new acquisition

Rare Rockshelter Preserved

Archaeologist’s family donates the site that he purchased and researched.

Few rockshelter sites have been reported in the High Plains region of the Texas panhandle. Those that do exist are frequently vandalized, leaving few clues for archaeologists trying to understand the prehistoric use of these natural features. Hughes Rockshelter is a rare site that, because of the collapse of the overhanging rocks, is thought to contain intact, buried cultural materials. David Hughes, the son of the late archaeologist Jack T. Hughes, and his family recently donated the site, which also contains a prehistoric house feature with hearths.

“The particular tracts we have given to the Conservancy were purchases specifically and intentionally made by Jack Hughes for preservation, conservation, and research,” explained David Hughes, an archaeologist at Wichita State University. Jack Hughes, who moved to the area in the 1950s to work for the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum and teach at West Texas State College, had an enormous influence on many archaeologists currently practicing in Texas and surrounding states, including his son David. Jack Hughes was a member of the Conservancy since its creation in 1979.

Hughes bought the two lots containing what was formerly known as the Palisade site in the early 1960s. Between 1962 and 1966 Hughes, with the help of his wife, Polyanna, David, and other volunteers, conducted test excavations downslope from the rockshelter, which had collapsed sometime before. Their work revealed the remains of a possibly burned house feature and a midden deposit. The wattle-and-daub structure, interpreted by Hughes as a possible Apache dwelling, contained as many as three hearths, one of which is basin-shaped and clay-lined. Although no postholes were found, a line of bison ribs that may have served as stakes was discovered along one edge of the structure. Numerous artifacts, including cordmarked sherds indicative of the late prehistoric Antelope Creek culture (A.D.1250 to 1450), a southern variant of the late prehistoric Plains Village culture, were recovered and are now curated at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon. Artifacts indicative of the area’s later Tierra Blanca occupation were also discovered at the site. Tierra Blanca sites occur about A.D. 1500–1700 and have yielded evidence of a semi-nomadic bison hunting economy.

“Of particular interest is the question of what relationship the rockshelter deposits might have with the late prehistoric and protohistoric deposits downslope,” said Patricia Mercado-Allinger, state archaeologist with the Texas Historical Commission. The collapsed rockshelter has not yet been fully investigated, and it may contain well-preserved prehistoric artifacts including rare perishable remains. —Tamara Stewart

Hughes Rockshelter

Influential archaeologist Jack Hughes owned and investigated this important rockshelter.