Prehistory in the Calamity Creek Valley Brewster County, Texas

The findings of a May 28–July 2, 1996, summer archaeological field school conducted by the Center for Big Bend Studies, Sul Ross State University, in cooperation with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, are reported herein. The focus of the field school was on a 335-acre segment of the Calamity Creek valley within Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Brewster County, Texas. Twelve archaeological sites, 41BS37, 41BS764, 41BS810, 41BS811, 41BS814, 41BS1104, 41BS1480, 41BS1481, 41BS1482, 41BS1483, 41BS1484, and 41BS1485—six of which were previously identified—were instrument-mapped, subjected to controlled surface-collecting, and limited subsurface testing. All excavation was directed towards intrasite cultural features exposed and threatened by sheet erosion and/or cutbank sloughing. Evidence for largely transitory Late Paleoindian through Contact period occupation of the creek valley was recovered. Based on all gathered data, the narrow Calamity Creek basin is likely to have served in prehistory as a resource-rich north-south corridor through which small bands of hunter-gatherers passed at frequent intervals between two major physiographic zones. Artifacts and special samples recovered as a result of this project are curated at Texas Parks and Wildlife facilities in Austin, Texas.