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A True Texas Cache
Coons Bluff - Mertzon, Texas ( 23 miles out of San Angelo on Hwy. 67 S. )
January 13 & 14th 2001
by Bob Mc Williams
This first dig weekend of the 2001 season was a historical one for the TAAA and one of its members! Walt Scarborough found a true Texas Cache!
Saturday morning as we started our dig I noticed that there was a particular happy crowd attending the dig. Members were chatting and laughing as they searched for their find of a life time. Little did we know one of us was about to discover that find!
A TRUE TEXAS CACHE! Looking for 1/2 of an artifact pays off ...BIG TIME
Walt Scarborough has been a member of the TAAA for over 4 years. He said that he had always wanted to come to a dig but his job had kept him from attending until this weekend. Little did he know that he was about to find not only an artifact or two but a cache of artifacts! One could hunt artifacts for 5 lifetimes and never find a cache ( of any type), let alone find one on your first official dig!
Please forgive me if I do not have the exact details down correctly as I am writing this about five days after the find...
Walt had been doing a little surface hunting on the hill above the large mound where we were to have our backhoe dig. I heard that he had found some artifacts on the surface but did not think too much about it as most that are found in the rocky terrain of Coons Bluff are severely damaged from thousands of years rolling around on the limestone rock hills.
Later I got my first glimpse of these pieces. He had four of the largest snub nosed scrapers that I had ever seen. They exhibited great flaking as most do but these were up to 3 time larger than the average snub nose! The largest one was 6 1/4 inches long!
After finding these he started digging with the group. Sometime during the morning he decided to go back up the hill and look around some more. He found four and 1/2 more! The key word here is one half! Finding eight full and super long snub nose scrapers he really wanted to find the other half of the partial to make it nine all together!
This broken piece bothered him all day during the dig so after completing the days dig he decided to go back up the hill and look one more time for the half of snub nose he was missing! That is where I finally joined the picture!
As I was getting off the backhoe after a long days dig I saw Walt under a young Oak tree on his knees. Another member was with him. Just about that time I heard someone holler... He found another and it is buried!
I grabbed my digital camera and ran up the hill! By the time I got there Walt had uncovered four more! That made 12 and of course... one half! HAHA.
Dark set in and everyone left at the dig pulled their vehicles and flash lights out and around the tree to give light to the lucky digger. He continued... "Here are some flake knives!" Walt chimed out as he started uncovering flake knives buried with the snub nose cache.
Folks, these pieces were lined up, side by side as each one popped out of the ground we all stood in anticipation as to how many would come out!
"Here is another one!" Walt said with obvious excitement as his tool touch another piece of flint. Then came another and another, then more flake knives then another snub nose until we were all satisfied that he had found them all. The total was 18 perfect snub nose scrapers and 10 nice flake knives. Most were buried but Walt found them because after at least 2500 to 4500 years of being hidden by the maker they were starting to erode from the hill side. The ancient person had hidden them next to a large rock, presumably so that he could come back and find them. For some reason he never made it back, but Walt did... thousands of years later.
In the last several years members of the TAAA have found many exciting finds on our digs, many of you have witnessed them, but I have to tell you that this cache find was as exciting as anything we have ever uncovered. Every member that watched Walt uncover his discovery watch breathless and in amazement as he uncovered one ancient artifact after another.
On average these pieces were 2 to 3 times larger than most of that type! Thanks Walt Scarborough for finally coming to a TAAA dig, I bet it will not be 4 more years until you make another! <Grin>
Enjoy the photos....
Here is Walt Scarborough under the
now infamous small Oak tree where he
found his "Find of a Lifetime" with the
TAAA!
Walt was searching earlier in the day for the other half
of what turned out to be a 28 piece cache of artifacts!
Notice the rock in the dirt in front
of him? That is where he would later find
the rest of the cache!
Here are the first eight pieces that Walt found Saturday morning. Three things to note... #1 Look
at the size of the snub nose scrapers members! The largest is 6 and one quarter inches long!
The one on the end would normally be considered a large one! #2 On the left is the one-half
snub nose - the reason Walt found the rest of the cache! #3. Walt also uncovered this Wolf jaw
in the mound where we were digging. It is at least 2500 to 4500 years old! The jaw was trapped
in the ash of the fire and preserved for all those years!
Here is a close up of the "Giant" snub nose! 6 1/4" long!
As it gets dark, Walt uncovers more
snub nose and flake knife artifacts!
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Members find many other point types during the Jan. 13th & 14th dig!
THE LAST DISK THAT I PHOTOGRAPHED WALT DIGGING OUT THE REST OF THE CACHE IS
DEFECTIVE AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SHOW YOU THE REST OF THE PHOTOS UNLESS
I CAN GET SOME COMPUTER GURU TO HELP ME. BUT, I AM SURE WALT WILL BRING THE
PIECES BACK SO THAT I CAN REPHOTOGRAPH THEM TO SHOW ALL OF YOU!
Coons Bluff CONTINUED!!! - Mertzon, Texas ( 23 miles out of San Angelo on Hwy. 67 S. )
January 27 & 28th 2001
The Unbelievable story of a True Texas Cache Continues...
As this weekends dig started no one would believe that Walt could pull off another exciting find like he did the previous two weekends! But, Walt did find something to cause quite a stir at this dig also! Not only did he find the prettiest dart point of the dig (see TAAA Digs page) but his mind never would let him forget the 1/2 snub nose that was lacking from his collection (see the full story above). The reason that Walt found this once in a lifetime find (the complete cache) was because he found 1/2 of a snub nose with the other 8 full ones. Wanting to find the other half is what caused him to find the other 10 full snub nose scrapers and 10 flake knife cache! As he was digging for that half he uncovered the rest of his cache.
WELL.... this weekend was no different. Even though a lot of diggers had dug around in the place that Walt had found the cache and found nothing, Walt still decided to see if he could find the rest of his coveted cache. To him it was just not complete without that half!
Walt went back up on the hill and this is the rest of the story in photos!.......
Photo # 1 The completed Cache... Can you see it? Photo # 2 With the dirt still on it Walt found the other
half! There was not a chip missing! It appears the break was from manufacture. See that long thinning flake?
When the flake was removed it dipped a little low in the center causing a break.
Photo # 3 This photo speaks for itself... a perfect fit! Photo # 4 A happy TAAA member shows off a couple of the 6 inch
plus Snub Nose finds out of the cache!!! Way to go Walt!
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