Texas Archeological and Paleontological Society
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BULLETIN OF THE Texas Archeological and Paleontological Society Volume Nine SEPTEMBER 1937 Published by the Society at Abilene, Texas COPYRIGHT, 1937 BY TEXAS ARCHEOLOGICAL AND PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The Texas Archeological and Paleontological Society OFFICERS CYRUS N. RAY, President JULIUS OLSEN, Vice-President OTTO O. WATTS, Secretary-Treasurer DIRECTORS CYRUS N. RAY, D.O. W. C. HOLDEN, Ph. D. JULIUS OLSEN, Ph D., Sc.D. RUPERT RICHARDSON, Ph. D. OTTO O. WATTS, Ph. D. C. W. HANLEY REGIONAL VICE-PRESIDENTS FLOYD V. S TUDER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Amarillo COL. M. L. CRIMMINS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - New York, N. Y. VICTOR J. SMITH - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Alpine C. L. WEST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hamilton DR. J. E. PEARCE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Austin LESTER B. WOOD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Breckenridge JUDGE O. L. SIMS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Paint Rock TRUSTEES DR. ELLIS SHULER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dallas DR. STEWART COOPER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Abilene W. A. RINEY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Abilene PRICE CAMPBELL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Abilene FRED COCKRELL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Abilene ERNEST W. W ILSON - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Abilene A. T. JACKSON - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Austin EDITOR, CYRUS N. RAY Foreword The Rise of Man the earth, and yet stranger beasts shook the earth Through the various forms of life, from the with mighty tread, browsed from treetops; or when lowest microscopic single-celled organisms of both the echoes roared from hill to hill while savage the animal and vegetable kingdoms, up to their reptiles, many times larger than elephants, charged apices in the huge multiple-celled aggregations of in bloody combat, bellowing thunderously and life, such as the whale and the elephant on the one slithering over and breaking down trees in their hand, and the higher multiple-celled forms of monstrous rage, while overhead hissed and flapped vegetation represented by the great oaks and elms great satanic winged reptile dragons licking red on the other, runs the golden thread of life; a great tongues out of long fang filled jaws; the whole a mystery, as much a mystery today as when the first picture more near to a real inferno than the morbid brutal prototype of man began to have glimmerings dream of any medieval monk. of wonder as to whence he came. We know that certain attributes run through all Man’s Slow Rise of life’s cellular structures, that these life cells are Did man spring fully panoplied and equipped all built up of protoplasm, a complex jelly like into the arena of life? Again paleontology and substance, which always contains carbon, archeology show that his rise to civilization was hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur. This slow and painful, and probably lasted a million protoplasm is built up by plants alone and received years or more. as such by all animal life. It is reasonable to What physical attribute is there in man which conclude therefore that plants were created first distinguishes him from the lower animals? The and that all of the vast tree of life has been built on answer is, the brain of man. And undoubtedly, the this foundation. attribute of the brain of man which has made him what he is today is curiosity. When we examine Mendel’s Law the lower animals for evidences of this trait we Experimentation has shown that the Mendelian find it most fully developed only among the order law of heredity operates in the same manner in both of primates. With all the rest of animal creation plant and animal life. there seems to be little interest or curiosity concerning anything other than the most primitive Paleontology unfolds for us the leaves of the fears and appetites. All of the order of primates, book of life going back into the almost however, manifest almost human curiosity. Also imponderable hundreds of millions of years. mental tests have shown the higher forms of these We see in the hot ooze of the primordial seas a to be next to man in intelligence. droplet of jelly charged and pulsating with life. Can Among men it has been shown that the most it be that all that we know as life came from this? intelligent are those who maintain throughout life At any rate the rocks show successive stages of the curiosity of a little child. progression from some invisible beginning up to the culmination of all life in man. In Unpromising Regions The mind must be dull indeed which can see no Both historic records, and research into the wonder and romance in the records of the earth’s prehistoric ruins of vanished civilizations, show progression. Who cannot visualize, for instance, that owing to some unseen force, civilizations the age of reptiles when strange vegetation covered sprang up in the most unpromising regions, grew has been so, and genius flowering at the head of rapidly for a few thousands of years, and then when government for a few generations has produced racial culture had reached its flowering, the hand wonderful civilizations. that held high the torch that became the light of the world was stilled; the jungles’ noxious growths One Class Led covered its temples, the rattlesnake wriggled over In the Egyptian, Mayan, Incan and Aztec its pavements, and the jaguar stalked through its empires civilization flowered in the priestly class stately mansions. and died with them. The priests of Spain not only Other hands, if not indeed other races, had destroyed the cultured priests of the Mayan snatched the dying embers, and enkindled anew, civilization, but also all of their literature and the light of the world flamed yet again. chronicle’s, the cultural flowering of thousands of years. They left only the hewers of wood, and the This has gone on for as yet an unknown number drawers of water, and today the descendants of of thousands of years. these wander stupidly among the glorious ruins What is this unseen force which is behind produced by their past rulers, unable either to today’s as of all the vanished civilizations of the understand or to reproduce them. Some one has past? It is the writer’s opinion that this divine flame said that any civilization could be easily destroyed or ferment is present in less than a thousandth part by destroying the small per cent of the population of the population of any race or people. responsible for it. Today no one knows in which continent civilization is oldest. A nation’s rulers have seldom been of this original thinker class, occasionally in the past this C. N. R. BULLETIN of the Texas Archeological and Palentological Society TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Archeological Investigations on Bayou Macon in Arkansas, by Harry J. Lemley and S. D. Dickinson ------------------------------------------------------------- 10 2. Excavation of Murrah Cave, by W. C. Holden----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27 3. Folsom and Yuma Points, by E. B. Renaud ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 4. A Study of Indian Pictures in Texas, by Forrest Kirkland ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 46 5. Further Remarks On the Pre-Columbian Relationships Between the United States and Mexico, by J. Alden Mason ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 59 6. Excavation of Pueblo Grande De Nevada, by M. R. Harrington ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 65 7. Exploration of Certain Sites in Culberson County, Texas, by A. T. Jackson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 8. Late Discoveries in the Abilene Region, by Cyrus N. Ray ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 92 9. A Carankawa Fire Implement, by Clyde T. Reed-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 102 10. Buried Middens in the Floodplain of The Little Wichita River, by Adolph Henry Witte ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 103 11. Reviews, (1) Analysis of Indian Village Site Collections From Louisiana, S. D. Dickinson. (2) Pleistocene Man in Minnesota, Cyrus N. Ray ----------------------------------- 105 12. Editorials, (1) The Amateur in Archeology, W. C McKern. (2) More Pueblo Pottery Found Near Abilene. (3) Dr. Walter Hough’s Visit. (4) Texas Should Retain Its Scientific Finds, Cyrus N. Ray ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 108 13. Secretary-Treasurer’s Report ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 112 14. Membership List ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 113 Vol. 9, 1937. $3.00 Abilene, Texas LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 11 Shows nine pottery vessels from mounds in Arkansas excavated by Harry J. Lemley and S. D. Dickinson. PLATE 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------