Prehistory Introduction

The Edwards and Stockton Plateaus and the rugged canyonlands along their southern flank in central and southwestern Texas hold one of the most remarkable and unbroken records of prehistoric hunters and gatherers known in North America. Prehistoric peoples (Native American Indians) lived in this region for at least 13,000 years, one of the longest continuous records of hunting and gathering existence known anywhere in North America. While peoples in nearby areas to the south, west, north, and east adopted agriculture, lived in permanent villages, made pottery, and otherwise made the transition to settled life, the people of the plateaus and canyonlands maintained their preferred lifestyle well into the early Historic Period.

This section presents an overview of the prehistory of the Plateaus and Canyonlands region based on latest findings in archeology, paleobotany, geomorphology, and other fields. Today we have a much better understanding of at least the broad outlines of what happened over the 13,000 years of known prehistory than was the case a generation earlier. It can be expected that future generations of researchers—armed with ever-more sophisticated technology—will know more and see the ancient past differently than we do today.

The Plateaus and Canyonlands have a very long and highly successful human history that began at least 13,500 years ago, or about 11,500 B.C. (Clovis culture). As far as we can tell, the region was occupied continuously from that point forward. Throughout prehistory, however, peoples in the region moved from place to place throughout much of the year to find adequate food and resources. Only the most favorable localities and most bountiful seasons allowed people to stay in one place for long. People rarely camped at places without permanent water unless there were major concentrations of natural food resources. There were many marginal places, but overall the region was an attractive area well-suited for hunters and gatherers.

The first 13,000 years of the human history of the region fall into the realm of prehistory, a term that means “the account of events or conditions prior to written or recorded history.” If we assume that each human generation represents about 25 years, the immense stretch of prehistory in the region represents over 500 generations. The earliest written accounts mentioning the region date to the 1520s, thus beginning the historic era.

Native Peoples and Their Own Histories

There is no doubt that the native societies who lived here for generation after generation had vivid and elaborate histories maintained in oral traditions passed on by elders of one generation to the next. Unfortunately, only fragments of these rich oral histories survived the tumultuous 16th-19th centuries when Europeans explored, claimed, and then settled the New World. Intentionally and unintentionally they wreaked havoc on native societies. The catastrophic human tragedy triggered by the invasion/settlement of Europeans is well documented. The introduction of Old World diseases, guns, and horses, as well as conquest, enslavement, and genocide completely destroyed most native societies.

Few of the native groups that occupied the Plateaus and Canyonlands at the time the first Europeans entered the region survived. Some of the later native groups who moved into the region during the historic era, such as certain bands and tribes of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache, managed to survive and now even thrive. All of these groups were forced to abandon the region and move to the Indian Territories in Oklahoma or westward into the American Southwest. Others moved to Mexico, and many joined with other groups. Modern descendants of the relatively few extant tribes maintain passed-down memories of time long ago, but the details comparable to (and superior to) written histories have been lost forever.

Native peoples who lived in the region for 13,000 years each knew themselves by their own distinctive names, spoken in their native tongues. Each social group no doubt also had its own name, including small groups of a few dozen people (extended families) that anthropologists often classify as “bands” and larger groups, commonly referred to as “tribes,” that numbered in the hundreds and had a common language or dialect. Group sizes and identities changed through time and sometimes seasonally in response to social, economic, and political needs. These complex and fluid identities are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recognize with archeological evidence. Most of the many descendants of native peoples today prefer to be known by their modern tribal names such as the Lipan Apache, the Comanche, and Tonkawa.

Unfortunately, there is no way to ever know the true names of the individual groups who lived at specific localities in the region which are now archeological sites. Archeologists, anthropologists, and historians often refer to prehistoric peoples collectively as native peoples, native groups, natives, Indians, Native Americans, aboriginals, hunter-gatherers, cultures, and so on. In this website we use many of these terms broadly and often interchangeably. We do not subscribe to the politically correct notion that the only acceptable term is "Native American." Most of the native peoples we know prefer to be referred to by their tribal or family names and are not offended by the general term "Indian."

In the Native Peoples section, viewers can learn more about the hundreds of groups who lived in the Plateaus and Canyonlands region during the Historic Period..