A FRAMEWORK FOR THE EXPLORATION OF

TEXAS NATIVE AMERICAN PAST

IV  -  TEXAS IN CONTEXT – THE SEA

Figure 19 - Beach in Florida's gulf coast

Figure 20 - The Gulf of Mexico shoreline

6.        THE SEA SHORE

            The final area of Texas that needs to be studied in a larger context is the shoreline.  Texas, at the present time in history, has about 367 miles of coastline if measured in a uniform line. If the actual tidal waterline is measured following the ins and outs of all geographic accidents, the shoreline increases to 3,359 miles.

Figure 21 - Beach in Louisiana's coast

     The land behind the shoreline is a coastal plain that diffuses into the Pineywoods in the east, the Central Plains in the middle, and the Rio Grande Valley in the south.  This land can’t be considered a borderland or a marginal territory that was part of a larger cultural development. Nevertheless, because its characteristics are common to an extensive adjacent territory, the aboriginal groups of Texas that lived near the sea developed cultural patterns with many similarities to many other groups living along the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico.

Figure 22 - Texas beach

 
Many of those similarities can easily be considered the result of common migration origins and interaction with neighbors resulting from trade, war or ethnic mixing. They can also be considered cultural patterns that developed somewhat independently as a result of having to solve the same common challenges posed by similar environments with the same resources from the land and sea.

            

Figure 23 - Beach in Campeche, Mexico

          The shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico is in itself an almost uniform habitat from the Yucatan Peninsula to Florida.  Texas is only a section of this extensive habitat. This is the land of beaches, barrier islands, estuaries, bays, lagoons, marshes, swamps, wetlands, rivers, bayous, creeks and tidal basins. The climate is dominated by the warm waters of the gulf and the weather patterns it develops. It is the kingdom of fish and shells, alligators and turtles, pelicans and herons.  Palmettos, cattails, water hyacinths and water lilies dominate the tropical and semi-tropical vegetation. Large rivers frequently interrupt the continuity of the land. It is hot, rainy and humid.

Figure 24 - Okeechobee swamp in Florida

 People have lived in this habitat as fishers and gatherers, moving about with the seasons marked by bird and fish migrations. Only low densities of populations can be supported. Dugout canoes with long poles have been the norm for transportation. The land is also subject to occasional flooding and infested with insects. Long term presence in this land is made easier if access to resources from other environments is possible, either by trade or seasonal travelling.

            Figure 25 - Atchafalaya Swamp in Louisiana

Our knowledge of the aboriginal people in this zone is limited. Important sources are the reports and journals of the early Spanish explorers.  Cabeza de Vaca’s report to the King of Spain ( 1541) remains the single most important reference about the Texas aboriginal people. This is enriched by Joutel's journal, a survivor of La Salle's failed expedition (1688).

      
The Spaniards soon learned to avoid these lands where it was hard to travel on foot or on horse. The missionaries never were able to make inroads in the territory. The records of the mission's work is usually another source about Indian culture. The period of colonization hardly touched these marshland people which eventually disappeared, were removed or exterminated under U. S. policies. 

Figure 26 - Swamp in Brazos River, TX

These generalizations are valid for the Apalachee (Florida), Atakapas, Tunicas and Biloxi (Louisiana-Alabama), Karankawas and Copanos (Texas), Tuxpan, Huastecas and many other groups in Mexico. Their renmants were eventually absorved into larger sedentary groups.

           Our knowledge about the people that inhabited the shoreline wetlands in pre-historic times is even more limited.

Fig. 27 - Laguna de Terminos, MX

           


        
        One problem with the archaeology of this habitat is that all remains, human or artifacts, degrade very quickly in this environment. Shelters that were never made to last disappear. Fire pits get erased and washed away. Burials disintegrate quickly. Artifacts made out of wood, cane, or other plant materials do not last long. 


     Oyster and shell middens are about the most significant type of find. Pottery and stone artifacts were not common.  If they are found, they are either from trade with other areas or from more recent historic times. Surprisingly, a few interesting testimonies have been found under the water.  In 1982, an 8,000 years old burial group was found in the oxygen free waters of a Florida swamp, near Orlando. Read:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/americas-bog-people.html

Or view:

FLORIDA'S ANCIENT BOG PEOPLE

Figure 28 - Ancient shoreline

           Another problem is more relevant to an understanding of this region during the Paleo-Indian period. During the final glacial stages of the Pleistocene period, at the same time that the Beringia land bridge appeared, the sea levels dropped significantly.  Some estimates are as high as 360 feet below present levels. This means that the coastline the earliest Americans used as a route along the sea, whether by land or by boat, is now submerged. It may also explain the connection that many scientists have seen with the Caribbean island cultures. 

Figure 29 - Present ocean floor depths in the gulf

       
        
      For Texas it means that the ancient shoreline is located hundreds of miles away from the present tidal lines.  Because of the heavy silting that has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico during the last 20,000 years, it is also buried.



     Not all the shoreline has the same geology. Florida and Yucatan are similar, with extensive Karst zones which create a type of underground system of rivers and caves. When they collapse, they create the "sink-holes" in Florida, called "Cenotes" in Yucatan.  Since the 1950s, one of these caves near Sarasota has been explored by divers.  It is more than 200 feet deep from the present level.  In ancient times, the bottom was dry and even occupied. Human bones were discovered there in 1972.  Read:

http://www.sarasotahistoryalive.com/stories/journals-of-yesteryear/the-florida-paleoindians/

       There are more than 100 submerged caves that have been identified along the Yucatan coast alone that are more than 100 feet  under water.  Advances in technology may some day assist us in identifying the routes along the water that were used in the dispersal of the ancient inhabitants of this continent.



       A glimpse of the information that could have been obtained has come to us by an accidental find.  In 2007, divers exploring the submerged portion of an underground cave system in Yucatan discovered the 13,000 year old remains of a teenage girl, next to bones of megafauna. A very similar event to what was discovered in Sarasota a few years before.  Here is an amazing sight!  

 NAIA - PALEOINDIAN GIRL FOUND 13,000 YEARS LATER      (Click NAIA)

Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones, cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.