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Summer and Fall 2011

admin — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Wow, what a summer! If you’d ever like to see what it would be like to practice archaeology on the planet Mercury Texas might be the place for you. More than 70 days of triple digits (Fahrenheit) with humidity and it still doesn’t get appreciably cooler at night. This might have slowed us down a bit but the Gault Project continues year round…

Although short staffed we have accomplished a lot so far this year. We have nearly doubled the number of people who have gone through our educational programs (Speakers, workshops, tours) and from the look of the fall schedule so far it looks like we will more than triple that number for 2011! We held a successful teacher’s workshop in July at the site and are starting to prepare for our attendance at three large teacher’s conferences this fall. We cosponsored a conference on Preceramic Mesoamerica in Antigua, Guatemala this summer and it was well attended and received.

The excavators have moved more than 3 cubic meters of dirt in 5 cm levels. A few of the units are down well below the Clovis strata and we are continuing to find diagnostic tools -some Clovis-like and some not but it will be a while before we can tell you what all this means. Dr. Jack Rink (McMaster University) recently paid us a visit and took about 20 new OSL samples so we hope to get more dates back. We have had groups of volunteers from the Virginia Archaeological Society, the University of Exeter, the New Hampshire State Conservation and Rescue Archaeology Program and, most recently, a field school from Idaho State University.

We have a lot of upcoming events (check the events section from our homepage) this fall and expect to be very busy. We are always looking for great volunteers out in the field or in our lab in San Marcos BUT we also need volunteers who can help in other ways. We need some limited electrical and plumbing work done at our field house and are also always on the lookout for good carpenters. The campus has been plagued the last few years with fallen trees so if chainsawing is your thing we have just the place for you! And if your passion is the history and archaeology of Gault then you could sign on as a docent and learn to give tours of the site. There are many ways to get involved.

Join the GSAR and come volunteer. You can be part of the excitement as archaeological science helps to define a new story for the peopling of the Americas!

2011 Late Spring Update

admin — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:12:44 GMT

I’m not posting as frequently as I’d like but there are still some website growing pains. Once these are worked out then we will be hosting even more information regarding our work and upcoming events.

We have just ended our annual membership drive. If you are a member and you have not yet renewed make it easy on yourself and skip back to the home page and renew your membership with a credit card via the web. If you are not currently a GSAR member why not? All membership money goes straight to supporting our research and education initiatives and periodically there are great member perks.

In April Bruce Bradley, one the world’s foremost flintknappers, spoke at Texas State to students and members regarding the “Solutrean hypothesis” followed by Dr. Darrin Lowery who is doing cutting edge research regarding Clovis and preClovis occupations in the Chesapeake Bay area. Members and contributors also participated in a knapping workshop with Dr. Bradley out at the site – a neat opportunity to see a master knapper at work!

I am also giving everyone first warning about our 1st annual Gault volunteer day! It will be on May 7th -you supply the labor and we supply a great BBQ lunch. If you can wear gloves and walk through the woods then you’re qualified – we’ll be doing brush pickup, path maintenance, riprapping and many other things that will help us catch up on overdue site maintenance. If you’re able to join us please contact Nancy at nlittlefield@gaultschool.org.

We also will be sponsoring our 2nd Teachers Archaeological Workshop at Gault on July 9th-10th. Teachers will get an in-depth look at the Gault site and ancient technologies, hands-on excavation experience and, information and resources to help you utilize archaeology in the classroom. There is a $20 registration and limited room so make reservations with Nancy (nlittlefield@gaultschool.org) soon!

2010 Year In Review

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:02:34 GMT

Still a little bit of 2010 left to enjoy but, wow, what a great year! We had a lot of old friends come and help us out at Gault; the New Hampshire State Conservation and Rescue Archaeology Program, the University of Exeter, the PaleoCultural Research Group, and the Archaeological Society of Virginia. More than 1300 people toured the site this year – some paid tours thanks to our friends at the Bell County and Williamson Museums – and a lot of school children. An NSF grant enabled us to hire help out at the site to make our excavation goals and we REALLY appreciate Dr. Steve Howard, Zach Windler and Nick Swift. They, and the volunteers who put in time over the year, have discovered new information regarding the Texas Archaic period and have worked down to Paleoindian 5 cm at a time. Dr. Bruce Bradley also officially became the co-Principal Investigator at Gault which gives us some great new perspective and guidance.

The GSAR received a grant from the Archaeological Institute of America which helped us expand our educational programs and try out some new approaches. We now have a wonderful Teacher’s Guide for our DVD An Adventure in Time (available as a pdf on our Outreach page) and had a great experience with our first Teacher’s workshop. The GSAR and our partners (Shumla, the Texas Archeological Society, the Texas Historical Foundation, and TexasBeyondHistory.net) were able to attend three Texas teacher’s conventions and talk to thousands of teachers. We also premiered a new Prehistoric Texas heritage trail with Gault as one anchor site.

Our new offices at Texas State University are inhabited and the lab log shows an ever increasing amount of volunteer and intern time working on processing materials. We have a steady influx of students for the first time in a long while as well! Many of those students were able to participate in the excavation of a mammoth (or mastodon) tusk in Temple this fall.

