LeRoy Johnson at McGee Bend Reservoir (Lake Sam Rayburn) in 1956

McGee Bend was one of some 40 reservoir and dam projects in Texas where salvage archaeological excavations were carried out as part of the nationwide River Basin Surveys program administered by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service between 1947 and 1968 (see Jelks 1965, 2006, 2014, 2017). In 1956, I rented an old vacant farmhouse for our McGee Bend field headquarters where our crew lived without indoor plumbing, and it was there that the photo of LeRoy Johnson bathing in a washtub was taken by one of our crew, Milburn Lathan (Figure 1)

The Archaeology of Sam Rayburn Reservoir

This is an archeological study of the McGee Bend Reservoir (Sam Rayburn Reservoir) area of eastern Texas as revealed through the analysis of 14 sites that were excavated there between 1956 and 1962. The reservoir, currently under construction on the Angelina River near Jasper, will be some 50 miles long when completed in 1965, with major arms extending up Ayish and Attoyac bayous. The lake will be named for the late Sam Rayburn. Most of the archeological work was done during extended field seasons in the fall months of 1956, 1957, and 1960; a brief season in the fall of 1962 completed the field investigations. The field programs for the first two years were carried out by the National Park Service which maintained an office and laboratory in Austin at the time. Excavations subsequent to 1957 were conducted by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project of the University of Texas. The writer, then an employee of the National Park Service, personally supervised the first two field seasons; field supervisor for the 1960 season was Lathel F. Duffield and, for the brief 1962 season, J. Dan Scurlock. The work at McGee Bend was a project of the nationwide Inter-agency Archeological Salvage Program, a program designed to salvage archaeological data endangered by the construction of dams and reservoirs

A Pilot Study of Wichita Indian Archeology and Ethnohistory

In 1965 several anthropologists drew up plans for a one-year pilot study of the archeology and ethnohistory of the Wichita Indian tribes. After financial support had been generously provided by the National Science Foundation, the proposed research was carried out. This is a report on the results of that study. The pilot study was designed to: a) obtain a body of field data from the components of the Spanish Fort sites, the largest and best=documented of the historic Wichita sites in the Red River area; b) make test excavations at several other sites in order that a problem=oriented program of future research can be accurately planned; c) attempt to locate, by field reconnaissance, sites that relate to the Wichita occupation of the southern plains on both the historic and prehistoric time levels; d) make a survey of available ethnohistorical data in order (1) to compile a bibliography of documentary materials relevant to Wichita ethnohistory, (2) to make a detailed study of documents that relate specifically to the excavations being carried out at Spanish Fort and at the sites being tested, (3) to seek information that might lead to the field locations of other Wichita sites, and (4) to appraise those sources best suited for more extended examination. The co-investigators of the project were Tyler Bastian of the Museum of the Great Plains, Robert E. Bell of The University of Oklahoma, Edward B. Jelks of Southern Methodist University, and W.W. Newcomb of the Texas Memorial Museum at The University of Texas. Bastian supervised the archeological field work in Oklahoma under the direction of Bell. Jelks directed the archeological work in Texas. Newcomb directed the ethnohistorical research. Marvin E. Tong of the Museum of the Great Plains served the project as general coordinator. The main part of the ethnohistorical study consisted of a thorough search of the archives at The University of Texas for documents relating to Wichita ethnohistory. The archeological work included extensive excavations at the Longest Site in Oklahoma and at the Upper Tucker and Coyote Sites in Texas. More limited excavations were carried out at the Glass and Gas Plant Sites in Texas. Several other archeological sites were visited but not excavated beyond a test pit or two: the Devils Canyon and Wilson Springs Sites in Oklahoma, and the Gilbert, Stone, Vinson, and Womack Sites in Texas. An effort was also made to locate several sites in Oklahoma and Texas which were reported in historical documents but which had not been located in the field. After the library research and the archeological field work had been completed, a brief, general report could have been prepared to satisfy our contractual obligation to the National Science Foundation. It was felt, however, that the data which had been collected would be of interest to archeologists and ethnohistorians and, if possible, it should be made available to them in some detail without delay. Consequently, a series of descriptive papers was prepared instead of a summary report. Those papers are presented here

Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity

Protecting the world’s freshwater resources requires diagnosing threats over a broad range of scales, from global to local. Here we present the first worldwide synthesis to jointly consider human and biodiversity perspectives on water security using a spatial framework that quantifies multiple stressors and accounts for downstream impacts. We find that nearly 80% of the world’s population is exposed to high levels of threat to water security. Massive investment in water technology enables rich nations to offset high stressor levels without remedying their underlying causes, whereas less wealthy nations remain vulnerable. A similar lack of precautionary investment jeopardizes biodiversity, with habitats associated with 65% of continental discharge classified as moderately to highly threatened. The cumulative threat framework offers a tool for prioritizing policy and management responses to this crisis, and underscores the necessity of limiting threats at their source instead of through costly remediation of symptoms in order to assure global water security for both humans and freshwater biodiversity

Handbook of Texas Archaeology: Type Descriptions

Contents: Introduction -- Acknowledgements -- Pottery Types -- Large Stemmed Point Types -- Dart Point Types -- Arrow Point Types -- References CitedTexas Memorial Museu

Letter from William D. Jelks, James B. Ellis, and W. F. Feagin, Alabama, Illiteracy Commission, Birmingham, Alabama, to J. H. Woodard, Birmingham, Alabama, May 12, 1915

A document from an extensive collection spanning four generations of the Woodward family that operated merchant pig iron companies in West Virginia and Alabama. The collection begins with Stimpson Harvey Woodward (S. H. Woodward), a native of Massachusetts, who moved from Pittsburgh to Wheeling, West Virginia in 1852. He had interests in an iron company as early as 1852 in West Virginia and began Alabama operations in 1869. The family business continued in Alabama until the death of S. H. Woodward's great-grandson in 1965