McKinney Roughs : an intensive cultural resource survey along the Colorado River, Bastrop County, Texas
Steven M. Kotter (Author), Dan K. Utley (Author), Gregory Sundborg (Author), Lower Colorado River Authority Land and Environmental Services (Publisher), Texas Antiquities Committee
During October 1995, an intensive archaeological survey was conducted at the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) McKinney Roughs Tract in Bastrop County, Texas. The purpose of the intensive survey was to locate, document, and evaluate cultural resources for developmental planning. The LCRA proposes to develop the 1,350 acre tract in the immediate future; however, plans at this time are conceptual. Proposed planning would utilize the majority of the tract, approximately 800 acres, as a natural preserve traversed by trails and roads. The latter would follow existing ranch roads. The majority of construction would take place in upland areas. Plans include an 85 acre environmental education research facility and lodge with a natural science lab, a 10 acre area for housing the Childrens Trust Fund and Friends of the Colorado Foundation along Highway 71 in the southern uplands, a 30 acre school site, and other commercial areas along highway 71. All proposed construction will take into account the effect on cultural resources. Secondary effects from pedestrian traffic will also be taken into account prior to the establishment of trails. Previous investigations had recorded three sites within 250 acres: prehistoric sites 41BP88 and 41BP286, and historic site 41BP287 (Robinson 1987). The current survey of the remaining 1,100 acres within the tract identified an additional 20 archaeological sites, the series 41BP444 through 41BP452 and 454-464. The newly recorded cultural resources include three that are historic in age (41BP446, 41BP451, and 41BP452), 16 that date to prehistoric times (41BP444, 41BP445, 41BP447, 41BP449, 41BP450, 41BP454 through 41BP464) and one with both components (41BP448). The 23 known sites represent a total of four historic, 18 prehistoric, and one multi-component. The cultural history of the area is potentially a long one, but no temporally diagnostic artifacts have been observed at the sites investigated. Certainly the Archaic, and probably the Late Prehistoric, periods are represented. Historic occupation began during the late nineteenth century and extended into modem times. Prehistoric sites document relatively intensive use of diverse upland environments near the Colorado River. Five kinds of sites are defined based primarily on the nature of the cultural materials observed or recovered: lithic procurement/processing localities, tool scatters, small campsites, and flake scatters. The latter category is divided into small and extensive site types. The edge of a broad upland summit overlooking the river contains the most numerous and diverse occupations. Sites were also numerous but less diverse in an area at the crest of this upland flat some distance from the river. Smaller clusters of sites were recorded on the linear upland divide between the Colorado River and Moss Branch, as well as near the mouth of the largest of the drainages within the tract. The lithic procurement/processing localities and tool scatters consist of small scatters of superficially exposed artifacts and are felt to have no significant information beyond that gathered during the survey. All but one of the small flake scatters, and one extensive flake scatter, are also felt to have been adequately documented during the current investigations. These sites are thinly distributed and shallowly buried. Six sites are recommended for further work:- all three small campsites (41BP449, 41BP450, and 41BP456), two of the three extensive flake scatters (41BP444 and 41BP463) and a single small flake scatter (41BP455). The recommended sites, which represent a diversity of site types in different environments, are mostly buried and appear relatively intact. Four historic sites and one site with historic and prehistoric components were identified and recorded during the 1995 survey of the McKinney Roughs property. One site, 41BP287, had been documented during a previous investigation (Robinson 1987). The site was revisited and reevaluated. Sites 41BT446 and 41BT448 are associated with the Wise family, who farmed and ranched land along the Colorado River between 1881 and the 1960s. While neither was determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the family cemetery (41BT446) enjoys some measure oflegal protection under state statute. As a result, care will have to be taken to ensure security from vandalism and neglect. The remaining sites--41 BP451 and 41BP452--reflect the land's agrarian usage under the ownership of several families, primarily during the twentieth century. Individually, the sites lack either the necessary integrity, significance, or age for the NRHP. Collectively, however, they may prove to be of some limited value to any cultural history interpretive efforts the LCRA might choose to implement at McKinney Roughs
Print Book, English, 1996
Lower Colorado River Authority, Land and Environmental Services, [Austin, Texas], 1996