From the Statesman archives: Zilker Park Great Lawn sits on prehistoric treasures

By now, you know about the Gault Site north of Austin, which has produced an enormous array of archaeological evidence about human activity in Central Texas from as long as 20,000 years ago.

Recently, the American-Statesman published several stories on the efforts of Michael Collins and other researchers to document the Paleo-Indians, whose presence at the Gault Site predate the Clovis era, usually dated to around 13,000 years ago.

Do you remember, however, the Vara Daniel Site, a mind-bogglingly rich site sometimes referred to as the Vera Daniel Site or Vera Daniels Site? (We'll continue to look for a reason that it comes with three names.)

This particular treasure trove is found in a much more prominent location: the Great Lawn at Zilker Park.

That's right, the same place where folks play ball games and run dogs year-round, except when it is transformed into the vast outdoor venue for the Austin City Limits Music Festival and, then soon after, the Trail of Lights.

"At least 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, there would have been music there, too" Ted Eubanks, a certified interpretive planner from Austin, told the Statesman recently. "There would have been dancing there. There would have been entertainment there. There would have been children, food and songs, people living their lives out at the place. That’s the story I would tell if I were interpreting Zilker."  

According to our archives, the last time the Vara Daniel Site landed in the pages of this newspaper was 2008, when environmental reporter Asher Price alerted the public that work on a sewer line invited a new set of investigations of Native American and Paleo-Indian activity.

"(The) preliminary investigation, which cost close to $75,000, was prompted by a collision of federal and state rules," Price reported in 2008. "The city was forced to improve its sewer tunnel and lift station in Zilker Park after the federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered the city to overhaul its sewage pipes. But the sewer pipe project, which was finished in 2007, ran through a proven archeological site, so, under the state Antiquities Code, Austin had to do some archaeological work to document cultural resources in the area."

In the end, the city of Austin negotiated with the Texas Historical Commission to dig in a field south of Barton Springs Road near the sewage pipe project.

What's the next step at Zilker Park?

Eubanks wonders what has happened after that dig. He knows of no public signs, for instance, that explain what's under the Great Lawn. Although experts often seek to preserve such evidence of prehistory for careful inspection and analysis only, the danger of public looting in the wide-open spaces of the Great Lawn seems remote.

"It's an enormous site," Eubanks said. "It encompasses the whole Great Lawn from Barton Creek to what I call the 'first hill of the Hill Country' at Zilker Botanical Gardens. Amazing site. Multiple levels, each from a different age. In all, 10,000 or 12,000 years old. Maybe 20,000, considering the findings at the Gault site."

"Most of what they found is evidence of flint knapping," breaking flakes off a stone to create tools, he continued. "The first humans in the area resided here. Barton Creek and Barton Springs have always been inhabited."

In 2008, Price explained more about the artifacts Collins and others had found in Zilker Park: "Putting those flakes and stone tools under a microscope can help archaeologists learn about the hunter-gathering civilization because wear left on the tool can illuminate how they cut their meat or shaped wood."

"The location of that site, or that park, is absolutely an ideal setting for hunter-gathering people to live," archaeologist Collins told Price. "That's right at the juncture of the Gulf Coastal Plain with the Edwards Plateau. It's a great edge of contrasting environments, with different plants, animals and soils. For hunter-gatherers relying on natural resources, situating yourself on an edge is an ideal point to be."

The natural makeup of the area — flooding rivers that wash sediment and mud ashore, which preserves artifacts — makes it well-suited for archaeological work, Price wrote. Overall, the site is probably greater than 200,000 square meters in extent and probably averages more than 4 meters in depth, making it one of the largest deeply stratified sites known in Texas.

"The site is one of the best-protected sites of its kind in the state because of its location in Austin's premier park and because it is so deeply buried that serious disturbance to it could only result from extensive earth moving," Price wrote. "No full-scale excavation of the site has been conducted, but three episodes of archeological testing have documented the general nature and age of the deposits in the site. Repeated human occupations of the area in prehistoric times and the intermittent deposition of water-borne flood deposits resulted in a well-stratified sequence of natural and archeological strata."

Eubanks calls this the "missing chapter" in Austin history.

"We always start with historical times, not prehistorical," he said. "Historical record starts with springs. But what about the thousands of years before the 1700s? We can’t recreate it without the archaeology. It’s the place to introduce that story to people."

This story has been updated to add video.