Lubbock Lake Landmark: An Archaeological Preserve of Nearly 12,000 Years of Human Use

Site at a Glance

Rating

★4.5

Popularity

Low

Country

United States

Primary era

Stone Age

External website

Open ↗

Eras represented

Stone Age

Civilizations

Unclassified

Site type

Domestic

History

Lubbock Lake Landmark is an archaeological site and natural-history preserve in Lubbock, Texas, United States, where people used the water resources of Yellow House Draw for nearly 12,000 years. The site preserves a long sequence of human activity on the Llano Estacado, the broad elevated plateau of the southern Great Plains. It forms part of the Museum of Texas Tech University and contains evidence ranging from the earliest Paleo-Indian traditions to Anglo-American settlement.

Water, discovery, and early investigations

The landmark lies in a bend of Yellow House Draw, also known as Punta de Agua, near ancient springs. The draw supported human activity around ponds, marshes, and flowing water until the springs and channels dried in the early 1930s. In 1936, the City of Lubbock dredged the meander in an unsuccessful attempt to create a usable water supply. The work exposed archaeological material and drew attention to the importance of the site. There is now little standing water in the area, and the landmark no longer contains a lake.

Clark and Turner Kimmel found projectile points from Firemen’s Reservoir in 1936. The West Texas Museum, now the Museum of Texas Tech University, began the first explorations of the site in 1939. Excavations continued over later decades, including seasonal work by professional archaeologists and volunteers.

Paleo-Indian occupations

The site preserves a sequence beginning with the Clovis period and continuing through Folsom and later Paleo-Indian traditions. The Paleo-Indian period refers to the earliest widely recognized period of human occupation in the Americas, when many communities depended heavily on hunting and gathering. Clovis and Folsom are early Paleo-Indian traditions associated with distinctive stone projectile points and animals that are now extinct.

Clovis material was found beside the formerly active stream, where people used a gravel bar. The associated remains include mammoths, two kinds of horses, camels, ancient bison, giant short-faced bears, and giant armadillo-like pampatheres. A secondary butchering area contained mammoth bones broken into pieces for use or tool manufacture. During the Folsom period and later Paleo-Indian phases, hunters killed and butchered ancient bison around ponds and marshes in Yellow House Draw.

Several Folsom-period bison kills were found in the late 1940s. Charred bison bones from one locality yielded a radiocarbon age of approximately 9,800 years. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of formerly living organic material by measuring radioactive carbon decay, and this result was described as the first radiocarbon date for Paleo-Indian material. A later tradition associated with the site says that hunters disguised themselves as wolves and moved slowly toward bison before attacking.

Archaic and Ceramic-period activity

The Archaic period brought more varied hunting, gathering, plant processing, and settlement practices. At Lubbock Lake, this phase includes an Early Archaic bison kill, a Middle Archaic installation for processing plants, several Late Archaic camps, and bone beds containing bison and pronghorn. The Ceramic period followed with the use of pottery, camps, and processing stations. Broken Puebloan and Mogollon tradeware, pottery made in one region and distributed elsewhere through exchange, shows connections with communities beyond the immediate area.

The site’s full cultural sequence also includes the Protohistoric period, the transition immediately before and during early European contact. Spanish explorers entered the region, while Apache groups were present from at least about 1450 until the mid-eighteenth century. Their presence did not produce a detectable change in the Native cultures or archaeological remains. From the mid-eighteenth century to the 1870s, Comanche groups ranged across the Llano Estacado after displacing the Apache in the area. The excavated remains from these periods help clarify Native lifeways and population movements when compared with historical records.

Historic settlement and preservation

The most recent deposits contain evidence of Anglo-American habitation and use by bison hunters during the 1870s. George Singer operated a store and home at the springs from 1881 to 1886. The trading post served settlers and cattle ranchers and stood beside two military-trail crossings near the edge of Long Lake. It was the area’s first commercial business and marked the beginning of the modern city of Lubbock. A fire destroyed the store in 1886, after which it was rebuilt farther downstream.

Lubbock Lake Landmark was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21, 1971, and became a National Historic Landmark on December 22, 1977. It is also a state archaeological landmark. Continued excavation and protection treat the area as both an archaeological landmark and a natural-history preserve.

Remains

The landmark covers approximately 336 acres, or 136 hectares, in a bend of Yellow House Draw. The draw cuts about 15 meters, or 49 feet, into the Blackwater Draw Formation and the underlying Blanco Formation. Its layered deposits preserve changing water conditions, plants, animals, human groups, climates, and environments across almost 12,000 years.

Geological setting and archaeological layers

The bedrock belongs to the Blanco Formation, a Pleistocene deposit made mainly of lake sediments that are approximately two million years old. Above it lies the Blackwater Draw Formation, a sheet of wind-deposited sediment accumulated between approximately one million and 50,000 years ago. A dune in the northeastern part of the landmark contains sediments and buried soils dating to at least 36,000 years ago. The geological sequence begins with stream deposits, continues through lake sedimentation, and ends with windblown sediments formed during severe drought between approximately 6,500 and 4,500 years ago.

Archaeological deposits occur in clearly separated sediment layers. Sterile layers without artifacts separate one cultural deposit from another, allowing the sequence to be dated through nearly 175 radiocarbon determinations. This layered arrangement is an example of archaeological stratigraphy, the study of sediment and cultural layers to establish their relative order. Together, the layers provide a physical record of environmental and human change.

Early hunting localities

Clovis gravel-bar deposits

The Clovis remains lie on a gravel bar beside the formerly active stream. The deposits include mammoth, horse, camel, ancient bison, giant short-faced bear, and pampathere remains. Mammoth bones from a secondary butchering area were broken into pieces for use or tool manufacture, linking the animal remains to activities carried out at the site.

Folsom bison localities

Folsom and later Paleo-Indian deposits occur around former ponds and marshes. These areas contain bison kill-and-butchering localities, including charred bison bone associated with the approximately 9,800-year-old radiocarbon date. The remains preserve evidence of hunting and carcass processing around the former water sources of Yellow House Draw.

Archaic settlements and processing areas

Bone beds and bison-kill areas

Archaic deposits include bone beds containing bison and pronghorn, together with an Early Archaic bison-kill locality. Several Late Archaic camps have also been excavated. Their physical remains include hearths, scattered hearthstones, discarded tools, and scattered bones of small animals used as food.

Middle Archaic processing oven

A Middle Archaic baking or processing oven dates to approximately 5,000 years ago. It is a large oval pit filled with burned rock and ash and was used to process vegetal matter. The feature provides evidence for plant processing alongside the hunting activities represented elsewhere in the Archaic deposits.

Ceramic-period and historic remains

Ceramic-period camps and stations

Ceramic-period deposits contain broken Puebloan and Mogollon tradeware pottery, stone tools, flakes produced during toolmaking, broken bones, and hearths. Processing stations from the same period yielded remains of modern bison, coyote, wolf, and pronghorn. Together, these materials represent camps and work areas associated with pottery use, toolmaking, hunting, and animal processing.

George Singer’s store and home

Historic deposits contain remains of modern horses and artifacts made from metal and glass. Rifle cartridges, metal hardware, square nails, buttons, and a ginger-beer bottle are associated with George Singer’s store and home. The original building stood near the springs, beside Long Lake and the crossing of two military trails, before burning in 1886 and being rebuilt farther downstream.