g Our Past
tags and records each item found with the location in Steve picks up a piece of this fire cracked rock the pit including its depth from the surface. It is very nearby. “You can sometimes smell a faint sulfur odor clear to even an untrained observer that meticulous in a freshly broken piece of this fire cracked rock.” He recordkeeping is paramount. says the cooked prickly pear pads had a slimy texture, like cooked okra, and the sotol tasted like molasses. In Steve Stoutamire, an Archeology Steward for the another pit, he points out a layer of rock which is left Texas Historical Commission, shows me a layer of over from periodic flooding thousands of years before. sharp edged limestone rocks in a corner of the pit “We can’t expect to find any culture below about a which have been left in place for the moment. “These meter here, because the flooding events would have are fire cracked rocks. This was where they cooked made this spot uninhabitable. It’s like looking for a sotol, yucca, prickly pears, prickly pear pads, and needle in a haystack.” other plants. They have to be cooked for 24 to 48 hours to render the carbohydrates into simple sugars Each week this group of volunteers scrapes their and cook out the toxins.” This was done by digging way down 10 centimeters, putting all the dirt through an earthen pit putting a fire in it, then placing tabular a screen, and recovering hundreds or thousands of pieces of limestone on top of the coals to absorb the flakes. And, the week before, three beautiful stone heat. Native plants were then placed on the heated points were unearthed in this pit. Back at the lab, the limestone, and then covered with earth. After each crew cleans each piece found and creates a record use, some of the rocks cracked into pieces and were using a code system. They use experience and a thrown into a nearby pile. reference manual to definitively identify each artifact, and the points are carefully protected. The people in