1. A Brief History of the
Llano Estacado
Dr. Mark A. McGinley
Honors College and Department of
Biological Sciences
Texas Tech University

2. Migration Route of Native Americans
• Native Americans
migrated from Asia
via the Bering Land
Bridge
– From 40,000 to
11,000 years ago

3. Timeline of Texas Indians
• Paleo-Indians Period
– 9,200 B.C. - 6,000 B.C
• Archaic Period
– 6,000 B.C.-500 A.D.
• Late Prehistoric Period
– 500 to 1,500
• Historic Period
– 1,500 – Present
Learn About Texas Indians
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_b
k_p4000_0016.pdf

4. Paleo-Indians Period
9,200 B.C. - 6,000 B.C
• Texas Indians of this period follow and hunt
the last of the big mammals of the Ice Age.
• Paleo-Indians have chopping and scraping
stone tools, and they use spears.

5. Paleo-Indian Period Environment
• During the Ice Ages (from about 2,000,000 to 8,000
years ago), various large-sized mammals lived south of
the vast ice-sheets covering the top half of the
continent.
• In Texas, these Ice Age mammals included mastodons,
mammoths, native camels, native horses, long-horned
bison, giant armadillos and giant sloths, along with
meat-eaters such as dire wolves, short-faced bears and
sabertooth cats.
• More familiar creatures, like box turtles and burrowing
owls, were also present.
• In Texas, the Paleo-Indians, or first Native Americans,
lived alongside the giant mammals from about 11,000
to 8,000 years ago

6. Paleo-Indians
• The Clovis culture was a pedestrian, hunter–
gatherer society that depended on indigenous
flora and fauna for their survival.
• They traveled by foot in constant search of the
woolly mammoth, bison, deer, elk, camel, horse
and whatever else was available to consume for
survival.
• Rabbit, snakes and birds of various types were
abundant as well.
• They also gathered wild plants, berries and seeds
to supplement whatever meat they consumed.

7. Paleo-Indians in Texas
• "For the Clovis and their probable Folsom and
Plainview descendants, Pleistocene Texas was an
extraordinary environment: full of dangerous species,
paleosavannas noisy with game animals, high-quality
lithic resources, plentiful rockshelters, and tremendous
springlands. Though never numerous, perhaps a
thousand or so on the great Llano mesa, the Clovis
people explored Texas vigorously from a network of
base camps, overlooks, kill sites, quarries, and hunting
camps.“
• John Miller Morris, Professor of History, UT

8. Mammoth Hunting
• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/
articles/dxm01

9. Paleo-Indians
• Paleo-Indians
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Indians
• The Paleo-Indian Period: The Clovis Culture in
the Texas Panhandle
• http://www.panhandlenation.com/history/pr
ehistory/clovis.htm

10. What Caused The Extinction of the
Large Mammals?
• During the late Pleistocene, 40,000 to 10,000
years ago, North America lost over 50 percent
of its large mammal species.
– including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground
sloths, among many others.
• In total, 35 different genera (groups of
species) disappeared, all of different habitat
preferences and feeding habits

11. What Caused The Extinction of the
Large Mammals?
• There are a number of hypotheses to explain
this extinction
– Overhunting by humans
– Removal of keystone species (e.g., mammoth and
mastadons) altered enviornment
– Virus introduced by humans killed mammals
– Climate change
– Comet Impact or airburst

12. What Caused The Extinction of the
Large Mammals?
• End of the Big Beasts
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/end-big-
beasts.html
• Mass Extinction: Why Did Half of N. America's Large
Mammals Disappear 40,000 to 10,000 Years Ago?
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/09112
7140706.htm
• Deciphering North American Pleistocene Extinctions
• http://www.anthro.utah.edu/PDFs/grayson--jar07.pdf

13. Archaic Indians
• By 8,000 years ago (or
6,000 B.C.), the giant Ice
Age mammals had died
out.
• Archaic Indians replaced
the Paleo-Indian big-game
hunters.
– The Archaic Indians
depended on medium-
sized game such as rabbits
and deer. Rodents, turkey,
lizards and snakes were
also eaten, and edible wild
plants filled out the diet.

