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Prehistory Index

Articles by Wes Phillips



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From Discovering Archaeology's The First Americans

The Puzzle of the First Americans

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Plains Villagers of the Texas Panhandle
from the University of Texas

By Randall Derrick
PanhandleNation.com

      By 1200 AD the hunter-gatherers of the southern Plains had advanced beyond the pedestrian culture that pursued game with flint-tipped spears and gathered the fruit of plants as they traveled from one campsite to another in their quest for survival. Around 700 AD the bow and arrow were introduced which gave more power and precision to hunters. Pottery was also more prevalent and signs of long distance trade with cultures west of the Llano Estacado shows that southern Plains cultures had become more settled in their daily environment by the end of the Archaic period. From 1200 to 1500 AD the Texas Panhandle was dominated by the Antelope Creek Phase culture in the Canadian River valley and the Buried City culture near Wolf Creek near what is now Perryton in Ochiltree county. Formally defined by Christopher Linz in The Handbook of Texas Online, 

     the Antelope Creek Phase is the cultural designation assigned to  a series of prehistoric sites in the upper Texas and Oklahoma panhandles utilized by semisedentary, bison-hunting, and horticultural groups during a period of aridity between AD 1200 and 1500. 

     Both the Antelope Creek Phase and the Buried City Complex in Ochiltree county are the farthest southwest cultures on the Plains Village horizon. The Plains Village horizon describes bison-hunting and horticultural groups that lived in village societies in the grassy plains areas from north central Texas northward into North Dakota. The Antelope Creek and Buried City cultures are the only two in the Plains Village horizon that lived in pueblo-like villages with foundations and walls made of stone. The remainder of Plains Village cultures probably lived in either temporary, natural shelters, portable ones made of lightweight materials made of animal hides, or shelters made from locally available materials, perhaps wood, sod and other types of specially prepared earth. 

     The architecture of Antelope Creek structures varied between three general types: Multiple family structures with twenty or more rooms; single family homesteads or sub-homestead; and field huts that had no residential type rooms. The multiple-family room structure existed earlier than the single-family residential structure. Typical residential rooms ranged in size between 130 and 650 square feet, were rectangular in shape and had an eastward-facing entrance that required stooping to enter. The entrance was usually below the ground surface. The finer details of the interior construction are described by Linz: 

Four interior roof-support posts often occur around a central hearth. The floor level of residential structures is a foot or so below ground surface, with the distinctive presence of slightly elevated plastered activity areas or benches flanking a depressed work-area channel extending east-west through the central third of the room. Pit features or bins may be present on the benches. Many residential rooms contain a dias, or platform-altar, located within the channel against the west wall or recessed into the west wall.

 The walls sat atop footing made of stones placed vertically in a u-shaped sub-structure. The walls themselves were made of either stones stacked horizontally with dirt as a filler, or of adobe that was made from the river clay shaped into building materials and then sun or kiln dried prior to use. Since a great amount of time elapsed between the Antelope Creek culture's demise and their rediscovery in the early 20th Century, the type of roof construction is open to hypothesis. E. F. Green states that clay or mud was used for roofing and that during later excavations in the 20th century, mud from roofs was discovered on the floors of structures. Fire occasionally sweeps across the Plains and perhaps erased all evidence of the roof structures made of other materials. It is easy to assume that construction materials such as logs, leafed branches and broad-leafed grasses were woven together to repel water and resist strong winds. Roof shapes were probably either flat, or hipped in one direction. Certainly roof designs varied between structures for various reasons such as size and availability building materials. 

     The existence of the elaborate prehistorical architecture of the Antelope Creek phase was supported by an equally complex economy. Based on hunting-gathering, horticulture and bison hunting, the Antelope Creek economy was both local and distant. The apparent abundance of bison and water resources provided a rich environment. With fossil springs and the Canadian River as water sources wildlife was plentiful regardless of the contemporaneous climate. Food sources would include a large array of antelope, deer and small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, clams and waterfowl. Plant resources would include hackberry, mesquite, plums, cattail stems, persimmons, prickly-pear cactus, purslane, goosefoot, grass seeds, sunflower seeds, corn, squash and beans. The proximity of the Antelope Creek society with the Alibates flint quarry allowed distant trade with other cultures since many of the tools used by all southwestern societies were still lithic, or stone-based. 

     For hunting and processing food there are side-notched and un-notched arrow points, alternately beveled, diamond shaped, and oval knives, end and side scrapers, guitar-picked scrapers and preformers. There were also gravers, bone awls, pins and spatulate tools, bone wrenches, freshwater clamshell scrapers, scored rib rasps, and hammer stones and anvil stones. There was also pottery of globular shape, cord-marked and even fabric impressed. Many of these tools were made from flint from the local quarry and others were crafted from animals themselves. 

