The following was written by Michael Collins, of the University of Texas,  for 2001 TAS Field School web site.  If you are interested in more information that is easy to read try The Dallas Morning News: Science story on the Gault site and Science Daily Magazine story on the the Gault site.



Gault Site

Situated in a cove at the headwaters of Buttermilk Creek, the Gault site was occupied in Paleoindian, Archaic, Late Prehistoric, and Historic times. For prehistoric hunter-gatherers, the locale was ideal with its abundant chert of high quality, reliable springs, and rich plant and animal resources. The site has been known for at least 80 years and has witnessed prolonged and extensive digging for relics. It has also been the setting of professional archeological excavations by J. E. Pearce (1929-30), M. B. Collins and T. R. Hester (1991, 1998), and in 1999-2000 a consortium of field directors (including Collins, Hester, Harry J. Shafer, Michael Waters, Bruce Bradley, Richard Boisvert, Stan Ahler, Joel Janetski, and Logan McNatt). From these efforts we have determined that Gault is one of the most extensive and prolific Clovis sites in North America as well as a place where Archaic and Late Prehistoric peoples left copious quantities of campsite debris. Our gracious hosts at the Gault Site are the Lindsey family: Howard, Doris, Ricky, and Leslie. We also anticipate conducting test excavations in that part of the Gault Site on an adjacent property owned by Kirk Meyers. Controlled excavations in limited areas of the site have documented a large array of Clovis artifacts and a small number of features. Some of the artifacts were found in direct association with bones of at least one mammoth. What is remarkable about the Clovis deposits is their vertical and horizontal extent. These occur over an area at least 300 meters long and in places are as much as 40 centimeters or more thick. In most of the places where controlled excavations have been conducted in the Clovis deposits, the concentration of cultural materials is unusually great for a Paleoindian site. In one area, as many as 200 or 300 objects have been found per single 5-cm level of a 1-m square. These are primarily of stone, but a minor amount of bone is also being recovered. Clovis-age features include a small, oval pit of unknown function, a conical pit that we interpret to have been a well, and a habitation floor with large concentrations of artifacts and bone as well as numerous "manuports" (unmodified rocks apparently brought in by people). Some of the manuports are concentrated on the top of a deposit of sticky clay mud in a manner that suggests people were paving over the muddy area. One large feature has only been partially excavated at this time. It is an isolated area where only the first steps in stone tool production transpired. Bones found in the Clovis layers are mostly too fragmentary to be identified, but a few can be identified as can teeth and teeth fragments. Bison are represented by the identifiable remains found throughout the temporal span of the Clovis occupation, but mammoth and horse are only found in the earlier part of that time span. This raises the interesting possibility that occupation of the Gault Site began before mammoths and horses became extinct and continued after those animals disappeared from the region. This evidence matches well with the fact that immediately above the Clovis deposits are found a small number of Folsom-age artifacts (Folsom and Midland points, preforms of both of these point types, end scrapers, and ultra thin bifaces). There are also a few bits of charred bones of small and very small animals. Stone artifacts from the Clovis deposits are mostly the products of chert knapping and the vast majority are of a variety of Edwards chert that outcrops locally. Clovis points are not particularly numerous, but clearly there were large numbers of points manufactured at this site because preforms, aborted preforms, channel flakes, and other debris associated with point production are prolific. There are also numerous complete and fragmentary cores, bifaces, blades, and tools made on blades and flakes. Flakes and other knapping debris occur in staggering numbers. Gault is well known for its elaborately engraved stones, a few of which have been found in contexts suggesting that they are Clovis in age; others seem to be of Late Paleoindian to Early Archaic affiliation. Similar engraved stones are found in Early Paleoindian deposits at Wilson-Leonard (Texas) and Blackwater Draw (New Mexico) and others come from Archaic contexts in Texas and elsewhere. The meaning of these stones is unknown, but their considerable numbers at Gault may someday afford enough evidence for interpreting them. Besides the bones, engraved stones, and quantities of chipped stone artifacts Gault is noteworthy for the new information gained from certain of the stone tools. Several kinds of tools are previously unreported or rarely reported from Clovis sites. These include a number of tools on blades (serrated knives, end scrapers, gravers, and possibly burins) as well as small bifacial adzes designed for working wood. Microscopic use wear on blades indicates the cutting of meat as well as grass or cane. During the upcoming field school, we will excavate approximately 150 1-meter squares into Clovis-age deposits. These will be spread out in some eight or ten areas of the site. In addition, a small crew will work in the fill of a small sinkhole on the valley wall near the edge of the site. Several objectives guide the planned fieldwork. Throughout the investigations of 1991 and 1998-2000, archeological and geological inquiry have been integrated in order to better understand the prehistoric human ecology of the site. This stance will continue through the field school. We hope to better determine what changes in the natural environment as well as what cultural changes, if any, occurred within the Clovis time span at this site. More excavation is planned in and around the isolated knapping feature to learn more about this activity area, it is also anticipated that other horizontally-limited activity areas may be discovered that would add important details to our understanding of Clovis life ways. One of the greatest potentials of the Gault Site is to yield large samples of stone tools and the debris from their manufacture. The TAS Field School will add large numbers of specimens to these samples-a collection that will be the object of study by Paleoindian scholars for years to come. The high quality chert of which almost all of the Clovis tools at Gault are made is ideally suited for microscopic use-wear studies, and investigation of this variable on large numbers of each of the kinds of tools recovered will be one of the more informative lines of inquiry in this collection. Although preservation of organic remains is very poor at this site, every effort will be made to locate and investigate any parts of the site with better prospects for preservation. Any recovery of biotic remains could improve prospects for environmental reconstruction, radiocarbon dating, or both. It is hoped that evidence relating to the paleoenvironment as well as materials suitable for radiocarbon dating are preserved in the sinkhole.