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Basket making

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It would almost seem that this craft came about as an after thought . They were made, they were used, but it never appears to have been a craft of great demand. The above statement is more of a feeling one gets at the site, than one supported by evidence. Basket shards are common, their place in the development of weaving can be seen. But their need or use was never clear. They never seemed to play a role in the life or the advancement of skills at the site. The site being the Zueberbueler shelter in west Texas. With the recovery of thousands of every day artifacts two crafts were all but lacking in evidence as everyday items. The Atlatl and the baskets. While the Atlatl was undoubtedly the hunting tools of the day, some two to ten thousand years in the past, it's physical presence was not to be seen. Only the art of the cave walls tells us of it's use. The same goes for baskets. While small bits and pieces were common, their presence was not represented by the recovery of samples in original condition. Among the recovered crafts, basket shards were very plentiful. Unfortunately, possibly due to the kind of use, their chance of surviving was lost. At the Zueberbueler shelter, it was the dry, absolute dry, conditions that governed the future of the artifacts. Baskets may have been used to store food. Even a short period of use, in a moist condition, would be their future destruction. In our display we offer a few samples of open twin weave, but the common baskets were the tight examples, often made with a build up of sticks, not grass as the others. To say that the archaeologist could or should expect to find 2,000 to 10,000 year old weavings in their original condition is almost like saying it was expected to make a person to person interview with a cave man. But this was the Zueberbueler shelter. A site that produced a volume of material that not only was great, but was abundant with artifacts in their original condition. The recovery of a child, in such condition that even it's toe and finger nails were all intact. Bugs, birds, and locks of hair. Toys that work as good today as when man first conceived them. A site that left man's history almost intact, as he left it. Still the baskets were to remain a mystery. What evidence we have, we offer here in the display. Unfortunately , the better samples are those made as toys or weaving samples for teaching, not of full size baskets.

THE BASKETS