14. Archaic
• The Archaic period was a long time span of hunting and
gathering and is most notable for changes in projectile
points from the previous Paleo-Indian period.
– Paleo points were distinguished by their fluting, whereas the
Archaic period saw that style disappear in favor of the more
parallel-sided lanceolate form.
• Other changes in this time period include the wider
distribution of sites inhabited by the Archaic culture.
• Larger populations during the Archaic period used local
agricultural and animal resources which resembled Indians
of the more modern Antelope Creek and pre-Columbian
periods. Bison was the primary source of big game

15. Archaic Period
• Later in the Archaic period, from 2500 BC to
about 1000 BC population increases were normal
throughout the southwest and the local cultures
became more specialized on a regional basis.
• Cemeteries with large numbers of dead began to
appear which indicate that hunter-gatherer
cultures of the past were beginning to be more
semisedentary, allowing for specialized trade
from cultures and groups from more distant
locations.

16. Archaic Period
• Beyond Clovis: Archaic in the Texas Panhandle
• http://www.panhandlenation.com/history/pr
ehistory/beyondclovis.htm

17. Late Pre-Historic Period
500 to 1,500
• Texas Indians of this period start to use the
bow and arrow and to make pottery.
• In some areas, Texas Indians live in villages
and grow maize (corn), beans and squash.

18. Late-Prehistoric Period
• The appearance of the bow and arrow and
pottery marks the end of the Archaic Period and
the beginning of what is called the Late
Prehistoric Period of Texas Indian culture.
• The earliest dates for arrowpoints and ceramics
are around 150 A.D.
• However, in most parts of Texas, the Late
Prehistoric Period started around 500 A.D.
• In some areas, like East Texas and along the Rio
Grande, crops started to be grown in Late
Prehistoric times.

19. Late-Prehistoric Period
• Some Late Prehistoric Native Americans lived in
pueblo-like villages in the Texas Panhandle near the
Canadian River from about 1,100 A.D. to 1,400 A.D.
– They grew corn and beans and also hunted bison.
– They mined a colorful local stone, called Alibates
agate, Highly valued for its use in making beautiful
arrowheads and other tools, this stone was traded to
• The pueblos along the Rio Grande were quite unusual
in their construction. Wall foundations consisted of two
parallel rows of slabs of rocks covered with adobe
inside and out. Most of the houses were built in single-
level apartment-like complexes, but some stood alone.

20. Late-Prehistoric Period
• By 1200 AD the hunter-gatherers of the southern Plains
had advanced beyond the pedestrian culture that
pursued game with flint-tipped spears and gathered
the fruit of plants as they traveled from one campsite
to another in their quest for survival.
• Around 700 AD the bow and arrow were introduced
which gave more power and precision to hunters.
• Pottery was also more prevalent and signs of long
distance trade with cultures west of the Llano Estacado
shows that southern Plains cultures had become more
settled in their daily environment by the end of the
Archaic period

21. Late-Prehistoric Period
• From 1200 to 1500 AD the Texas Panhandle
was dominated by the Antelope Creek Phase.
• The Antelope Creek Phase is the cultural
designation assigned to a series of prehistoric
sites in the upper Texas and Oklahoma
panhandles utilized by semisedentary, bison-
hunting, and horticultural groups during a
period of aridity between AD 1200 and 1500.

22. Late-Prehistoric Period
• Based on hunting-gathering, horticulture and bison
hunting, the Antelope Creek economy was both local and
distant. The apparent abundance of bison and water
resources provided a rich environment.
• With fossil springs and the Canadian River as water sources
wildlife was plentiful regardless of the contemporaneous
climate.
• Food sources would include a large array of antelope, deer
and small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, clams and
waterfowl. Plant resources would include
hackberry, mesquite, plums, cattail
stems, persimmons, prickly-pear
cactus, purslane, goosefoot, grass seeds, sunflower
seeds, corn, squash and beans.

23. Late-Prehistoric Period
• One distinctive aspect of the Late Prehistoric was
widespread, long-distance trade, best reflected in the
distribution of obsidian artifacts in parts of Texas.
– Artifact-quality obsidian (volcanic glass, usually black to
gray in color) does not occur in Texas. Yet at sites in deep
South Texas, across Central Texas, and into the Panhandle,
obsidian artifacts are often reported.
• Antelope Creek culture exchanged goods and services
with almost all adjacent cultures in North America
however, most materials from outside the Antelope
Creek area are from the southwestern pueblo cultures.

24. Late-Prehistoric Period
• The Antelope Creek phase of the Plains Village horizon
was short lived: it existed in the Texas Panhandle from 1200
to about 1500 AD and flourished because of the abundant
local resources. Fossil springs from the Ogallala
Aquifer provided fresh water for humans and the relatively
salty water from the Canadian River attracted a
tremendous variety of game.
• Since the local economy found its staple in horticultural
products that they themselves cultivated, attempts at
maintaining an agricultural economy became increasingly
difficult with constant drought.
• Wandering bands of nomadic tribes such as the Apacheans
were instrumental in adding unbearable pressure to the
Antelope Creek pueblo-type lifestyle

25. Late-Prehistoric Period
• By 1500 AD the Apaches had completely
displaced the local Antelope Creek culture.
• It is believed that the local Panhandle culture
moved eastward and perhaps merged with
similar Caddoan plains tribes such as the
Pawnee or Wichita.