We are now just starting our 2011 membership drive and we hope to see all of our old members renew but also have faith that we’ll see a number of new members. Your membership in the GSAR is very important to us – your support makes many of our programs and our research possible. We are continually applying for grants but they do not cover all expenses. One of the goals for 2011 is also to institute some new membership benefits in terms of functions and speakers. Membership is relatively inexpensive and one privilege of membership is that it allows you to participate in the excavation of a world-famous site. When you receive your renewal card please fill it out and return it promptly. If you are not a current member please take the time to check out our membership page, fill in an application and send it in today!

Move In Completed and Our New Mammoth Tusk

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:00:00 GMT

We are finally moved in at Texas State!!! Of course what we were waiting for was temperatures in the three digits – you simply can’t move in Texas without hot weather. Seriously we are now in our new offices and I have begun to keep regular office hours. At the minimum I will be in our San Marcos offices Monday-Thursday. Shortly we will be setting up for washing, drying and sorting artifacts as well as all the other fun projects that make the lab so exciting.

In the meantime, did you hear about our mammoth tusk? John Jackson, a GSAR member and fossil collector, was inspecting some newly exposed geology in Temple, Texas and came on the butt end of a mammoth tusk. After checking with the City of Temple (who were very helpful and supportive) we were able to field a group of students and staff who were able to excavate and cast the tusk over two days. We are now waiting to see if it is possible to date it and what condition it is in overall. More on this later…

I did not mention it previously but the GSAR has both softcover and hardcover editions of our new book Clovis Technology for sale. The book is great and the money is for a good cause!

D. Clark Wernecke

Executive Director

Long Time, No Update!

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:03:58 GMT

I apologize for not updating the bulletin board sooner. In the future there will be much more information here but we are still feeling our way through the new website startup and we have been extraordinarily busy this spring.

We are nearly in our new offices in San Marcos. The building was remodeled and the floors have been sealed – they’re still working on the fire alarm system but we have begun to move our boxes in. By this time next month I hope to be fairly settled in. It has been very difficult to keep everything going this spring while working out of boxes! Our offices are very nice. There are three private offices and a very large lab space. We are located in a building (Pecos) on the north side of the Texas State University Campus and across a narrow alley from the Center for Archaeological Studies run by our old friend and colleague, Dr. Jon Lohse.

As I mentioned we have had a lot going on this spring. April and October are our busiest months as far as our programs with the public. More than 300 people toured the site including one elementary school with 100 and even the Florence Chamber of Commerce! Our friends from New Hampshire SCRAP (http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr/SCRAP.htm) came at the end of February and into March. They had some beautiful warm days but also worked in a snowstorm that brought us 4 ½”! Dr. Bruce Bradley once again brought a number of students from the University of Exeter for the month of April which turned out to be a wonderful month weather-wise. Both groups helped us take our current deep excavation down in the Paleoindian strata.

The end of April brought us to the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting in St. Louis where the GSAR and alums were well represented among papers and posters. The highlight was the release of our new book, Clovis Technology, Drs. Collins, Bradley and Lohse with additional material by Dr. C. Andrew Hemmings and Marilyn Shoberg. The publisher, Prehistry press managed to sell all the books they’d brought by the afternoon of the first day!!

We are still busy in May but not insanely so we are taking time to catch up with everything and hopefully get situated in our new home in San Marcos. If you are interested in any aspect of Gault please feel free to email me at Cwernecke@gaultschool.org.

D. Clark Wernecke

Executive Director

New Offices, New Web Site

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:10:00 GMT

Welcome to the new and improved Gault website! This day has been a long time in coming and we here at the GSAR would like to especially thank Mr. David Ebaugh at Digitaris Technologies for all the help and support he has provided to make this site a reality.

Our website will be going through ongoing changes and the new framework will make it possible for us to upload and share information more frequently. Yes, that means you’ll have to check back every so often to see what has changed but I think you’ll find it worth it. We will post regular news updates, new photos and upcoming events for you to check out.

Our big news right now is our ongoing move of offices and labs to Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. It is a little further to drive (the opposite direction from the site) but it is well worth it. We will have access to students and resources that were unavailable to us in the past which will make it easier to pursue our missions of archaeological research and education. Our lab is scheduled to move in mid-January of 2010.

I would love to hear your comments or questions about Gault and the new website. If you have an idea, question or comment please feel free to email me at cwernecke@gaultschool.org

D. Clark Wernecke
Executive Director

Support Challenges

admin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

While Americans are considered to be among the most generous people globally, the economic turmoil has put even more pressure on donors and on nonprofit leaders. At the same time, millions of Americans say they want to make a difference and expect to work on causes bigger than themselves.

The Gault School, like many other non-profits, has certainly been impacted by the economic downturn, yet our biggest loss of support has been due to the shift in academic focus at the University of Texas.

The old saying “may you live in interesting times” comes to mind when I think over the last several months. The project’s fiscal crisis has continued to create doubts and problems and we continually come up with ways to overcome them. I would reiterate that the GSAR is doing quite well – in fact better than projected – but not well enough to pick up employee salaries.