several meters below the surface. The entombed artifacts lay undisturbed until 2003, when commercial sand mining uncovered this stash of ancient tools.  This is the story of the Hogeye cache and its remarkable collection of Clovis artifacts–a time capsule from the past.

Ultimately, fifty-two bifaces were recovered from the site.  This book provides a well-illustrated, thoroughly analyzed description and discussion of the Hogeye Clovis cache, the projectile points and other artifacts from later occupations, and the geological context of the site, which has yielded evidence of multiple Paleoindian, Archaic, and Late Prehistoric occupations. The cache of tools and weapons at Hogeye, when combined with other sites, allows us to envision a snapshot of life at the end of the last Ice Age.

Dr. Michael R. Waters is the Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans and Executive Director of the North Star Archaeological Research Program. He is known for his expertise in First American studies and geoarchaeology. Waters has worked on many archaeological field projects in the United States, Mexico, Russia, Jamaica, and Yemen. His current research projects include the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas; Coats-Hines Mastodon site, Tennessee; Page-Ladson site, Florida; and the Hueyatlaco site, Mexico. He has authored or co-authored numerous journal articles and book chapters and is the author of Principles of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective. Waters received the 2003 Kirk Bryan Award and the 2004 Rip Rapp Archaeological Geology Award given by the Geological Society of America. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2004.

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press, 3/02/2015,ISBN: 978-1-62349-214-4 (hard cover), 978-1-62349-232-8 (eBook)
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Saturday, October 24th @ 9:00 AM – 9:50 PM     ANDY HALL

“Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast”

In the last months of the American Civil War, the upper Texas coast became a hive of blockade running. Though Texas was often considered an isolated backwater in the conflict, the Union’s pervasive and systematic seizure of Southern ports left Galveston as one of the only strongholds of foreign imports in the anemic supply chain to embattled Confederate forces. Long, fast steamships ran in and out of the city’s port almost every week, bound to and from Cuba. Hall ends this tale with an epilogue that describes the efforts of nautical archaeologists to unravel this tale of daring, desperation and profit.

Andy Hall has volunteered with the office of the State Marine Archaeologist at the Texas Historical Commission to help document historic shipwrecks in Texas waters since 1990. He has worked on numerous marine archaeology projects in Texas, notably from 1995 to 2004 on the Denbigh Project, the most extensive excavation and research program on a Civil War blockade runner in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2001 Hall was part of the inaugural group of volunteer marine archaeological stewards appointed by the Texas Historical Commission, the first group of its kind in the nation. Hall writes and speaks frequently on the subjects of Texas’ maritime history and its military conflicts in the 19th century. In 2012 Hall published his first book, The Galveston-Houston Packet: Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou, with the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. His second book with the History Press, Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast, was released in 2014. Hall was recently appointed an Honorary Texas Navy Admiral in recognition of his work in bringing Texas’ maritime history to a wider audience.

Publisher: The History Press, June 2014, ISBN:  978-1626195004
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Friday, October 23rd @ 4:00 PM – 4:50 PM     MARILYN JOHNSON

“ Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble”

Lives in Ruins has been praised for demystifying the profession and reporting on it with clarity and humor. The Dallas Morning News wrote: “As archaeologists collect potsherds and spearpoints, Marilyn Johnson became a collector of archaeologists, tracking them to Machu Picchu and to Fishkill, N.Y., to a Caribbean slave plantation and a Philadelphia beer tasting. In Lives in Ruins, she sifts and sorts them, unearthing a treasury of rare characters.” Sarah Parcak, K. Kris Hirst, World Archaeology, Discover, and American Archaeologist have recommended it, and Nature called it a “gem of hands-on reportage.”

Marilyn Johnson is not an archaeologist. Besides Lives in Ruins, she has written two other books for HarperCollins about people in cultural memory professions: The Dead Beat, about obituary writers, and This Book Is Overdue! about librarians and archivists. She wrote Smithsonian magazine’s story about the chancel burials in Jamestown this summer. She lives near New York City. After this conference, she will speak at the Houston Museum of Natural Science October 26th at 2:30 pm.

Publisher:  Harper, 2014, ISBN: 978-0062127181
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Friday, October 23rd @ 2:00 PM – 2:50 PM                                    WILSON “DUB” CROOK

 “The Late Prehistoric of the East Fork:  A Redefinition of Cultural Concepts along the East Fork of the Trinity River, North Central Texas”

Wilson W. “Dub” Crook, III and Mark D. Hughston

Over the last 42 years, the authors have studied in detail the sites and archeological remains ascribed to the Late Prehistoric period of the East Fork of the Trinity River and its tributaries. This includes 20 major sites and a larger number of smaller campsites that occur within a 75 km by 15 km north-south corridor from Collin County in the north to northwestern Kaufman County in the south. As part of this study, we have accessed and examined all known collections from previous investigations with a combined artifact assemblage of nearly 32,000 specimens. In addition, we obtained access to the unpublished field notes and maps from many previous researchers and combined them with our own field and laboratory observations. The results of this study confirm the conclusion of previous researchers that the “Wylie Focus”, as originally proposed), is an outdated concept. A new chronological sequence consisting of a Woodland period followed by two Late Prehistoric period phases is proposed. In detailing the proposed new sequences, extensive information on each major site, site features such as the distinctive rim-and-pit structures, burials, hearths and caches, and the diagnostic artifacts that characterize each cultural phase are provided. We also detail how the Late Prehistoric of the East Fork is a unique culture, similar but yet distinctly different from all its surrounding neighbors.

