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Description of  Porch Talk: A Conversation About Archaeology in the Texas Panhandle

When John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog book series, saved up and purchased a tract of Panhandle property near Perryton, it set off a chain of discovery. Who lived in Texas over a thousand years ago? In Porch Talk, John Erickson and his archaeologist friend Doug Boyd investigate this question while explaining the art and science of archaeology for middle readers. On the Perryton ranch, John and his friends unearthed a ghost town that dated back to around 1300 CE. They found a sprawl of widely spaced pit houses occupying an area of 300 acres in Johns West Pasture. It is unclear how many people lived there, but it was a place where babies were born and the elderly died and were buried. Women nursed children, made cornmeal in stone metates, and stitched clothes of leather while the men hunted bison using arrows tipped with points made from Alibates flint. Read more