Our son was down after Christmas from Dallas and as usual, we got into talking artifacts. He had done a dive at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos as it's now an underwater archaeologic dig site. He said it was the oldest, continuously occupied site in Texas. There were two arch. dig dives in 2009, he did one of them. It's not open for recreational diving, only arch. diving. Just wondering if anyone else has heard about it or would be interested in doing one this year.

sounds pretty intersting ken. it would pretty cool to strap on a dive suit and hunt points

Yeah, but do they do the little squares? Bet it's a lot different then on dry land.

This was copied off their website.

Underwater Archaeology
Layne Hedrick (liquidtravel.org) is again teaching this po****r course. Layne's focus is the archaeology as it relates to Aquarena. In this course, you will learn about the history of the San Marcos Springs and gain hands on experience in archaeological research design, mapping and excavation. Upcoming classes:

I went looking for more info, I wound up with DIVE WEST run by Layne Hedrick.
Offers a two day course to get a archeology divers rating. $ 230.
They list the dive days for Jan Feb Mar. though the spring water is cool year round, I would think
it would be nice to get out into 90* temps !

Yes squares. . .Their site picture shows grids made out of pipes laid on the bottom !

can you keep what you find?

My kid told me that it was an on-going underwater dig, and like any arch. dig, everything is mapped, photo'd, etc. but it stays there. He and his fiance are just getting into scuba diving and it was a perfect oportunity for them. If you could keep what you found, I'd be up there myself. Figured anyone in the Austin area might want to check it out.
If my old fading memory serves me correctly, didn't they find some mammoth bones there one time?

I probably wont check it out if there is nothing to be seen on dry land.

I was there when it was still a full amusement park. Ralph was in his prime ! The boats were running non stop. Part of the talk DID include finding Mammoth tusks / bones. Who knows where but that part of the talk was over the deepest hole on the boat route. The "sands" were boiling at the bottom.

Many years later I was invited on a fun dive in the area they leased out to dive shops to certify their
open water divers.
Naturally did the snorkel trip from the park to somewhere down stream.

Part of the park tour was up on the hill where there were some ruins said to be built by the priests very early in the Spanish exploration days.
The good fathers must have needed a place to store all the gold.

I kept thinking the pig's name was Arnold, but that's the porker on "Green Acres". I was a kid when we went there, sheesh, half a century ago. My kid did say they weren't allowed to pick up anything, even a beer tab.
I'll bet some really good points have walked off that site. Back then, nobody really had as much interest in artifacts as they do today. Many an old timer (older then me) said that when they were little, if they found arrowheads they'd tie them to sticks and throw them, playing Indian hunters. They just had no interest in them back then.

O Lordy, Lordy, how did mankind get this far without GOOGLE ??
I just typed in SWIMMING PIG AQUARENA SPRINGS. . .

. . . . . . . . . BINGO

There he is in the history books. . . . RALPH
[ no doubt, like Trigger, there was 10 of him ! ]

If only they had started that DONT PICK ANYTHING UP 100 years ago, todays visitors would be getting
clovis rocks stuck in their sandals !

I'll bet there were more then 10 Ralphs. They didn't want some three hundred pound porker scuba diving, seemed like the pig was always the same size.. I think it was always a white pig too.

Here is an artifact from the Springs. Found in 1985 or 1986. Hunted the Springs for years. Found 3 points total. The guy who was in charge of the dig was a Professor at SMU. He was wanting to gat a new classification on these points as a Springview. As in Plainview or Firstview. If you ask me, it's a Plainview.

Whatever they call it, it's still a great find. Showed that the Springs have been occupied for thousands of years. Just wonder how many points walked off before the interest in them increased as much as it is today?

I've seen a lot of Paleo stuff from the Springs and the river. I think back in the 70's hunting for points was a big thing there. Alot of the locals and college kids that took diving lessons hunted the river pretty heavily. I doubt it's all gone but finds are few and far between.