     Horticultural and construction implements include socketed hoes, squash knives and digging sticks made from bison scapulae and leg bones. Domesticated and wild seeds were ground on basin-shaped stone slabs and one-handed manos. 

     Trade items and other craft endeavors were constructed and shaped with woodworking tools including drills, scrapers, expedient flake knives and rarely hafted axes. Stone, bone and wood tool manufacturing included hammerstones, antler billets, pressure flakers, shaft straighteners for arrows and spears, awl sharpeners, abrading stones and biface caches. Weaving and basket-making was also a domestic task and required bone needles, awls and spindle whorls. 

     Life in the Antelope Creek phase also included artistic creations like elbow and tubular pipes along with rock art depicting human footprints which fan be found at the Alibates ruins. Likenesses of these human feet carved into limestone were found near Alibates in a location appropriately named "The Footprint Site." There are also stick figurines and bas-relief turtles. Red hematite was used to color objects such as bifacial knives and building stone, and perhaps face paint as well. 

     The complexity of life in the Canadian River valley is apparent in architecture and the various tools used in daily life. Most tasks like the communal residential construction and hunting and food preparation were accomplished through complex social interaction which required a high level of organization and leadership. This level of organization and planning required an equally complex political system however, anything beyond hypothesis in Antelope Creek political structures can only be inferred by the fact that humans require high levels of organization in order to be generally productive. In comparison to the earlier Paleo cultures the Antelope Creek culture was well advanced.

     Long-distance trade existed from earlier prehistoric times. In the area of the Alibates quarries, the numerous sources of flint provided Antelope Creek residents with virtually an unlimited supply of raw flint as a commodity. Blanks mined from dozens of shallow pits could not only be used to make tools for local activities but could be used as trade material as well.

One distinctive aspect of the Late Prehistoric was widespread, long-distance trade, best reflected in the distribution of obsidian artifacts in parts of Texas. Artifact-quality obsidian (volcanic glass, usually black to gray in color) does not occur in Texas. Yet at sites in deep South Texas, across Central Texas, and into the Panhandle, obsidian artifacts are often reported. 

     Antelope Creek culture exchanged goods and services with almost all adjacent cultures in North America however, most materials from outside the Antelope Creek area are from the southwestern pueblo cultures. These include many types of ceramic pots with exotically painted designs, turquoise beads, and numerous obsidian objects such as tools and jewelry as well as blank material. There are also many objects made from various types of shells: conus shell tinklers, tubular smoking pipes and conch-shell gorgets often used for body armor. Marine-shell beads were made from imported Olivella shells. Goods were also exchanged with northern groups of the Plains Village horizon. These include Niobrara jasper, an colorful opaque, quartz-based stone that occurs near the Niobrara river in Nebraska. Eastern cultures traded their rare Caddoan ceramics, tobacco and other surplus food stuffs.

     Trade goods brought from outside are numerous and represent a high level of functionality in their end-use. Relations between cultures are often maintained by gift-giving which may explain a highly redundant existence of certain types of materials like obsidian. Other items like pottery or woven products may represent a form of utility which was not attainable within the recipient culture. Shortage items might also have been stockpiled for times when local resources were great demand.

     The Antelope Creek phase of the Plains Village horizon was short lived: it existed in the Texas Panhandle from 1200 to about 1500 AD and flourished because of the abundant local resources. Fossil springs from the Ogallala Aquifer provided fresh water for humans and the relatively salty water from the Canadian River attracted a tremendous variety of game. Since the local economy found its staple in horticultural products that they themselves cultivated, attempts at maintaining an agricultural economy became increasingly difficult with constant drought. Wandering bands of nomadic tribes such as the Apacheans were instrumental in adding unbearable pressure to the Antelope Creek pueblo-type lifestyle. 
By 1500 AD the Apacheans had completely displaced the local Antelope Creek culture. The continuity of the Antelope Creek phase in the Texas Panhandle remains a mystery. It is believed that the local Panhandle culture moved eastward and perhaps merged with similar Caddoan plains tribes such as the Pawnee or Wichita. 

     There are numerous Antelope Creek sites in the Texas Panhandle, mostly centered around the Canadian River valley. A partial list will include Alibates Flint Quarry on the Canadian River near Lake Meredith in Hutchinson County, Alibates Ruin 28 which is within ½ mile of the Alibates Quarry, Tarbox Ruin, Antelope Creek 22 Ruin, and Saddleback Ruin near Old Tascosa on the west Canadian River, Landegrin Mesa north of Vega, a Sanford site, Roper site, Pickett site, Cottonwood Ruins, Jack Allen ruins, and three ruins along the Big Blue Creek between Dumas and Lake Meredith. These sites generally range in location from Tule Creek south of Palo Duro Canyon near Tulia north to the Canadian River and into the Oklahoma Panhandle.