This week's Archaeological Fieldwork in Focus comes from Ernst "Skip" Lohse, field director for the 2011 excavations at the famous Gault site.
Clovis bifaces in place in the excavation of the Gault Clovis site in Texas, dating to about 13,000 years ago.
Photo Credit: Photo courtesy M.W. Waters and Science
The Gault site is the most extensive Clovis site ever found. Located in central Texas between Georgetown and Ft. Hood, Gault sits in a small wooded creek valley with ample lithic resources. The site was first identified in the 1920s, but the Clovis occupations weren't found until 1990. Excavations at Gault have found more than one million Clovis-period artifacts.
Deep testings of the Gault site have repeatedly found traces of what appears to be a pre-Clovis occupation, people who may have lived in central Texas before 13,500 years ago. The 2011 season will be focused on layers below the Clovis occupations, where excavators hope to find definitive proof of pre-Clovis.
Idaho State University in cooperation with the Gault School for Archaeological Research at Texas State University at San Marcos, will conduct excavations at Gault between July 10 and August 15, 2011. There is room for 18 students, with 3-6 academic credits available. For more information, contact E.E. Lohse at Lohserne@isu.edu or visit ISU's Anthropology Department website.
More on Gault
- Gault Site, here at About.com from excavator Clark Wernecke
- More on Pre-Clovis
- Clovis Reconsidered, Texas Beyond History
- Gault School of Archaeological Research
- The Gault Site, Texas, and Clovis Research, Athena Review
More 2011 Fieldwork in Focus
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