Reflections on Artifact Collecting and the Science of Archeology

See related: Our Paleo Past

Paleoindian experts once believed that Clovis culture - defined by the use of signature stone tools - was the first culture of the americas. Archeologists at the Gault Site have discovered evidence placing humans in Central Texas much earlier. (Photo by J. Griffis Smith)

By Dale Weisman

I admit it: There’s something magical about spotting an arrowhead on the ground, picking it up and holding it in my hand like an ancient talisman. I imagine the keen intelligence, the sculptural ability, and the skillful hands that deftly chipped the projectile point from a rough chunk of chert hundreds or thousands of years ago.

For some collectors, the artifact’s appeal lies not with its timeless beauty or archeological significance but with its monetary value. An authentic, finely crafted and sought-after projectile point – an Andice, a Perdiz or a Scottsbluff, for example – can fetch top dollar at an artifact show or when sold online. Follow the money in the artifact collector market, and it often leads to a pay-to-dig site on private property or sometimes to a looted site on public or private land dug up by trespassing “pot hunters.”

It’s understandable and perhaps forgivable to pick up an artifact lying on the surface of the ground. But to dig up a significant archeological site – taking scores or hundreds of artifacts out their historic or prehistoric context and leaving behind piles of dirt, craters, and uprooted plants – is a destructive act on a much larger scale that I find disturbing.

I’ve seen the destruction first hand. Several years ago I participated in a Texas Master Naturalist clean-up project on public water quality lands south of Austin. Looters had dug up a large burned-rock midden (a prehistoric trash heap containing organic material and artifacts), leaving a house-sized crater ringed with huge piles of dirt and rock. We spent much of the day filling in the depression and replanting disturbed vegetation. The only good news in this sad story is that the looters eventually were caught and fined.

Collecting artifacts on public lands, such as a national or state park, is illegal. However, it’s perfectly legal to dig for artifacts on private land (with the landowner’s permission). There are no laws in Texas or elsewhere in the United States regarding archeological sites on private property except for laws pertaining to sites with human burials, which differ from state to state.

Some landowners with middens or other archeological sites on their properties allow collectors to dig and remove artifacts for a daily fee. While this pay-to-dig practice is legal, the results are irreversible. Digging up a Native American site obliterates the archeological record contained in the strata – the layers of soil that have accumulated for thousands of years.

Each artifact reflects an individual or shared behavior that sheds light on how a person or a culture lived and behaved in prehistoric times.

Archeologists are interested in lithic artifacts buried in well-stratified sites. Each artifact reflects an individual or shared behavior that sheds light on how a person or a culture lived and behaved in prehistoric times. The layers of soil provide useful information about our ancient past that archeologists, paleobotanists, paleontologists, and other specialists can interpret using sophisticated techniques that are not available to the average collector or digger.

An object lesson in how diggers often destroy the archeological record of an area is the Gault site in Bell County. For nearly 70 years, multiple landowners ran the Gault property as a pay-to-dig site, collecting in later years up to $25 per digger per day. Maintaining a pay-to-dig operation was more profitable than trying to run cattle on the hardscrabble land. Over the decades, countless collectors dug up the site, destroying much of the prehistoric record. The Gault site contains one of the largest burned rock middens in Central Texas – longer than a football field and originally six feet high. Pay-to-dig collectors greatly reduced the midden’s size in search of artifacts. Fortunately, they didn’t dig deep enough to disturb the underlying layers containing artifacts from the Clovis culture and even earlier cultures.

One sunny afternoon I sat at picnic table in a wildflower-dappled pasture on the Gault Site, now a protected archeological preserve, and talked with Clark Wernecke, the executive director of the Gault School of Archeological Research. Our conversation brought into focus the important role archeology plays in the scientific study of human cultures.

‘We are ultimately trying to understand human behavior. If we understand past behavior, we’ll understand ourselves better and where we are going in the future.’

