Had a fellow show up one night at Travis county archaeological society meeting with a mountain of stuff he found at a site in city limits of Austin. Some really nice stuff. Had a preform blade as big as my hand made outta some big ass piece of Colorado river cobble. Mebbe only 5/16" thick. And translucent. Cool as hell.
A TxDot archaeologist happened to be there that night. Started quizzing him on where he found all this stuff. Turns out it was on state ROW. A big no no here. Fines can be exorbitant. It’s "by the artifact" type of fines. Guy ended up surrendering all he had found. Made the newspaper. That big preform made front page.
I spoke to another TxDot archaeologist that went out to inspect the site. Said the local neighborhood kids were looting and trashing the place. Said they had uncovered a complete bison skull and used it for a rock target. Well wasn’t complete anymore.
I suppose sometimes it just pays to keep quiet about some things.
No doubt about keeping quiet.
I had found several Paleo points at one site, and the archaeology professor at UT tried every way in the world that he knew of to get me to divulge that site whereabouts. Did he think I fell off the turnip truck yesterday?
