March 12, 2026 Monthly Meeting
Farming and Foraging, Architecture and Textiles on the Texas Southern Plains
Guest Speaker: Leslie L. Bush
Abstract: Harrison Greenbelt, Isaac Windmill, Jack Allen, and other sites have provided recent information about plant subsistence and associated craft and construction practices in the Texas Panhandle. Corn is ubiquitous, but other crops (beans, squash, and tobacco) are less commonly found. Wild seeds and berries and potential textile plants vary by site. Ongoing analysis of samples from the Erickson Ranch, Roberts County, is providing new insights into variation in cops, wild plant use, and architectural woods in the Texas Panhandle.
Speaker Bio
Leslie L. Bush is a paleoethnobotanist, an archaeologist who specializes in identifying bits of plants preserved identifying bits of plants preserved on archaeological sites, usually in the form of charcoal but occasionally as waterlogged, mineralized, or desiccated plant parts. Through her consulting practice, Macrobotanical Analysis, she is currently involved with investigations associated with the Erickson Ranch in the Texas Panhandle, a Fort Ancient site outside Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Sixty Islands ridged fields in Michigan.