“Archeologists are only interested in people,” Clark explained. “We are ultimately trying to understand human behavior. If we understand past behavior, we’ll understand ourselves better and where we are going in the future.

“We study people through material artifacts and environmental data left behind. In other words, we look at people’s garbage. Instead of being like Indiana Jones searching for the Crystal Skull, we are more like Sherlock Holmes. We like to call ourselves CSI Prehistoric.”

Inevitably, we talked about diggers and looters and their impact on archeological sites in Texas. “Everyone hates looters and trespassers who jump your fence and dig holes,” said Clark. “But the truth is, almost all archeologists started as collectors who picked up stuff when they were kids. Where archeologists differ from collectors is that when we pick something up, we wonder how old it is, how did they make it, where did it come from, who made it? Most collectors think that it’s neat looking and put it on their wall and classify it like stamp collecting.

“There is this tension between archeologists and diggers and collectors, and in particular looters, because they are hunting individual artifacts. As soon as you remove those objects from the site, you destroy the story. We are trying to recreate the story, and every little thing at a site tells a bit of the story.”

Archeologists do not dig an entire site – typically only 10 percent of the site’s surface area – unless it is in danger of being destroyed by development or inundated by a reservoir. According to Clark, only three percent of the Gault site has undergone archeological excavation.

We try to leave many areas intact for future generations of scientists who will apply new instruments and tests, resulting in new information.”

“Archeology is a destructive science, and archeologists get only one shot at gathering data from the strata as they dig,” said Clark. “We try to leave many areas intact for future generations of scientists who will apply new instruments and tests, resulting in new information.” When archeologists work at a site like Gault, they dig through each layer with painstaking care, often using plastic tools, bamboo sticks and even chopsticks to avoid damaging fragile chert while unearthing them. In one case, archeologists at Gault removed 16,309 chert flakes from a one-meter square area just five centimeters deep! They wash, measure, number and bag every single rock, and the bagged rocks go from the dig site to the laboratory for analysis.

Archeologists can learn a lot about the lifeways of Paleo cultures by studying their lithic tools, how they were made and used. Scientists examine the edges of tools under microscopes to determine wear patterns. Every tool has a telltale signature of the material it was used to cut, such as meat, hide, grass, wood or bone.

When a lithic artifact is found in situ with organic material such as bone or charcoal, archeologists can use radiocarbon dating technology to pinpoint the age of the organic material and hence the artifact. If organic material is insufficient or not available, archeologists sometimes use optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) technology to determine the age of the surrounding soil. OSL measures the amount of energy stored in grains of quartz and feldspar contained in the buried soil. After the soil is buried and no longer exposed to sunlight, the mineral grains accumulate energy. Optical stimulation in a special lab releases the energy, which is measured to determine when the soil – and the artifact – was buried.

Each day of field work at an archeological site results in 20 days in the lab. The total process is long and laborious, involving much paperwork.

“Some of the stuff found at Gault may not be analyzed in my lifetime,” says Clark. This unanalyzed lithic material ends up in a storage facility like the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) of the University of Texas in Austin.

Artifact collectors often complain that archeologists are really no better than diggers because they also destroy sites through excavation, and then they lock up the artifacts in vast warehouses like TARL, never to be seen or experienced by the general public.

Established as a National Monument in 1965, Alibates Flint Quarries offers insights into the Plains Village culture that thrived here between A.D. 1050 and 1450. (Photo by J. Griffis Simth)

The Texas Archeological Society (TSA) and its statewide regional affiliates also provide opportunities to participate in digs at sites on public and private land. Avocational archeologists have made many important contributions to the archeological record.

Archeology, however, is a scientific pursuit that’s truly open and accessible to the public. From neophytes to students to avocational (amateur) archeologists, anyone can participate in scientific field work at some level and experience the thrill of archeological discovery. Major archeological sites in Texas such as the Gault site and Lubbock Lake Landmark actively involve volunteers in field work. The Texas Archeological Society (TSA) and its statewide regional affiliates also provide opportunities to participate in digs at sites on public and private land. Avocational archeologists have made many important contributions to the archeological record.

