I have been a surface hunter for 3/4 of my 28 year old life! And I have at least 500 or more points but after seeing what you guys and gals find from digging I decided I wanted to start digging so I went to my families 1500 acre ranch on the Guadalupe River last weekend and started digging on a high bluff about ten feet from the edge of the water and I have found one lerma point and 1/2 of a plainview and a couple of deer jaw bones and muscle shells but very little flint at a depth of 11 inches oh and a lot of burnt rock so my question is should I dig deeper or farther away from where I am at right now?

Pictures of where you are currently digging would be helpful to some degree. I am here in Kerr county and would gladly volunteer some on site pointers. Email me at zeplin669@yahoo.com.

Outside of that; without more specific visual and detailed information I'm afraid I can't be of much help.

You are apparently digging in a good spot. Consider the hole you dug as a test hole and dig it deeper until you know where the bottom or original ground level is(usually orangish clay or bedrock). Then expand your hole on all sides appropriate and take note of any stratum changes to compare with other outlying test holes. This way you can eventually determine the midden or campsite boundaries. Your digging very shallow to find paleo materials like Plainview and Lerma. Perhaps an archaic level was above that in the past, but has possibly been eroded down from river floods.

jay, your already in the hands of good advice people. As you analise a camp layout I would just add to consider any river course changes over the last 5000 yrs. [ includes not being cut as deep as it is today ]

For example..a couple pics I snapped of a test hole here in Kerr county. This was actually right in the north side of this particular midden; not really one of the more productive areas of most camp sites.

If you can estimate the size of the actual midden or hearth area; put yourself on the south/ southeast edges, about a comfortable distance from a nice ground style campfire (on a kinda cool night); then start yourself a hole and tell me if the flint picks up a little bit.

Also if your site borders a slope or may even be falling off the slope....take advantage of gravity and check the downhill side and actual slope area for a test hole possibility.