Археологическая достопримечательность Лаббок-Лейк: 12 000 лет истории Техаса

Archaeological site in Texas, United States

Lubbock Lake Landmark, also known as Lubbock Lake Site, is an important archeological site and natural history preserve in the city of Lubbock, Texas, United States. The protected state and federal landmark is There is evidence of ancient people and extinct animals at Lubbock Lake Landmark. It has evidence of nearly 12,000 years of use by ancient cultures on the Llano Estacado. It is part of the Museum of Texas Tech University. Visitors can watch active archeological digs. Volunteers from around the world help with the ongoing excavations each summer, and local people can volunteer also, making the site accessible for non scientists. There are both guided and self guided tours offered throughout the year. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a designated National Historic and State Archeological Landmark.

Lubbock Lake is in a meander of the Yellow House Draw also known as "Punta de Agua", a tributary of the Brazos River, near ancient springs. People on the Llano Estacado used the water resources in the draw until those resources went dry in the early 1930s. In 1936, the City of Lubbock dredged the meander in an effort to make it a usable water supply. These efforts were unsuccessful, but brought to light the archeological significance of the site. There is very little standing water and no lake at the site. The first explorations of the site were conducted in 1939 by the West Texas Museum, now the Museum of Texas Tech University. In 1936, Clark Kimmel and Turner Kimmel found projectile points from the Firemen's Reservoir. In the late 1940s, several Folsom Period (10,800 10,300 years ago) bison kills were discovered. At one location of an ancient bison kill from a then unidentified Paleo Indian group, charred bison bones produced the first ever radiocarbon date, which is still the most accurate form of dating for Paleo Indian material (about 9,800 years old).

The bedrock of Lubbock Lake is part of the Blanco Formation, which is a subset of Pleistocene deposits. Here, it is composed mostly of a large deposit of lake sediments about two million years old. Above the Blanco Formation is the Blackwater Draw Formation, a sheet of wind deposited sediment that covers most of the region. This deposit slowly accumulated between 1 million and 50,000 years ago. The dune, in the northeastern section of Lubbock Lake, contains sediments and buried soils from at least 36,000 years ago. Yellow House Draw had developed by 20,000 years ago, cutting through the Blackwater Draw Formation and into the Blanco Formation. By about 12,000 years before the present (10,000 BC), the draw had cut a bend about 15 meters (49 feet) deep in the area of the Landmark. Evidence points to a drying trend occurring at Lubbock Lake over the last 11,000 years. The geologic record begins with stream deposits, followed by lake sedimentation, and finishes between 6,500 and 4,500 years ago with the deposit of windblown sediments during a period of severe drought. After 4,500 years ago, the climate became much like it is now, with only minor changes in the past 2,000 years.