This picture shows a magnified area from one of the engraved stones found on the Gault site. This one has a checkerboard design engraved on one side.

ABSTRACT:

THIS DESIGN IS MADE FROM 2 DIFFERENT ENGRAVINGS

TAKEN FROM THE "WHEATSTONE"

ENGRAVED STONES
GAULT SITE
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TEXAS
CLOVIS CULTURE

This article illustrates four engraved stones that were found by David Olmstead on the Gault site. Recent excavations of this important Paleo-Indian Clovis site have been organized by archaeologists from the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. They began excavations in 1998 and finished in 2002 and recovered approximately 800,000 artifacts. One of the most important artifact types to have been recovered from the Gault site are the engraved stones. By 2001 at least 30 engraved stones had been found. Their direct association within the Clovis horizon at Gault is a significant discovery. Engraved stones from this early period of human history in North America is almost unknown.

    "Clovis Age engraved stones are presently known from only two other sites in the western hemisphere besides Gault---the Clovis site & the Wilson-Leonard site."---2001, Michael Collins & Thomas Hester, Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory.
     "Body-designs, garment-designs & pebble-designs often employed the same tools & techniques. Pebbles were incised the way human flesh was scarified, and scratched the way skin garments were scratch-decorated".---1988, Carl Schuster & Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism In Ancient & Tribal Art, Vol. 2 book 4, p.796.
     "Schematic art was primarily the province (sphere of action) of women, who applied it to perishable materials, probably first to the body and then to skin garments".---1988, Carl Schuster & Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism In Ancient & Tribal Art, Vol. 2 book 4, p.795.
     Example of pattern definition----"In general, imprinting of a place implies the bodily metamorphosis of an ancestor. For example, where an ancestor sat down, a waterhole, his imprint, results. Informants (aboriginal Australians) commonly give as a meaning for the spiral-concentric circle designs the phrase djugurba nyinantja---the ancestor who was sitting: where the ancestor sat down. The circle can also be explained as "buttocks".---1984, Charlesworth, Morphy, Bell & Maddock, Religion In Aboriginal Australia, p.66.

Engraving from the "wheatstone" engraved stone.
A REPEATED DESIGN FROM THE "WHEATSTONE"
AN ENGRAVED STONE FROM THE GAULT SITE
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TEXAS

The picture above shows several copies of a design taken from a Gault site engraved stone known as the "Wheatstone". Just what the images really mean can only be conjectured. It has been suggested that they represent spears sticking in an animal.

ENGRAVED STONES

GAULT SITE
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TEXAS

Engraved stones have been found on Stone Age sites all over the world. Some of them have images that convey obvious meanings but, more-often-than-not, their interpretation is only theoretical. The engraved stones found on the Gault site are important for the insight they can bring to an otherwise empty record of carved or engraved images from this early period of North American history.

CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGER IMAGE
ENGRAVED STONE
"WHEATSTONE"
GAULT SITE
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TEXAS
PRIVATE COLLECTION

This engraved stone has been referred to as the "Wheatstone" because of a design that is similar to stalks of wheat that are engraved on both sides. It was found by David Olmstead along with a complete undamaged fluted point. He found it approximately 3.5 feet (106.7 cm) deep while digging, several years ago, on the Gault site.
This stone is engraved on both sides with a similar design. Both sides have five to eight vertical lines that extend upward from a horizontal line. The ends of the vertical lines have diamonds engraved on them. Some of the diamonds are filled with vertical parallel lines. This engraved stone measures 4 1/16 inches (10.2 cm) long, 2 5/8 inches (6.6 cm) wide and 5/16 on an inch (7 mm) thick.

Because of its large size and numbers of artifacts it has produced, the Gault site is one of the most important Clovis sites ever discovered in North America. This site is located in south central Texas in Williamson County and covers an area estimated to be a half mile by a little over a tenth of a mile (0.8 by 0.2 km). It is classified as a stone tool manufacturing and habitation site. The Gault site has produced Clovis points, point preforms, tools made from blades, cores, burins and small engraved stones. In 2002 there was an important discovery of a 6 by 6 foot pavement of gravel that has been interpreted as evidence for one of the earliest man-made structures found in North America.

CONTINUE ON TO PAGE TWO

"REFERENCES"

1963, Tindale, Norman B. and Lindsay, H.A., "Aboriginal Australians", p.105.
1964, Coe, Joffre Lanning, "The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont", The Doerschuk site, p. 53 and The Hardaway site, pp. 81 & 82.
1984, Munn, Nancy D., "Religion In Aboriginal Australia", The Transformation of Subjects Into Objects In Walbiri and Pitjantjatjara Myth, p. 66.
2000, Wisner, George, "Texas Site Suggests Link With Europe's Upper Paleolithic," Mammoth Trumpet, Vol. 15 # 1.
2001, Collins, Michael B. & Hester, Thomas R., "Research--The Gault Site--Site Description," Web site for "Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory."

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