Major Cultural Periods

These are the major named cultural/time periods used by archeologists as a broad chronological or culture history framework for the 13,000-year prehistoric span. The most basic divisions Paleoindian > Archaic > Late Prehistoric were originally conceived of as successive evolutionary stages of increasing cultural complexity. These stages are seen as a simplistic notion today, but the 3-part division of prehistoric time is still widely followed as a general framework (see FAQ “Periods” ). The three basic divisions (sometimes called “eras’) are divided into major early-late or early-middle-late periods.

Each period is characterized by distinctive assemblages (groupings) of certain types of artifacts (especially projectile points) and widely shared cultural patterns such as a predominance of bison hunting or technological changes such as the introduction of the bow and arrow weapon system and of pottery making. The naming of the periods is based on classification schemes developed in the 1950s that are now considered outdated; still, archeological tradition lives on and the general meaning of these terms is widely understood.

The chronological framework of the South Texas Plains remains rather poorly defined and less refined (divided into smaller segments) than the adjacent Edwards Plateau and Lower Pecos Canyonlands. This is primarily because fewer stratified sites have been found and investigated in the region and far fewer radiocarbon assays have been obtained. Unfortunately, it is also the case that the periodization of the Archaic era in the South Texas Plains is poorly aligned with the better-dated chronologies of adjacent regions. Compared to the adjacent Plateaus and Canyonlands region, the Early Archaic in south Texas is said to have lasted much longer, and the Middle and Late Archaic periods are noticably later in time. This mismatch does not represent "delayed" cultural development in the region. It is a consequence of too few well dated sites and, perhaps, of the reluctance of researchers active in the last decade to address the problem. Most researchers focus on dating the specific sites and deposits they are investigating. Therefore the time intervals for each period cannot be said to be closely based on radiocarbon dates, and should be regarded as little more than rounded-off approximation.

As research progresses in the South Texas Plains and better chronological information is gained, archeologists will refine their cultural concepts of time and define more precise chronologies with subperiods or smaller intervals.

For present purposes, just think of these periods as attempts to divide up prehistory into convenient blocks of time useful for outlining broad cultural patterns. We’ll never be able to discuss prehistoric patterns from year to year or decade to decade except in very rare circumstances. Even century-to-century patterns are very hard to unravel. Dating techniques just aren’t that sophisticated for most of prehistory. To really understand what happened over the 13,000 years of prehistory in the South Texas Plains will require many hundreds of radiocarbon-dated samples from well-documented contexts and a thorough geographic coverage of the region. This will probably take many decades of additional research and will continue to prove more difficult to achieve here than in regions where the archeological record is better preserved.