26. Late-Prehistoric Period
• The Antelope Creek Focus:
Advanced, Pre-Columbian Civilization in the
Texas Panhandle
• http://www.panhandlenation.com/history/pr
ehistory/antelope_creek.htm

27. Historic Period
1,500 - Present
• Texas Indians of this period are in contact
with various Europeans: the Spanish, the
French and, finally, the Anglos.
• The Europeans introduce horses and guns as
well as cloth and metal pots, knives and axes.
• Conflicts with whites are continuous and, by
1875, all of Texas' original Indian groups have
been killed or forced to move to Oklahoma.

28. Apaches
• The Apaches were the dominant Native
American group in the Llano Estacado region
– Migrated down from Canada

29. Apaches
• At first the Apache farmed on the south
plains. They probably were semi-sedentary.
– When the crops were in they would switch to a
nomadic lifestyle and hunt and gather for food.
– They farmed corn, beans and squash like the other
Indians around them. In fact, they probably
learned to farm and got their first corn from the
Pueblo Indians.
– Hunted buffalo on foot, pretty difficult.

30. Arrival of the Spanish
• Christopher Columbus
– Born in Genoa, Italy
– Led Spanish voyage to find a western route to
the orient. Instead…….

31. He “Discovered” the “New World”

32. 4 Voyages of Christopher Columbus

33. The Spanish in America
• In 1481, the Pope drew a line in the
Atlantic ocean and gave Portugal
claim to all lands to the east of that
line (Africa) and Spain all lands
west of the line (N. and S.
America).
• First Spanish colony set up in
Hispanola (now Dominican
Republic)
• Spanish did not explore the new
world to set up new settlements
– Instead they explored looking for
riches (e.g., gold and silver) and
searching for people to convert to
Catholacism

34. Cabeza de Vaca
• In 1528, a Spanish Expedition
exploring Florida was
stranded there. They built
barges and sailed along the
southern coast of the US and
landed near Galveston.
• Cabeza de Vaca was one of
the "four ragged castaways,"
who were among the first
non-Indians to set foot on
Texas soil.

35. Cabeza de Vaca
• In 1534 Cabeza de
Vaca and a small
group took off on a
journey that took
them along the Rio
Grande and ultimately
to the Sea of Cortez
before returning to
Mexico City and
ultimately to Spain.

36. Coronado Expedition
• Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was
appointed to lead an expedition to conquer to
Seven Cities of Cibola
– included 1,000 men, 1,500 horses and mules, and
cattle and sheep for the expedition commissary.

37. Coronado Expedition

38. Coronado’s Description of Llano
Estacado
• The Llano Estacado was first described
by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in a letter to
the king of Spain in October 20, 1541:
• "I reached some plains so vast, that I did not find
their limit anywhere I went, although I travelled
over them for more than 300 leagues . . . with no
more land marks than if we had been swallowed
up by the sea . . . . there was not a stone, nor bit
of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor
anything to go by."

39. Coronado and Llano Estacado
• The country the buffalo traveled over was so
smooth that if one looked at them the sky could
be seen between their legs.
• Men and horses became lost in the featureless
plain and Coronado felt like he had been
swallowed up by the sea.
• On the Llano, Coronado encountered vast herds
of bison. “I found such a quantity of cows...that it
is impossible to number them, for while I was
journeying through these plains...there was not a
day that I lost sight of them.”

40. Coronado
• Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3
%A1squez_de_Coronado
• Coronado Expedition
• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/
articles/upcpt

41. Reintroduction of Horses Into North
America
• North American horses disappeared
around 8,000 - 10,000 years ago.
• In 1519, Conquistadors re-introduced
horses to North America.
– Fifteen horses were brought by the Cortez
expedition and were imported by Spanish
homesteaders to Mexico and New Mexico.
• The re-introduced species made their way
north through the western U.S. west of the
Rocky Mountains to the coast, following
the expansion of the Mexican/Spanish.
Within 150 years of the first
colonizers, herds of millions roamed the
plains
A brief history of the horse in America
• http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazi
ne/ma05/indepth/

42. Apaches
• Started using horses which
made it much easier to
hunt bison
• Hunters with horses could
also follow herds for
several days and travel
long distances to find
herds.
• Hunting buffalo became an
easier way to get food
than hunting
– the Apache quit farming
and became nomadic
hunter gatherers.

