DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, and this one reaches back a long, long way. We're talkin' prehistoric long. The Harris County Boys' School Archeological Site — that name comes straight from the property it was sitting on when folks first found it, and what they found underneath that ground is the kind of thing that rewrites your sense of just how old this corner of Texas really is.
In this vicinity lies evidence of a prehistoric Indian campsite and burial ground. Right here. Under the coastal soil and the passing years.
A shell midden site, to use the technical term — which is just a fancy way of saying a refuse pile, built up over generations from oyster and rangia clam shells left behind after early inhabitants ate their fill and set the empties down right where they stood, usually at or near their campsite. Layer by layer, meal by meal, that midden grew. Archeological excavations pulled up a variety of artifacts from the site, but the one that really stops you cold is the Plainview dart point.
That particular point is associated with very early Indians, and its discovery supported radiocarbon testing that had already dated part of that midden to 1476 B.C. Let that settle for a moment. Fourteen seventy-six.
Before Christ. People were sitting on this stretch of Texas coast, cracking open oysters, and nobody else on this continent had even dreamed up a written word yet. And then there's another section of the site entirely — because this place held more than one story in its layers.
Evidence of thirty-two burials was uncovered there. Ceramics interred with those burials dated the cemetery from the first millennium A.D. — a whole different chapter of human life, laid to rest in the same ground, separated by centuries from the shell piles but bound to this same place all the same. What the scientific investigation of this site did, beyond what it revealed right here, was open doors to other studies of the cultural aspects of the prehistoric inhabitants of the area.
It wasn't just an ending — it was a beginning for understanding. Now here's what makes this place matter in ways that go beyond history. Shell midden sites like this one were once relatively common along the Texas Coast.
Once. Beach erosion and subsidence have done their quiet, relentless work, and now they're rarely found at all. This site remains as a significant example of something the coast used to hold in abundance and holds no more.
So when you pass through this part of Harris County and the marker catches your eye, know that the ground nearby carries thirty-two burials, a refuse pile older than most of recorded history, and a dart point that proves somebody called this place home thousands of years before anyone thought to write it down.
What the marker says
In this vicinity lies evidence of a prehistoric Indian campsite and burial ground that takes its current name from the property on which it resided at the time of its discovery. The archeological site is classified as a shell midden site because of the presence of a midden, or refuse pile, of oyster and rangia clam shell. The midden collected as the result of early inhabitants consuming shellfish and leaving the empty shells where they are, which was usually at or near their campsite. Archeological excavations revealed a variety of artifacts, including a Plainview dart point, which is associated with very early Indians. Its discovery supported radiocarbon testing that had dated part of the midden to 1476 B.C. Evidence of 32 burials was uncovered in another section of the site. Analysis of ceramics interred with the burials dated the cemetery from the first millenium A.D. Scientific investigation of the Harris County Boys' School Archeological Site led to other studies of the cultural aspects of the prehistoric inhabitants of the area. The site remains as a significant example of the shell midden, once relatively common along the Texas Coast, but now rarely found due to beach erosion and subsidence. (1985)