Some Background Material on the Antelope Creek Site, Hutchinson County, Texas

The creek flows north and makes a horseshoe bend to the east. The Antelope Creek or A-C ruin stands on a ledge of about an acre in extent with a commanding view of the creek bottom for five miles to the north and around two miles to the south. The creek bottom below the village is wide enough that it could have accommodated gardens of several acres in extent where the residents could have grown corn, and perhaps other crops. The soil is a sandy loam and moist from the nearby creek bottom. That corn was grown nearby is shown by the huge Metate stones found at the site.

The ruin itself is 163 feet long and 52 feet wide with perhaps the northern section the oldest, since the stones here are of a smaller size and the construction more haphazard.

The lowest course of stone is in two layers of flat stones set on edge, between which was found hard-packed earth. The next layer up and that following were of single slabs set in between those of the lowest course. At one spot the wall remained standing to a height of five feet so the overall height was estimated to have been around six feet.

Inside the wall, the yellow adobe was plastered with a material somewhat the color of gypsum or wood ashes.

The floor was found to consist of about four inches of yellow clay. The old ground soil was of a gray color, and the top of the clay had a thin layer of charcoal and ashes on it. Four holes were found in the floor 2, 5, 11, and 15 feet from the south wall, each two inches deep and from 18 to 24 inches deep. The roof was believed to be made of buffalo hides or more likely yucca.

Material remains consisted of numerous flint flakes, charcoal, a bone spade(buffalo shoulder bones - several of these were found), mussel shell fragments, buffalo jawbone(mandible), pottery sherd with basket impressions and a thin black slip on the inside, a pressure flaker, flint scraper, hearth two feet in diameter, (twelve feet deep with stones, buffalo bones, and ashes), bone awl, flint knives,

In the fall of 1929 Dr. Holden was elected to the faculty of Texas Technological College at Lubbock. In the spring of the following year, he conducted a second expedition to the sites along the Canadian River. Members of this expedition were Dr. M.A. Stainbrook, Dr. A.L. Strout, Dr. John C. Granbery, Dr. W.M. Young, Dr. C.E. Schmidt, Professor F. A. Kleinschmidt, Mr. H. B. Carroll, faculty members, and Clyde Drake, Hershal McFarland, Leland Mast, and Charles Adams, Students. Mr. Floyd V. Studer of Amarillo selected the location for this expedition.

In 1930, Dr. Holden gave Earnest J. Lowrey permission to continue excavations at the Antelope Creek Site. Mr. Lowrey made four trips to Antelope creek accompanied by various high school seniors and college students.

The first of these was made in November 1930 by Lowrey and William Nells. They excavated a trench which ran north from the south outside wall to establish the location of the transverse wall of the interior.

The second expedition was made in March 1931. William Nelle, Bill McWilliams and E.J. Lowrey continued work on the trench in rooms 1 and 2 and excavated room 27 and a passageway between rooms 26 and 27.

The third expedition was in May of 1931 and the team consisted of Lowrey, Elmer Moore (geologist and engineer), William Davidson, George Thomas, Bowlden Johnson, high school seniors and M.J. Lowrey.

The fourth expedition in July 1932 consisted of Bowlden Johnson and William Davidson now college freshmen, Marian Denman a high school senior and Lowrey. William Johnson and George Thomas followed in a few days. The rooms along the east front of the ruin were completely excavated

The bottom part of the walls have an average thickness of from four to four and one half feet.(p. 14)

Beginning February 16, 1938 and continuing until January 10, 1939 the excavations were under way. During the first six months the excavations of Antelope Creek number 22 was completed. After this period, work was shifted to Alibates 28. During this period, 40,000 cubic feet of dirt was moved and thousands of specimens were recovered. The field workers consisted of around 20 out of work laborers from the Potter County WPA. There was also one non relief professional worker and a professional worker employed by WTSU. There was a laboratory unit with two relief Research Field Workers and one non-relief professional worker. 25,590 man hours were worked during the life of this project.

The first task was to determine the locations of walls and refuse middens. Middens were sectioned into ten foot sections and given a number. The rooms were given numbers in the order they were excavated. All sections were excavated to sterile soil or to floor level if a room.