43. Texas Apaches
• By the mid–seventeenth century Apaches had
acquired enough horses that their raids became a
major concern for Spanish authorities in New
Mexico.
• Colonial governors tried various policies to
subjugate them. Military expeditions against
scattered autonomous bands produced limited
results.
• Spanish alliances with Pueblos and Comanches
were more productive.

44. Texas Apaches
• After 1700 the Comanches swept the Apaches off the
plains of Texas and eastern New Mexico.
• Spanish territorial governors at times attempted to
concentrate Apaches near Pueblo communities through
dispersal of trade goods, including guns and alcohol.
• Some bands accepted Spanish annuities and settled under
Spanish rule. Most did not.
• Spain failed to bring Apache bands in the Plains under
control. Mexico fared no better.
• Apache raids, along with Comanche inroads, became the
bane of existence in newly independent Mexico between
1821 and 1846.

45. Apaches
Texas Apaches
http://www.texasindians.com/ap2.htm
Apaches
http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/d
oc/egp.na.004

46. Comanches
• Before the Comanches arrived, the Jumano
Indians, some Pueblo Indians, and Apache
Indians had lived in the Southern Plains.
• To move into this area, the Comanches first
had to drive these other tribes out.
• By the middle 1700s they had extended into
central Texas near Austin.

47. Comanche Migration

48. Comanches
• The Comanches remained a nomadic people
throughout their free existence.
• Buffalo, their lifeblood, provided food, clothing, and
shelter. Their predominantly meat diet was
supplemented with wild roots, fruits, and nuts, or with
produce obtained by trade with neighboring
agricultural tribes, principally the Wichita and Caddo
groups to the east and the Pueblo tribes to the west.
• Because of their skills as traders, the Comanches
controlled much of the commerce of the Southern
Plains. They bartered buffalo products, horses, and
captives for manufactured items and foodstuffs.

49. Comanches
• The familiar Plains-type tepee
constructed of tanned buffalo
hide stretched over sixteen to
eighteen lodge poles provided
portable shelter for the
Comanches.
• Their clothing, made of bison
hide or buckskin, consisted of
breechclout, leggings, and
moccasins for men, and
fringed skirt, poncho-style
blouse, leggings, and
moccasins for women. Buffalo
robes provided protection
from cold weather.

50. Comanches
• By the mid-eighteenth century, the armed and
mounted Comanches had become a formidable force
in Texas.
• Spanish officials, lacking the resources to defeat them
militarily, decided to pursue peace with the
Comanches.
• A peace policy that utilized trade and gifts to promote
friendship and authorized military force only to punish
specific acts of aggression was inaugurated and
remained in effect, with varying degrees of success, for
the remainder of Spanish rule in Texas.

51. Comanches
• The Texas Comanches
• http://www.texasindians.com/comanche.htm
• Comanches
• http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/do
c/egp.na.020
• Comanche Indians
• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/arti
cles/bmc72

52. English Come to the New World
• In 1620 the Pilgrims
sailed from England
and landed in what is
now Massachusetts
• http://www.mayflowe
rhistory.com/History/v
oyage_secondary.php

53. English Come to the New World
Voyage of the Mayflower

54. Westward Expansion

55. Anglo-American Colonization of Texas
• Anglo-American colonization in Mexican Texas took place between
1821 and 1835. Spain had first opened Texas to Anglo-Americans in
1820, less than one year before Mexico achieved its independence.
Its traditional policy forbade foreigners in its territory, but Spain was
unable to persuade its own citizens to move to remote and sparsely
populated Texas.
• Spain expected the new settlers to increase economic development
and help deter the aggressive and mobile Plains Indians such as the
Comanches and Kiowas. Mexico continued the Spanish colonization
plan after its independence in 1821 by granting contracts to
empresarios who would settle and supervise selected, qualified
immigrants.
• First settlements in Central and Southern Texas
• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/uma01

56. Texas Comanches
• When Texans won their independence from Mexico in 1836 the
Comanches and their allies were still in absolute control of the
Texas plains. They frequently conducted raids on frontier
settlements from San Antonio to northern Mexico.
• In an effort to stop Comanche destruction on the Texas
frontier, Sam Houston, first duly elected president of the Republic
of Texas, instituted a policy aimed at establishing peace and
friendship through commerce. Houston's peace efforts were
hampered because the Texas Congress refused to agree to the one
Comanche requirement for peace-a boundary line between Texas
and Comanchería.
• When Houston left office in late 1838, Texan-Comanche relations
were rapidly deteriorating and depredations were being committed
by both sides.

