The Prehistory of Southeast Texas: Highlights of the Andy Kyle Archeological Collection

In 2017, the Houston Archeological Society (HAS) was requested by the Texas Historical Commission to assist the Sam Houston Regional Library in the development of a new interactive exhibit on the prehistory of Southeast Texas using the Andy Kyle Archeological Collection. The late Mr. Kyle donated his 50,000-plus-piece collection to the center in 1986, but it had remained largely unstudied. The Kyle Collection includes material from 95 archeological sites from nine counties in Southeast Texas. Beginning in February 2017 and continuing to the present, HAS members have gone through the entire collection separating out diagnostic artifacts to be included in the new museum exhibit. The exhibit opened to the public on June 9, 2018, and features nearly 400 artifacts ranging from the Clovis period (ca. 13,000 years B.P.) to the Late Prehistoric (ca. A.D. 1500).

In this presentation, Wilson W. Crook III discusses some of the more outstanding discoveries made during his work on the collection, including:

1. the first known Clovis artifacts from Liberty County, which includes fluted points, Clovis blades, and three Clovis blade cores,
2. the presence of a complete Carrollton phase Archaic assemblage from sites in Liberty County, and
3. some of the exotic long-distance trade items found in the collection.

Learn more about the topic at:

Houston Archeological Society (txhas.org)

Wilson W. Crook III books (https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks...)

This video is part of the Texas Historical Commission's Texas Archeology Month 2020 Virtual Symposium. View other presentations in the series on playlists organized by region on our YouTube channel.