The excavations were conducted with small pointing trowels and the dirt produced by the trowelers was screened to locate anything which had been missed by the original diggers. Each artifact location was located both vertically and horizontally and the measurements were placed in a field notebook and keyed back to the original artifact. All identifiable animal bones were saved and later analyzed by Lathel F. Duffield. (Duffield, Lathel Flay; Some Panhandle Aspect Sites in Texas:Their Vertebrates and Paleoecology, University of Wisconsin 1970 - Master's Degree Thesis)

Antelope Creek Ruin 22 is located in a canyon which is a side branch of the Canadian River. The ruin is located on a small promontory 200 X 250 feet in size about halfway down the sides of the canyon. The stream below has a perennial water supply. Possible garden plots have been identified on either side of the creek. There is an ample supply of wood and plants which could have been used for food. Grape, hackberry, wild plum, and mesquite are common. Rabbits, quail, and antelope are present today.

Room 1 - walls 14,14,18, and 23 inches thick. Room irregular trapezoidal 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, and 6.8 feet in interior dimensions. The west wall was standing to a height of 24 inches. Artifacts consisted of 5 scrapers, 7 arrow points, 5 knives, 1 flint drill, 1 elbow pipe, and 1 bone awl.

Room 2 - walls from 12 to 34 inches wide. Room about 21 feet square. A passageway about two feet square and nearly eleven feet long extended to the east. Artifacts consisted of 12 arrowheads, six knives, 7 scrapers, 3 bone awls, 4 Panhandle Culture Sherds, and two problematical tools one of antler and one of bone.

Further excavations under the floor of this room recovered an additional 112 artifacts including 72 arrow points or blanks, 7 knives, 3 drills, 22 scrapers or scraper blanks, 1 hammerstone, 1 obsidian flake, 2 mussel shell scrapers, 3 bone weaving tools, 1 bone hoe, 1 problematical bone tool, and 3 sherds of St. John's Polychrome ware from New Mexico dated at about 1200 AD.

Room 3 - walls from 14 to 30 inches thick. Interior dimensions 18'7" X14'2" X 16'7" X15'3". Walls were standing up to 3 feet high. Artifacts included 2 arrowpoints, 4 knives, 4 scrapers, 6 Borger Cord-marked Sherds, 7 deer antler tools, 3 bone awls, and one shell ornament.

Room number 4 was a storage room or anteroom with no openings. Walls averaged two feet thick and interior dimensions were 5" X 6.5 feet. No artifacts were found.

Room 5 is similar and opposite to 4. 7.5 X 6 feet no openings. Artifacts included 4 arrowheads 2 scrapers, 1 knife and 5 sherds.

Room 6 is the central room of the room complex. Its side walls are only about a foot thick, while the West wall is 29" and the East wall 28". 22'5" by 23 X 25X 19'5". Four arrowpoints, 6 scrapers, 2 bone awls, 1 rasping stick, and 6 potsherds. Further excavations under the floor recovered another 144 artifacts including 73 arrow points, 4 knives, 40 scrapers, 4 drills, 1 paint stone, 1 elbow pipe, 1 shell ornament, 1 charred ear of corn, 4 bone hoes, 9 bone awls, 1 deer antler tool, 2 spindle whorls made from potsherds, 2 pueblo pottery sherds, and one unidentified sherd.

Room 7 is 15'7" by 21'8" by 20'7" by 16'1" walls vary from 12 to 31 inches thick. Artifacts included 1 arrow point, 1 snub-nosed scraper, 1 flint drill, 1 bone awl, and 4 potsherds of Borger Cord-marked pottery.

Room 8 is 21'1" by 20'9" by 18'6" by 20'7" and walls from 12 to 32 inches thick. Artifacts included 1 arrowpoint, 1 snub-nosed scraper, 2 bone awls, 1 problematical bone tool, and 6 sherds.

Room 9 is 6'1 by 5'2 by 6'7 by 4'7 with walls from 12 to 18 inches thick. Artifacts included 1 arrowhead, 3 scrapers, 1 deer antler tool, 1 knife. 1 drill, 1 problematical bone tool, and 2 potsherds.

Room 10 is built on a quarter-circle pattern at the rear of room 15. Measurements across the room average around 10 feet by 12 feet. Artifacts included 44 potsherds - one painted sherd from New Mexico, and 43 Borger cord-marked.

