HAS members and friends, please join us for our annual Christmas gathering at the Trini Mendenhall Community Center at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Enjoy holiday snacks and socializing as Bob Sewell, President, and Frank Kozar, Vice President, serve as our hosts, presenting a recap of the many HAS projects and events this past year.

HAS members participated in the Texas Archeological Society academies in early April, beginning with the Archeobotany Academy in Kerrville under the tutelage of Dr. Leslie Bush, Dr. Kevin Hanselka, and Dr. Phil Dering. Participants constructed and filled an earth oven, and then after twenty-four hours enjoyed the tasty cooked sotol, wild onions, carrots, potatoes, and other native plants. We foraged in the woods, hammered vegetation into twine, and learned how indigenous peoples transitioned from hunter-gatherers into farming. During the Lithics Academy in Fort Worth, Dr. Robert Lassen, Dr. Sergio Ayala, and archeologist Chris Ringstaff explained and demonstrated stone tool manufacturing, use wear and break patterns, and tool uses.

Also in April, members of HAS traveled to Hunt, near Kerrville, to work at the Crying Woman Ranch (CRW) paleolithic site. Our group has traveled there for three years to join the CWR invitational dig. This year, volunteers excavated an earth oven and a new unit near a midden, which revealed several interesting finds including a notched quartz crystal that was possibly used as a pendant. June brought the annual TAS field school, held in Milam and Robertson Counties and focused on surveying Red Mountain and a portion of the El Camino Real de los Tejas at Ranchero Grande. Many Native American groups lived in this area periodically over thousands of years, including the Tonkawa, and Late Prehistoric pottery findings establish Red Mountain (Naton Samox) as a significant multicomponent site. HAS members stayed busy in October attending the TAS Annual Meeting in McAllen, as well as assisting at various HAS public outreach events including Archaeology Day at the Houston Museum of Natural History, the Montgomery County Memorial Library in Conroe, and the Lake Creek Greenway Partnership in Magnolia.

We hope that you will join us at this holiday gathering, which is free and open to the public. Be looking for your meeting reminder, which will also contain a Zoom link so that those who cannot join us in person can tune in from afar. We will provide snacks and light beverages, and please feel free to bring your favorite holiday treats to share. The Trini Mendenhall Community Center is located at 1414 Wirt Road in the Spring Branch area of Houston. For more information about this program or about the Houston Archeological Society, please contact Bob Sewell at president@txhas.org.

HAS JOURNAL 144 NOW AVAILABLE

HAS Journal No. 144 is now available. The Journal Number 144 The articles will focus on the San Felipe de Austin Dig by John Lohse, Horseshoes in Texas, a Thimble from the 18th or 19th century from France found in Frosttown, and another article about Camp Kirby in Dickenson, TX, a civil war camp by Charly Gordy, ceramics from Cottonfield by Tim Perttula, and information from Mike Woods about a Butted Knife Found in Comal County. Complimentary copies may be obtained by HAS members at the monthly meetings. Non-HAS members may purchase copies through Amazon.com. Go to the HAS Journals Section for a link to the publication on the Amazon.com website. Alternatively, copies may be purchased at the HAS Monthly Meetings.

To learn more about the history behind our archeological society contact president@txhas.org.