PREHISTORIC CAVE DWELLERS OF TEXAS 



By FRANK M. SETZLER 

 Assistant Curator, Division of Archeology, U. S. National Museum 



Archeological researches in the southwestern portion of Texas 

 centered this year in the Chisos Mountains area, 150 miles south of 

 Alpine, and in Sunny Glen Canyon, 8 miles west of Alpine. Trans- 

 portation facilities varied successively from railroad to truck, to horse, 

 to burro, to airplane, and back to burro. Our first objective was the 

 Johnson ranch, which had been suggested as field headquarters by 

 Maj. C. E. Brenn, of Fort Crockett, Galveston, Tex. 



Eighteen miles down the Rio Grande from Castolon we drew up 

 before the door of Mr. and Mrs. Elmo Johnson and were received 

 with genuine southern hospitality. Both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are 

 interested in archeology and have accumulated an interesting collec- 

 tion of specimens. Through their kind offices we secured an excellent 

 guide, Dell Dodson, and were soon in pursuit of information pertain- 

 ing to the primitive Indian tribes who dwelt in this region before 

 Cabeza de Vaca made his memorable journey across the deserts of 

 northern Mexico. We drove the truck over trails, creek beds, and 

 mesas as far as possible ; then resorted to burros and when the latter 

 could go no further, we pushed on afoot. Our first camp was estab- 

 lished near the south tip of Mule Ear Peaks ( fig. 53 ) and here two 

 caves were completely excavated. A third cave (fig. 54), on Wayne 

 Cartledge's ranch, yielded information not found elsewhere. From 

 these three sites we gained an excellent cross-section of the culture 

 typical of the region. 



The Chisos Mountains proper were first surveyed from the air, and 

 numerous caves were sighted along the precipitous cliff's. The ter- 

 ritory we covered by plane in an hour required four days to reach by 

 muleback. And then we were disappointed in that none of the caves 

 visited contained evidence of more than passing occupancy by pre- 

 historic Indians. 



On May 1 , camp was moved to Sunny Glen Canyon where, with the 

 cooperation of V. J. Smith of Sul Ross State Teachers College, and 

 with the permission of the A. S. Gage estate, two other caves were 

 excavated. These latter disclosed the same uniform type of ma- 

 terial culture we had observed farther south on this and previous 

 expeditions. 



53 