Room 11. The west wall of this room has been destroyed by erosion aver the years since abandonment. Remaining dimensions are around 21 by 25, with the side running east-west being shortened by the erosion, so possibly 26 feet long or more. Two arrowheads, 1 beveled knife, a bone awl, and one potsherd were present.

Room 14 is another small room averaging 7 by 4 feet in size and somewhat oval in shape with walls 15 to 18 inches thick. Artifacts included 2 arrowpoints, 2 four-beveled knives, 4 scrapers, 1 flesher, one bone awl, one problematical bone tool, 3 cord-marked sherds, and one restorable pot.

Room 15 has been mostly destroyed by erosion. The original dimensions were about 16.5 by 15 feet with walls from 13 to 34 inches thick. Artifacts included one leaf-shaped knife and 21 borger cord-marked sherds.

Room 16 is approximately square about 5 feet by 5.5 feet in size, and a short distance away from the main block of rooms. The wall consisted on only one course of dolomite rocks turned on edge. Two arrow points and one side scraper were recovered here.

Room 17 is also isolated from the main block of rooms and also is composed of only one course of dolomite. It averages nearly 19 feet long and a little over 6 feet east by west. No artifacts were recovered here, though there was a fire pit in the west wall.

Room 18 through room 26 were excavated prior to the WPA project.

The building was from North to South with later (southern) rooms built over refuse while the northern rooms were placed on sterile soil.

"The Antelope Creek Ruin is located in the southwest corner of Hutchinson County, Texas, three miles east and one mile north of Fritch on the Johnson Ranch, on the west bank of Antelope Creek."

"Antelope Creek is a permanent stream occupying a narrow valley in the High Plains Region of the Texas Panhandle. The stream... joins the Canadian River several miles beyond the low hill below the cap-rock on which the ruins are situated. The climate is semi-arid with an average rainfall of approximately twenty inches per year. [Typical vegetation consists of] buffalo grass, sage brush, mesquite, yucca, and a few cottonwood and willow trees along the stream."

He goes on to say that the ruins were first discovered because of the rectangular pattern of vertically placed dolomite slabs, sometimes joined, but often scattered.

He describes the houses as rectangular with the only opening in the center of the east side. Walls were built up between parallel slabs of dolostone filled in with "adobe" mortar. The inner walls were plastered with a buff colored mud. Post hole molds were found indicating roof supports, but the nature of the roofing material and configuration is unknown.

He states that room number 17 appears to be the oldest and it is an isolated structure. The main structure was built up in units as needed - the first unit consisting of rooms 11,9, 14, 12, 13, and circular room 1. The second unit consists of rooms 3,4,5,10,15, 18, and 19. The third and final unit consisted of rooms 2,6,7,8, 20,21,22,23,24,25,26, and 1.

In the center of some of the rooms there were firepits and the smaller rooms were thought to be storage rooms. There were circular rock-lined cists in front of the ruin and at the southeast end also thought to be for storage.

Against the west wall there is an adobe platform sixteen inches in height and five feet square. (Though Johnson did not know the function of this platform, other excavations elsewhere have shown it to be an altar for ceremonial uses.) From the platform toward the entrance the floor was flat and depressed several inches with ridges on either side lining the upper floor level. The surface of the floor is hard and smooth and covered with sandy buff colored clay.

Pottery is described as cord-impressed similar to that from Kansas and Mississippi; of a globular form with no handles. It is tempered with coarse sand. (Later reports suggest crushed quartzite pebbles for temper.) Though no basketry was found, coiled basketry from other Panhandle sites was described.

Points are usually small and side-notched, while knives are usually diamond-shaped, four-edged (the type today called Harahey) Hide scrapers and drills were found in abundance.

Bone implements included bison scapulae hoes, bison leg bone digging tools, and deer antlers used as tool handles or in flaking flint.

Fragments of elbow pipes made of red or gray argillaceous sandstone were also found. Ornaments consisted of bone and shell beads, including beads of Olivella snails later identified as from the Gulf of California.

The presence of corn grains and cobs charred in fire was taken to mean that agriculture was practiced, and beans and squash, though not found were inferred as being present, since these were grown together. Elliptical metates made of coarse grained sandstone were also described.