Wilson W. “Dub” Crook, III recently retired after a 35 year distinguished career as a Senior Executive with the Exxon Mobil Corporation. Dub has traveled extensively throughout the world, starting his archeological adventures as a child with his father, Wilson W. “Bill” Crook, Jr. who was past President and Fellow of the TAS. A native of Dallas, Dub attended Southern Methodist University where he majored in Geology (Mineralogy). He is the author of over 150 papers in such varied fields as geology, mineralogy, archeology, natural science and the Soviet manned space program. Dub is a Life Member of the Dallas Archeological Society, a Fellow of the Houston Archeological Society, a long-time member of the TAS, the Center for the Study of First Americans, a Life Member of the Gault School of Archeological Research, a Research Fellow at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin, and a Fellow of the Leakey Foundation.

Mark D. Hughston is currently a senior partner and part owner of Brazos Gas, a successful independent oil and gas exploration company in Dallas. A native of North Dallas, Mark attended Southern Methodist University where he majored in Geology and Anthropology. After turning to Petroleum geology in graduate school, Mark has continued his dream of establishing both a successful private business as well as maintaining his research interests in archeology and vertebrate paleontology. He is the author of a number of scientific papers, many with his colleague Dub Crook. Mark is a member of the Dallas, Houston, and Texas Archeological Societies.

Publisher: CreateSpace, a DBA on On-Demand Publishing, LLC (an Amazon Company), Charleston, South Carolina, May 30, 2015, 
ISBN:  978-1508686521
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Friday October 23rd @ 1:00 PM – 1:50 PM                                DOUGLAS MANGUM & ROGER MOORE

“The Archaeology of Engagement: Conflict and Revolution in the United States”

Edited by Dana L. Pertermann and Holly K. Norton

Presented by Contributing Authors:  Roger G. Moore and Douglas Mangum

When a historic battlefield site is discovered and studied, the focus is often on the “hardware”: remnants of weaponry, ammunition, supplies, and equipment that archaeologists carefully unearth, analyze, conserve, and frequently place on display in museums. But what about the “software”? What can archaeology teach us about the humans involved in the conflict: their social mores and cultural assumptions; their use and understanding of power?

In The Archaeology of Engagement: Conflict and Revolution in the United States, Dana L. Pertermann and Holly Kathryn Norton have assembled a collection of studies that includes sites of conflicts between groups of widely divergent cultures, such as Robert E. Lee’s mid-1850s campaign along the Concho River and the battles of the River Raisin during the War of 1812. Notably, the second half of the book applies the editors’ principles of conflict-event theory to the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas, forming a case study of one of America’s most storied—and heavily trafficked—battle sites.

Conflicts, battles in particular, are events that were purposeful, meant to change the present in which the participants lived. Culturally contingent, and often having unforeseen consequences, conflict-event theory recognizes that battles provide rapid social change akin to punctuated equilibrium, complementing a more gradual, daily process of cultural change. As many of the contributions illustrate, archaeology provides new insights to the understanding of battles that traditional historiography is often unable to access. While this book focuses on American battlefields, it will also contribute to the ever-expanding research of cross-cultural violence and warfare.

DANA L. PERTERMANN is associate professor of anthropology and geology at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs. HOLLY K. NORTON is a compliance manager for the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation in Denver.

Dr. Roger G. Moore has worked as a professional archeologist since 1976.  He was a pioneer in demonstrating the potential for survival of significant archeological remains in heavily urbanized American contexts such as the City of Galveston and the Houston Central Business District, as well as in developing the archeological field methods appropriate for dealing with urban contexts. His work and publication in urban archeology began during his graduate studies at Rice University and has continued throughout his subsequent career. Moore initiated an independent archeological consulting practice based in Houston, Texas, in 1982.  His firm has conducted over 500 major archeological projects and many smaller investigations.  These projects were conducted for a very diverse array of endeavors including original historical and archeological research, highway construction, mass transit, park development, energy projects, oil spills, flood control, real estate development, industrial development and conflict archeological research at the San Jacinto Battleground.  Moore is also keenly interested in spatial relationships and developed a quantitatively based predictive model for prehistoric settlement in Southeast Texas that has been acknowledged as accurate by the Archeology Division of the Texas Historical Commission.  While now eclipsed by the Texas Sites Atlas, his firm had its own internal GIS project of prehistoric site locations, survey areas, historical markers, and other relevant geographical loci in this region years before the introduction of the Atlas. Moore’s presentations and peer-reviewed publications in recent years have centered upon his firm’s conflict archeological discoveries at San Jacinto.

Douglas Mangum M.A. is a Principal Investigator and Historian at Moore Archeological Consulting. In those capacities he co-manages the work the firm has conducted at the San Jacinto Battlefield. Before joining the firm he worked for the U. S. Forest Service and in various volunteer and student projects that took him to sites in Scotland, England, Mississippi, and New Mexico as well as Texas. Douglas earned his BA in Archeology at the University of Texas and an MA in History from the University of Houston–Clear Lake. Douglas’ master’s thesis focused on American expansionism in the early nineteenth century, particularly as it applies to Texas. This historical focus and his research into the Battle of San Jacinto, in combination with his archeological work at the battlefield, has resulted in his chapter in the book The Archaeology of Engagement, Conflict and Revolution in the United States

Publisher:  Texas A&M University Press, 10/16/2015, ISBN:  978-1-62349-294-6
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