I attended (the formerly existing) SWT from 1976-1980. Prehistoric artifacts had been found in the San Marcos River below the Clear Springs dam and a mile or so downstream by swimmers and divers for years, especially after flood events. Don Dibble owned the Dive Shop and taught diving. While taking his diving course, he told me about the artifacts some of his friends, students and former students would find. Most everyone agreed the artifacts were probably washing downstream from around the original springs that were covered by the dam sometime in the late 1800’s (???). The occasional find of late paleo and early archaic types stirred talk and a couple of professional archeologists were contacted. Sometime around summer 1979, Dr. Joel Shiner of SMU did an archeological excavation in Spring Lake. If I remember correctly, he found evidence of Clovis occupation and thought (at the time) it was the oldest continuously occupied site in North America. Of course, other sites have been discovered in the last 30 years.

A few years later, a utility trench was dug on the knoll above the river across from Pepper’s Restaurant. I sat there all day long looking through the backhoe spoil from the trench. A couple of students and I found several artifacts and bones. The face of the deep trench, although spar-se (won't let me spell it correctly), revealed several small hearths, ashy lenses, animal bones and possible human remains. One of the students told the university anthropological professor (Dr. Gray ?) and SWT later did some excavation.

Dr Shiner came to Spring Lake once a month or so for many years. I don’t know if he ever published any formal report? If so, does anyone know where it is possible to read a copy?

Flint pig, may I ask your real name?

jhaberer

Thanks for jogging my memory. Dr Shiner was the guy. I had met Don Dibble numerous times but he wouldn't know me from shinola. That guy had so many people come thru that shop. I knew Eric Peterson. He worked at the dive shop during the 70's and early 80's. He's the one that got me interested in looking in the river below the falls. Bought me a face mask and fins and got after it. Some of Eric's friends had some nice collections of artifacts. Spent alot of time in the river with not much to show for it. But I had fun. That's what this hobby is all about.

I was there in the late 50's, early 60's, more interested in the water then artifacts at that time. But later on I'd read about it being the oldest, longest occupied site in Tx. I'm sure that's changed by now. Just wonder if Dr. Hester ever was involved in any of the digging.

Calling Dr. Hester. Is this a Plainview, Firstview or a as of yet un-named Springview?

OOOOooohhh, We can practically feel the old age comming through the PC monitor ! The thick central profile shows up good in your picture angle. Very nice.

Naturally Google has plenty of info to investigate all parameters, whether history or swimming !

Those of you that are still alive today and have recounted their great finds going back to " the fifties"...
The mind boggles, , , You just found the few pieces the earlier people missed dating back into the 18 hundreds !

And how about the good fathers ? They were here to harvest ANYTHING of value. Think they would have sent a few pallets of points back to the the mother land to sell at the souvenir shops at the bull fights ?

Here in Florida on state underwater digs they start out with just hoping some amateur will show them a site (the state has a hard time finding those on their own). Then they generally do some type of grid system (if someone is paying them or a grant). They then turn to dredges for the hard work and just vacumn the top layers of overburden up to screens with volunteers setting around watching the floating screens. Its a boring job until a snake gets sucked up to them and then everyone gets emotional....lol

Once they find something interesting they slow things down and work with normal digging, prying tools along with a slowed down dredge.

Of course the dredge was outlawed for amateur use long ago in Florida. Only the state can destroy (using their terminology)that way legally these days or with scooters.

IN Florida digging or diving is the norm to find artifacts. I would think Texas would have the same attributes and like Florida, buried in the rivers is a gold mine of persible items to be found, as in bone, where it is hide away from the ravages of open ground finds?? Digging Indian bone items on dry land in Florida it is rare to find anything unless down in the water table.Of course in Florida as I would assume Texas to, all the clear water (the easy spots) have been hunted hard. The Springs in Florida have all long ago been hunted out when it comes to surface finds or hand fanning. One has to go where other folks do not want to go for the best finds....Black water.

Diving for artifacts underwater is certainly a blast. I would have a hard time doing it though in a comtrolled enviroment and certainly would not pay for anything but the initial dive lessons.

One needs a beginner's license as a starting point (those folks usually work the top side of the dredge). One should get the advanced open water card (which gives one a taste of night diving) along with cravern diving. They are my recommendation for minium underwater training. It is very easy to die underwater....crap can and does happen when one least expects it.

Diving in most rivers is nothing like diving in large open water areas or the Gulf or oceans. Each have their own traits and dangers. Rivers are not much at being buddy diver friendly if one is really looking for artifacts. That is why one needs more than the minimum training for that type of diving. JMO from personal diving and having many of those sudden disators..