Bison and antelope bones were abundant, with bones of rabbit, turtle, deer, and birds also present.

Burials were semi-flexed or tightly flexed and were all in a room removed from the main ruin.

Staff members of the Museum of New Mexico, after attending the AAAS meeting, proceeded to Canyon, Texas where they visited the Panhandle Plains Historical Society Museum. Of especial interest were the unusually fine fossil remains and the archaeological exhibits of cultural material from the Canadian River sites. At Amarillo, Mr. Floyd V. Studer escorted the party to two ruins of the Canadian river drainage north of the city. Mr. STuder is director of the Department of Archaeology for the museum at Canyon. He is the sponser's representative for the WPA project under which the excavation of these ruins has been progressing, the sponser being West Texas State Teacher's College at Canyon. Mr. Studer has for many years been keenly interested in the region near Amarillo, particularly from the standpoint of Archaeology. It was he who first located and investigated many of the ruins in that vicinity, and through whose initiative the recent excavations have been made possible. Through the courtesy of Mr. Studer, a surface collection of interesting stone items was made for the Museum of New Mexico.

Mr. Ele M. Baker has been superintendent of these excavation projects for the past three years. The care and cataloguing of artifacts is being handled by Mrs. Baker. Both are former students of the University of New Mexico. The project has now completed work at Antelope Creek and Alibates Ruins, and has started excavation at Chimney Rock. It is at present the only WPA archaeological project functioning in the entire state of Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are to be congratulated on the excellent quality of the work which they have been doing.

"The presence of numerous masonry ruins on or near the short tributary valleys of the Canadian has been known for many years, thanks largely to the labors of Mr. Floyd V. Studer of Amarillo. There is a general idea that they somehow form an important link between Plains and Puebloan cultures, but this has remained vague and undefined. In the following pages a review of the work in this area to date will be made, after which a tentative culture complex which the writer proposes to be named Antelope Creek Focus will be defined. Most attention will be given to architectural features, since the available notes are scattered through many short papers, are often vague and conflicting, and it is highly important that these matters be well understood."

He continues on describing numerous ruins, mostly in the Texas Panhandle, giving artifact types and descriptions of the various features of the sites. He then describes the Antelope Creek Ruin:

"Antelope Creek Ruin, previously described in part by Dr. Holden in 1930 lies on the west bank of Antelope Creek, a small tributary flowing northward to the Canadian, in the southwest corner of Hutchinson County, three miles east and one mile north of Fritch. He continues, quoting Johnson and others: "... such features as plastered walls, a plastered floor with its central portion sunk from six to ten inches below the sides, the raised and rounded curb along the edges of the two side banks, the placement of four central support posts, and a circular plastered (or stone-lined) fire basin within the central depressed area, a tunnel which projects slightly into the room and extends outward to the east, and the seemingly careful alignment of such rooms in the cardinal directions, all seem to be fairly constant features of the larger rooms in the Canadian Valley pueblos. It must not be thought that all or even most of the rooms follow this pattern, for within each pueblo, the reports constantly stress variety in shape and size. However, it appears to me that much of this variety applies to small anterooms, bins or secondary rooms built to fill odd angles between other rooms..."

"Within the rooms and near the outer pueblo walls, numerous circular and oval cache pits have been reported. When their sides are commonly lined with flat slabs placed on edge, these are commonly called stone 'cists'; that they were used for food storage is indicated by the careful chinking of spaces between the stones. The dead were sometimes placed in abandoned cists and covered with stones, but in other cases the descriptions suggest graves oval and circular , with slabs around and on top of the skeleton. It is not clear whether burials found in rooms were placed in abandoned storage cists, or in prepared graves with stone linings, or both."

The following is the complete report Krieger prepared to describe the Antelope Creek Focus:

"Type Component: Antelope Creek Ruin in the southwestern corner of Hutchinson County; excavated in 1930 by Texas Tech students under the direction of W.C. Holden.

Types of sites: Villages usually situated on ridges and promontories overlooking the Canadian River and its short tributaries; on mesa tops and small terraces with steep banks. Convenience to fields and water (is) secondary to wide view and defensive features. Villages consist of multi-roomed, one story pueblos, also scattered single rooms.