Ultimately, what separates professional and avocational archeologists from diggers is the attitude that each individual has about finding an artifact and understanding its significance in the greater picture of human culture.

“Archeologists are not after just individual artifacts,” says Clark. “We are after stories that illuminate human behavior, to try and better understand our species. If you take the artifacts out of the ground without documentation and research, we lose that story, and you never get it back. It’s a little bit of all of our past that is gone forever. All you have left is something to look at on the wall, and I think that’s a shame.”

By Dale Weisman

A down-to-earth “rock star” of the Big Bend has passed away.

John Frank “Trey” Woodward III died on March 5, 2011, at the young age of 54. While cancer claimed his body, Trey’s gentle spirit lives on at the Woodward Ranch, a rugged mecca for rock collectors and outdoors enthusiasts.

For decades, the Woodward Ranch has promoted itself as the world’s only known source of red plume agate, coveted by agate aficionados and lapidarists. A 3,000-acre spread 16 miles south of Alpine, the Woodward is indeed one of the nation’s premier agate-collecting spots. More than 60 kinds of other colorful agates and gemstones, from opal to labradorite, occur naturally in the ranch’s rugged volcanic outcroppings.

“The real treasure found at Woodward Ranch was Trey. The agates and gems were just a bonus,” said Trey’s wife, Jan Woodward, when I contacted her after Trey’s passing.

Jan added, “Trey had a magic way of making people feel so welcome, and he was bent on sharing the beauty of this part of the world with others. A lot of people haven’t ever been off of a sidewalk, and Trey just wanted them to see the land, the sky, the cows and rocks. He was so humble and quiet. And yet he was responsible for getting many people interested in rock collecting and geology and all the facets of what you can do with rocks. The Woodward Ranch has such a long heritage of rock collecting and lapidary, and Trey carried on the tradition that his father and grandfather started there.”

I met Trey for the first time 11 years ago while researching a Texas Highways article on the mountains of West Texas. Clad in worn jeans, a khaki shirt, scuffed boots and a battered cowboy hat, Trey looked like the quintessential Big Bend cattleman. He had cookie-duster mustache, a gravelly voice, a firm handshake and a welcoming smile that instantly won me over.

Trey was the third-generation Woodward to operate the ranch. Originally homesteaded in 1884, the Woodward is one of the few working ranches in Texas open to the public, a place where visitors can roam the hinterlands freely gathering rocks and fond memories alike.

“We want visitors to go away with a deeper understanding of wildlife, a deeper appreciation for rocks,” said Trey during our first interview in March 2000. “Rock hunting is like Easter egg hunting. You can bring your family out here and have a wonderful time.”

“Sometimes people coming out to the ranch from Dallas or Houston seem like refugees from the cities,” added Trey. “I’ve also lived in some of those places, and I know what it’s like to be confined and never look out and see open spaces. This is also a working cattle ranch and has been for a hundred years. For people whose children have never seen cattle, it’s a treat.”

I returned to the Woodward in 2002 while researching a Texas Highways article on Alpine and spent more time with Trey, learning about the ranch’s and rock-hounding heritage.

Trey Woodward with petrified wood at Needle Peak.

“Even in the 1930s my granddad wondered what was in those rocks he was kicking around, and he got a rock saw and started working with them,” recalled Trey. “My dad John Frank Woodward Junior got interested in the rocks and the geology here. He was a geology major at Sul Ross [originally Sul Ross State Normal College, later renamed Sul Ross State University] and found out that this was the only place in the world where you can find red plume agates. They have to be cut in a certain way. My father and Ross Maxwell mapped more than 10,000 square miles of West Texas, from El Paso to Wink to Del Rio. That experience gave him an idea of the geology, how to work with rocks and where the agate is.

