Here are few pics from this weekend. Didn't have any luck scoring points, but I did manage to dig up this old campfire. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated. I kept hoping a blade was hiding somewhere close, but nothing yet. This campfire was about 5-1/2 feet down in the yellow dirt and about 12" below the dirt transition line.







This is about halfway dug.


Here is a close up of some the charcoal and shell inside the pile of rocks.


Sorry for the crude size references, but it was all I had at the time. Hopefully, someone can provide me some insight on this?

We find a lot of what we call day camps along the Frio. Hunting parties stopping for the night and making camp. Sometimes they rework points and a few broke or damaged points are found but a lot of them are just where they cooked a meal before the next days hunt.

from the looks of it this is a spot you've been digging on a regular basis. very cleanly too by the way. i cant help but think you just hav'nt reached the treasures from under that particular tee pee yet.that fire is dead center tee pee and you just hav'nt reached or have already found the treasures under that particular shelter,if that makes sense very cool how you are being so meticulus, i can just pictue you out there with a broom. i feel something very special comin your way.

Whoa, thats really impressive First off, high marks for digging deeper than the "black"
I have personally never seen a "fire pit" conglomerated up quite like that.
Te's explanation is very valid and probably like fires I have dug, a very loose ring of random rocks with ash an charcoal that was on open ground.
Pat's explanation seems to me to fit your find best..May even have been a dug depresion in the middle of the shelter and that kept the residue consolidated.
People obviously would have congregated around this central location of heat and possibly some light BUT your report of lack of point finds may well be that
little to no knapping or even broken point replacement onto shafts was done inside the "living area".
Excellent potential though.. Tks a lot for the pics

As you can tell I haven't had a chance to dig that far off to the side of the fire pit yet, so there may very well be something yet to be discovered. I did get a few flint flakes off the top of the rocks though. There were two different colors of flint flakes so that was promising to me. A couple flakes were black flint and the others were a light tan or gray color, but I couldn't really tell. Maybe there is a big black blade waiting. I will keep you keep you guys posted on my next trip out. There is a shell/snail line at the level of the fire pit. It's not real heavy, but it is definitely and identifiable line. Does anyone want to take a guess on the age of this fire pit? I would guess 6000+ years old, but I'm not really sure.

Re age of the hearth, we're waiting for you to find an identifiable artifact that will conclusively peg it
down including what people...

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