Livelihood: Dependence on both Maize agriculture and hunting-gathering. Direct evidence for maize (charred cobs); beans and squash inferred. Animals hunted were mainly bison, antelope, and deer; also various small animals and birds. Various nuts, berries, and seeds probably utilized."

Pottery found on the sites is called Borger Cord-marked pottery. It has a temper of crushed quartz, sand and occassionally bone. The pots are globular, round-bottomed jars with straight rims placed vertically or flaring slightly outward. The exterior is completely covered with cord impressions though the cordmarks are sometimes smoothed over at the rim zone. Other decorations include deep notches in the outer edge of the lip and sometimes a row of fingernail impressions around the base of the rim. Other types of pottery included short tubular pipes and discs made from potsherds.

Pueblo style pottery has also been recovered including Lincoln Black on Red, Glaze "A" Cieneguilla Glaze-on-Yellow, Agua frio Glaze "A", and St. John's Polychrome.

Arrowpoints include Harrell and Fresno points which are small notched or unnotched points. Dart points which are larger were found with broad corner notches.

Drills, scrapers, knives, axes, choppers, and other tools were found mostly made from Alibates Flint.

Ground stone artifacts included Sandstone milling stones(Metates), oval hand stones(manos), and groved sandstone smoothers.

Polished stone artifacts included turquoise pendants and elbow pipes.

Shell artifacts consisted mainly of mussel shells either with serrated edges, or punched for a pendant. Olivella shells from necklaces, and conch shell beads.

Bone artifacts include Hoe blades made of bison scapulae, bison leg digging stick points, "rasps" of bison ribs and deer leg bones, beaming tools of bison metapodial, scapula, and humerus, Awls, usually of deer and antelope legs, but also from bison ribs and turkey legs. Eyed needles are rare. Beads of bird bones and box turtle shell rattles are found.

Antler tools include flakers and antlers with squared ends.

Other items recovered include plaited, twilled, and coiled baskets and both flint and quartzite hammerstones.

Burials seldom include grave offerings except for personal ornaments. All are flexed or semi-flexed.

In 1970, L. F. Duffield studied the bones from a number of Panhandle sites, particularly Antelope Creek and Alibates. In chapter five of his thesis he summarizes his conclusions:

The sites he studied range in age from 1220 to around 1450 A.D. The Panhandle Aspect which was the current name for the complex in 1970 included ruins in both the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. The ruins in the Oklahoma Panhandle had previously been referred to as the Optima Focus.

His study covered four aspects: the animals present; butchering practices; past ecology; and variations in the size of bison present in the sample.

In assuming the paleoecology of the area, it was decided that the more bones of an animal which appeared in a site would be an indication of how close the animal lived to the site. The degree of exploitation was determined for three environmental areas: grassland-plains, edge-breaks, and moist-aquatic.

The pages from his report dealing with Antelope Creek have been copied for inclusion in this study.

Christopher Lintz wrote his Doctoral Dissertation on the Antelope Creek Focus/Panhandle Aspect sites along the Canadian River in the Lake Meredith/Borger Area. His dissertation entitled Architecture and Community Variability of the Antelope Creek Focus of the Texas Panhandle was published in 1986 as volume 20 of the Oklahoma Archaeology Survey, Studies in Oklahoma's Past.

This dissertation redefined the Antelope Creek Focus, united it with the Apishapa Focus of Southeastern Colorado, and renamed the entire complex the Upper Canark Regional Variant.

Moorehead first excavated here in 1921, but his excavation units are uncertain. It appears that he excavated in room 27 which is a large circular room, excavating only the center portion.

Holden next excavated in 1930, excavating a six foot wide trench along the west side of the main room block. Lowrey, excavating from 1930 to 1932 dug his sections mostly in trenches, with the main trench running across the room block. He also excavated completely the "anterooms" on the southern half of the ruin (rooms 1, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26) Two exterior trenches were placed at the southern end of the main room block. Sayles, who excavated in 1932 was also into trenches, excavating crossing trenches in room

A summary of this work was published in In the Light of Past Experience Papers in Honor of Jack T. Hughes by the Panhandle Archeological Society in 1989.

A copy of this paper is included here to give an update of work done on these sites and as a broad overview of the work done.