Lubbock Lake Landmark
Lubbock Lake Site | |
![]() Visitor center and museum | |
Nearest city | Lubbock, Texas |
---|---|
Coordinates | 33°37′19″N 101°53′23″W / 33.62194°N 101.88972°W |
Area | 300 acres (120 ha) |
NRHP reference No. | 71000948[1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 21, 1971 |
Designated NHL | December 22, 1977[2] |
Lubbock Lake Landmark, also known as Lubbock Lake Site, is an important archeological site and natural history preserve in the city of Lubbock, Texas, United States. The protected state and federal landmark is 336 acres (136 ha). There is evidence of ancient people and extinct animals at Lubbock Lake Landmark. It has evidence of nearly 12,000 years of use by ancient cultures on the Llano Estacado. It is part of the Museum of Texas Tech University.
Visitors can watch active archeological digs. Volunteers from around the world help with the ongoing excavations each summer, and local people can volunteer also, making the site accessible for non-scientists. There are both guided and self-guided tours offered throughout the year.
The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a designated National Historic and State Archeological Landmark.
History
Lubbock Lake is in a
The first explorations of the site were conducted in 1939 by the West Texas Museum, now the Museum of Texas Tech University. In 1936, Clark Kimmel and Turner Kimmel found projectile points from the Firemen's Reservoir. In the late 1940s, several
Geology
The bedrock of Lubbock Lake is part of the Blanco Formation, which is a subset of Pleistocene deposits. Here, it is composed mostly of a large deposit of lake sediments about two million years old. Above the Blanco Formation is the Blackwater Draw Formation, a sheet of wind-deposited sediment that covers most of the region. This deposit slowly accumulated between 1 million and 50,000 years ago. The dune, in the northeastern section of Lubbock Lake, contains sediments and buried soils from at least 36,000 years ago. Yellow House Draw had developed by 20,000 years ago, cutting through the Blackwater Draw Formation and into the Blanco Formation. By about 12,000 years before the present (10,000 BC), the draw had cut a bend about 15 meters (49 feet) deep in the area of the Landmark.
Evidence points to a drying trend occurring at Lubbock Lake over the last 11,000 years. The geologic record begins with stream deposits, followed by lake sedimentation, and finishes between 6,500 and 4,500 years ago with the deposit of windblown sediments during a period of severe drought. After 4,500 years ago, the climate became much like it is now, with only minor changes in the past 2,000 years.
Archaeology
The site clearly shows many levels of cultural deposits that can be dated accurately due to the presence of clear geological stratigraphy (layers of various sediments representing different periods of time). From these deposits, nearly 175 radiocarbon dates are available. The Lubbock Lake Landmark exhibits a virtually complete cultural sequence from the Clovis Period to historic times. These periods are easily distinguished due to the separation of sediment layers containing cultural material by sterile layers where sediment lacks artifacts.
Each layer represents a different time period, water regime, group of plants and animals, group of peoples, and climate and environment covering the past 12,000 years of history and prehistory. The time of people in North America generally is divided into five cultural periods, all of which are represented at Lubbock Lake Landmark.
Paleolithic Cultural Periods:
The
- Clovis (11,500-11,000 years ago)
- Folsom (10,800-10,300 years ago)
- Plainview (10,000 years ago)
- Firstview (8,600 years ago)
- Archaic (8,500–2000 years ago)
- Ceramic(2,000–500 years ago)
- Protohistoric (500–300 years ago)
- Historic (300 years ago to modern times)
Cultural periods represented
Material from the Clovis Period has been found on a gravel bar of the once active stream in the ancient river valley. Excavations have uncovered the remains of several extinct animals: mammoth, two types of horse, camel, ancient bison, giant short-faced bear, and giant armadillo-like Pampatheriidae. This material has been recovered from an area where secondary butchering of parts of carcasses took place and mammoth bones were broken to secure pieces to use or make into tools. Folsom and later Paleo-Indian peoples hunted and killed ancient bison around the ponds and marshes in the draw. Locations where bison were both killed and butchered are called kill/butchering locales. Hunters were known to disguise themselves as wolves, and slowly creep up on the bison before springing up and attacking.
Ceramic
Broken
Protohistoric
The Protohistoric Period is a transitional one. It extends from the time just prior to contact through first contact with Europeans. Spanish explorers were in the area during the later Protohistoric Period, but their presence had no detectable influence on the native cultures or archaeological remains. The Apaches are known to have been in the area from at least 1450 to the mid-18th century.
Historic
The Historic Period begins when contact with Europeans was established. Excavated Historic deposits indicate the presence of modern horse, as well as metal and glass. The Apache were displaced from the area by the Comanches who roamed the Llano Estacado from the mid-18th century to the 1870s. Information derived through excavation of sites from these time periods can be compared to historical records to provide a clearer understanding of the lifeways and population movements of these native peoples.
Evidence of Anglo-American habitation has been found in the most recent archaeological deposits. Some of these artifacts reflect the use of this area by the
See also
Related
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Lubbock County, Texas
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Texas
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Lubbock Lake Site". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on December 13, 2010. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)