57. Anglo-American Settlers in the
Llano Estacado
• A critical shortage of water restricted the early exploration
and settlement of the Llano Estacado, which is at best a
semiarid region with a very high evaporation rate.
• Minerals left behind by the process render most surface
water in playas unusable.
• The only reliable source of groundwater has been the
Ogalalla Aquifer.
– Its southern extension under the Llano Estacado has been cut
off and sealed mainly by the drainage of the Pecos River and, to
a lesser extent, by the Canadian River and their tributaries. That
isolation prevents any recharge from Rocky Mountain
runoff, making the groundwater under the Llano Estacado a
finite resource that is being rapidly depleted

58. Last Days of the Comanches
• Last Days of the
Comanches
• http://www.texasmo
nthly.com/2010-05-
01/feature4.php

59. Last Days of the Comanche
• By 1870 settlers had begun moving
up towards the Llano Estacado, but
many had moved out because of
danger from Comanche raids.
• “If the Indian marauders are not
punished,” wrote Colonel Randolph
Marcy, “the whole country seems in a
fair way of becoming totally
depopulated.”
• In 1871 Ranald Slidell Mackenzie led
a group of 600 soldiers to fight the
Quahadi group of Comanche who
hunted in the Llano Estacado and
liked to camp in the depths of Palo
Duro Canyon

60. Last Days of the Comanche
• Not only was the army unable to find the Indians but,
at Blanco Canyon on the morning of October 9, 1871,
the troopers lost a number of horses when Quanah
and his followers raided the cavalry campsite.
Afterward, the Indians seemingly disappeared onto the
plains, only to reappear and attack again. Mackenzie
gave up the search in mid-1872.

61. Quanah Parker
• The Quahada were led by
Quanah Parker, son of
Comanche Chief Peta Nocona
and Cynthia Ann Parker, who
was born about 1845.
– His mother was the celebrated
captive of a Comanche raid on
Parker's Fort (1836) and convert
to the Indian way of life
http://www.tshaonline.org/handb
ook/online/articles/fpa28

62. Last Days of the Comanche
• As buffalo hunters poured onto the plains, decimating
the Indians' chief source of subsistence, Parker and his
followers were forced to take decisive action
• The Quahadas formed a multitribal alliance dedicated
to expelling the hunters from the plains. On the
morning of June 27, 1874, this alliance of some 700
warriors—Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, and
Comanches—attacked the twenty-eight hunters and
one woman housed at Adobe
• In the end the hunters suffered just one casualty, while
fifteen Indians died and numerous others, including
Parker, were wounded.

63. Defeat of the Comanches
• Defeated and disorganized, the Indians
retreated and the alliance crumbled. Within a
year Parker and the Quahadas, under
relentless pressure from the army and
suffering from hunger, surrendered their
independence and moved to the Kiowa-
Comanche reservation in southwestern
Oklahoma.

64. Settlement of the Llano Estacado
Development of the Llano Estacado did not begin until the
1870s.
By the end of 1886 the area and adjacent lands had at least
thirty large ranches recognized by name and cattle brand,
grazing thousands of cattle on free grass and water on mostly
unappropriated public lands.
Innovative farmers learned techniques to make the rich, dry
land productive; they also drilled into the Ogalalla Aquifer.
Development of animal, windmill, and engine-powered
pumps led to massive irrigation programs. Cotton, corn,
wheat, sorghum, and a great variety of melons and vegetables
are now grown on the Llano Estacado.

65. Settlement of the Llano Estacado
• Natural gas was discovered in
Potter County in 1917 and oil
in Carson County in 1921.
• These initial discoveries led to
the development of the vast
West Texas oilfields, which by
1981 had yielded a total of
46,691,878,324 barrels of
crude oil. The discovery and
development of the oil and gas
fields brought large-scale
industry to the Llano area in
the 1930s.

66. Settlement of Llano Estacado
• Thus within a relatively short period the Llano
witnessed the most rapid development of any
section of the state, progressing from an
economy based on unfenced public grazing land
to a modern industrial economy within half a
century.
• The total population of the Llano in 1880 was
only 1,081. By 1980 the total was over 900,000
with approximately 23 percent living in rural
areas and 77 percent in urban centers
– Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, and Odessa.

67. Llano Estacado
• Llano Estacado
• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/
articles/ryl02