“My granddad started the agate ranch. When I was young we were building all the stuff at the house. We would cut, grind and polish rocks, and then college kids came down and helped us. I ran the ranch when I was 11-12 years old until age 25. My dad did the paperwork, but I ran the ranch. Then I moved away for 20 years, and my brother and sister ran the ranch for a while. I moved back in 1996, and my wife and I have made a go out of it.”

Trey showed me the ranch’s best agate-hunting beds, coaxing his old pick-up truck up and down steep ranch roads with panoramic views of Eagle Peak, the ranch’s signature promontory, dwarfed by the Cienega, Cathedral and Elephant mountains on the horizon. We stopped along spring-fed Calamity Creek, a lush oasis with oak-shaded campsites and a hunter’s cabin within a stone’s throw of the purling creek, which according to Trey never runs dry.

The last time I saw Trey was in May 2009 while researching an article on rock hounding for Texas Highways. My traveling companion Susi Bachman and I meet with Trey and Jan for a Tex-Mex dinner at La Casita in Alpine. We chatted about agates while devouring heaping plates of nachos and enchiladas. Between bites, Trey described how agates form over tens of millions of years in water-filled cavities inside volcanic rocks through a crystallization process. The nondescript agate nodules, called “biscuits,” dot the ranch’s hillsides. Slice one open with a rock saw, and you’ll find more colors than a Big Bend rainbow and an infinite variety of patterns.

Susi and I spent the night at the ranch in a lovely new guest cabin near Calamity Creek. We rose before dawn to meet Trey and hit the road at first light. Our destination: Trey’s Needle Peak acreage in south Brewster County. Bordering Big Bend National Park, Needle Peak abounds with green moss and pom-pom agates, pseudomorphs, petrified wood and fossils.

“Everyone I bring to Needle Peak says they love the ride down there the most,” said Trey, trailering an ‘86 Jeep behind his pickup for our four-wheeling sojourn. We left the pavement behind between Terlingua and Lajitas, offloaded the Jeep and took off down a muddy creek leading to Trey’s remote property. “Hold on!” Trey yelled over the roar of the revving V-8 engine. The Jeep’s fat tires spun in the slippery creek bed, splattering us with clumps of mud while Trey laughed like an overgrown kid, clearly in his element: mud and more mud.

We parked at the base of Needle Peak and hiked uphill through cacti, thorny brush and scree. “The best agate I’ve found is just below the peak,” said Trey. “It’s rough going up there.”

We stopped for a breather while ascending a steep ridge and savored expansive views of the desert badlands and nearby Santa Elena Canyon. “This is like home to me,” said Trey resting on a boulder. “It’s beautiful down here. Everything is quiet. It’s just you and the Lord.”

After several hours of rock hunting, we headed down the mountain, traversing a treacherous, talus-choked ravine. Trey spotted two basketball-size chunks of petrified wood. With my daypack already bulging with agates, I photographed the rocks and left them behind.

That afternoon, Susi and I joined Trey and Jan at their Woodward Ranch home and rock shop, admiring their enormous collection of agates and gemstones, many still in a raw uncut state, some sliced and polished, many for sale and some only for show. A must-see: a conglomeration of rare and beautiful rock specimens surrounds the Woodward’s fireplace.

We sat outside at a picnic table, sipped tall glasses of sweetened ice tea and reflected on the Needle Peak adventure and life at the ranch. Trey said something that evening that resonated and stayed with me over the years: “We are keepers of the stuff. You don’t really own the rocks. You’re a temporary keeper because they outlast you.”

While the rocks indeed have outlasted Trey, his legacy endures at the Woodward Ranch. “Trey cared about the land,” said Jan. “He was such a steward of the land and a kind soul.”

Trey’s family and friends will celebrate his life at the Woodward Ranch around noon on April 30, and the public is welcome to join the gathering. Visit www.woodwardranch.com to view an eloquent video tribute to Trey Woodward.