Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

The late Glen Evans, former Midlander, was a leader in paleontology and archaeology of the Llano
September 11, 2011

West Texas has been blessed with a great influx of college educated scientifically minded people that came to region because of the oil industry. In the first decades of the oil industry, from the 1930s to the 1950s, these men and women not only mapped the underground geologic stratigraphy of the region, but also became involved in other scientific investigations of the area. One of these folks, Glen L. Evans, also played a role in regional archaeological study.

E.H. Sellards, the director of the Bureau of Economic Geology and the Texas Memorial Museum, hired Evans to do geologic surveys (funded at first by the Works Progress Administration (WPA)) in the mid 1930s. These detailed surveys gave ample time for paleontological explorations as well. Evans worked for Sellards until 1953, but continued informally for years afterward.

In 1939 Evans visited what is now know as Lubbock Lake Landmark, finding a Yuma point and recommended further excavations. A high water table prevented the first digs goig down to the PaleoIndian levels, but he returned in 1942 with Grayson Meade and discovered PaleoIndian artifacts. In 1944 they found fossil bone in Runningwater Draw near Plainview. Sellards directed digs at both sites.

In 1949 and 1950 Sellards and Evans focused on the gravel pit at Clovis, New Mexico. They proved the fluted Clovis points were oder than the unfluted Folsom and Plainview points. Evans provided detailed stratigraphic maps of the dig, and revealed the history of the long buried ancient spring fed streams and ponds that once existed there (and at the other locations.) In 1950 they were one of the first scientists to test out the "new" method radiocarbon analysis. Evans detailed stratigraphic maps of the digs were also a first, and have meant that later researchers found their research useful when testing new theoretical perspectives. Sellards and Evans produced the first comprehensive summary of the PaleoIndian archaeology of the Llano Estacado in 1960.

In the years 1939 to 1941 Sellards and Evans directed the research at the Odessa Meteor Crater, initiating a 180 foot deep shaft in the hopes of finding a large meteorite mass. Sellards had been the first person to recognize it as a meteor crater in the 1920s. Evans and Sellards were also involved in the excavation of the "Midland Woman" south of Midland in 1954, with Evans again providing the stratugraphic interpretations.

In 1953 Evans hired out to the oil industry and settled in Midland. My parents, Harold and Frances Williams, soon met him, and he joined them and John and Margaret Galley in forming the Midland Naturalists. Evans was a born naturalist, always curious about the flora and fauna on the surface of the Llano Estacado. Evans took copious field notes, and friends knew him as a great storyteller.

In 1997, Evans wrote "Wilderness at risk." This excerpt demonstrates his lively curiosity.

Heavy rains turned a playa three quarters of a mile from the crater into a lake. Cattle trails radiated in every direction from the playa. The trails filled with the runoff. While watching one of these roiling streamlets going about its erosive work, I noticed it was transporting toads. After tumbling into the streamlet, they were content to let its current set their course. They quickly latched onto any bit of flotsam that came along for a free ride. A cow chip, the size of a dinner plate, came bobbing along on the streamlets brisk current with a cargo of eight vocalizing toad all facing outwards and evenly spaced around its rim. Their rear ends were hinged in place, while their front ends kept bobbing up and down, up and down, like kids doing pushups. The large balloon-like vocal organs beneath their chins did the work.

In the 1970s, Evans retired in Austin after working in Denver and Calgary as well as Midland, but continued to write and follow up on previous work. Evans, often referred to as the "Dean of Texas Paleontology" and "The Father of Geoarchaeology" died peacefully July 14, 2010. The Texas Memorial Museum houses great numbers of collections amassed from Glen's years in the field. Fossils, one of the most notable being that of a saber toothed tiger found in the Friesenhahn Cave, minerals and crystals, meteorites, some from the Odessa Meteor Crater, arrowheads and flint tools, artifacts such as pottery, musket balls, gunflints and such, some from the site at Fort St. Louis, the Paul T. Seashore basket collection, a raven's nest made chiefly from barbed wire, and the list goes on.