Gault (archaeological site)

The Gault archaeological site (41BL323) is an extensive, multicomponent site located in Florence, Texas, United States on the Williamson-Bell County line along Buttermilk Creek about 250 meters upstream from the Buttermilk Creek complex. It bears evidence of human habitation spanning from over 14,000 years ago, making it one of the few archaeological sites in the Americas at which compelling evidence has been found for human occupation dating to before the appearance of the Clovis culture. Archaeological material covers about 16 hectares with a depth of up to 3 meters in places. About 30 incised stones from the Clovis period engraved with geometric patterns were found there as well as others from periods up to the Early Archaic. Incised bone was also found.

Significance

Probably the major issue troubling American archaeology over the last several decades has been establishing when the first humans arrived in the western hemisphere. For nearly half a century the large majority of working archaeologists adhered to the notion that people making and using the distinctive Clovis "point" and its associated lithic technology were the first to arrive about 13,500 calendar years ago and to have spread quickly throughout the Americas. However, there was always a small archaeological minority who contended that the first Americans (in the broadest, two-continent, sense) had been here long before Clovis times on both the east and west margins of both continents. In the last several decades, with the location, investigation, and reporting of a growing number of sites with reliable dating, more and more American archaeologists now believe the western hemisphere was occupied at least several thousand years prior to the appearance of diagnostic Clovis materials.

Most of these sites are widely spaced geographically and do not contain an extensive array of associated lithic materials that would show a diagnostic pattern of tool production and use.