'Prehistory bleeds into history' in fifth volume of 'Indelible Austin'

At the end of the day, where do these history columns go?

Almost all of them abide online at statesman.com.

In fact, digital versions of my history columns from more than 10 years ago are still viewed daily by loyal readers.

Yet there’s a shelf-stable way to preserve, consult and enjoy these columns — including the statewide “Think Texas” and the Austin-centric “From the Archives” — as well as other historical articles from the American-Statesman.

After all, they epitomize what we in the media classify as evergreen material.

Since 2015 — thanks to Waterloo Press and the Austin History Center Association — the best of my local columns have been collected in the “Indelible Austin” book series, available at bookstores, gift shops and E-commerce sites.

Revenues help support the nonprofit wing of the city-run Austin History Center, which is part of the Austin Public Library system. Both entities are currently moving from their graceful 1933 building to the much larger 1979 John Henry Faulk Building, located on the same Guadalupe Street campus.

How to read ‘Indelible Austin’

Just your luck: Volume 5 of “Indelible Austin” dropped in late June.

As in the previous four volumes, the columns are not arranged chronologically, but rather thematically by chapter.

This volume, for instance, contains chapters on “Growing Up in Austin,” “Lives Lived Fully” and “Gone Too Soon.” The last is a short selection of my Statesman obituaries, new to this book series. The stories can be read in any order.

Consider these volumes as another way to savor the reporting and writing that our newsroom — growing again as part of Hearst Newspapers — produces seven days a week. Hearst now allies us closely with the San Antonio Express-News, Houston Chronicle and, if all goes as expected, soon the Dallas Morning News, as well as other Hearst Texas newspapers in Laredo, Beaumont, Midland and elsewhere.

What makes this volume of ‘Indelible Austin’ different?

Short answer: Prehistory bleeds into history.

Despite the definitional absence of the written record, prehistory can be legible if one learns the languages of artifacts, human remains and oral traditions.

As argued in the introduction to Volume 5, most of the historical accounts told in the “Indelible Austin” book series have instead been based on the memories of eyewitnesses or descendants, supported by the written record.

Yet recently, the prehistory of the Austin area has moved center stage.

Stories not just of Native Americans as they lived here before they encountered Europeans, Africans and Americans, but also of the Paleo-Indians who preceded the known Indigenous tribes — Tonkawa, Apache, Comanche, Karankawa, Coahuiltecan, Caddo and others — that resided here or moved through the area over time.

Add to that an improved understanding of the immigrant tribes — Cherokee, Alabama, Coushatta, Delaware, Seminole, Kickapoo and others — who surged into Texas after brutal ethnic cleansing in the eastern United States during the early 19th century.

Despite these recent advances, understanding remains grossly inadequate regarding the descendants of Indigenous people of Mexico and Central America now living in the state, 60 percent of whom are usually considered mestizo, or of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry.

The most astonishing story has been around for a while. At the Gault Site, north of Austin, archaeologists led by Michael Collins unearthed not only an enormous quantity of Clovis-era artifacts, but also pre-Clovis evidence that pushes the dating of Paleo-Indian arrival in Central Texas back to perhaps 20,000 years ago.

While some of that story had been told in previous American-Statesman columns, it took the 2024 debut of a documentary movie, “The Stones are Speaking,” to dramatize the findings adequately. The first story collected in this volume, “Gault Site: Nothing Else Like It, Period,” grew out of reporting at the site and about that film.

Almost as amazing has been the rush of concrete data on the Tonkawa Tribe that inhabited this area before the arrival of outsiders.

In December 2023, tribal leaders returned to their homelands from a reservation in northern Oklahoma to purchase and reclaim Red Mountain — also known as Sugarloaf Mountain — a highly sacred spot in Milam County, northeast of Austin. In partnership with El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association, the Tonkawa intend to turn it into a historical park.

In September 2024, tribal officers returned to Austin to accept the thanks of political and cultural leaders for their enduring friendship during the 19th century, long before the Tonkawa were exiled to Oklahoma in the 1880s.

While my reporting on the Tonkawa goes back to 2015, much more arose out of these two powerful events as well as another historical documentary, “Tonkawa: They All Stay Together,” expected to premiere in 2025.

Collected in this volume is one of my stories, “Tonkawa at Red Mountain: We’re Home.” This line of inquiry has been among the most rewarding from my 36 years at the newspaper.

‘Check what’s happened in the past’

It is hard to believe there was a time, not that long ago, when journalists and even historians doubted that local and regional history could fire the imaginations of media consumers, assumed by some to be solely mesmerized by flickering streams of videos and quickly assembled digital posts.

All of which, don’t misunderstand me, can be enjoyed and valued in their own ways. Journalism in the 21st century uses whatever tools possible to reflect and share the stories of our lives. I’m proud that the American-Statesman has mastered the use of those tools.

A recent social media post from the always timely satirical news site, The Onion, under a photo of a professorially bearded man speaking in front of an image of a bread line during the Great Depression: “Historians politely remind nation to check what’s happened in the past before making any big decisions about the future.”

Happily, there seem to be no limits to the hunger for history — and prehistory — whether presented in daily print, digital articles, podcasts, public speaking, or, yes, books such as the “Indelible Austin” series.

I am forever grateful to the Austin History Center Association and Waterloo Press for the opportunity to make these stories permanently available in book form.

These volumes, based chiefly on interviews with witnesses or descendants, represent a community approach to history from the grassroots up. It’s safe to say that this project — which is ongoing — is virtually unprecedented in its design and scope among popular records of American cities.

Please send tips and questions for “Think Texas” to mbarnes@statesman.com.