Archaeology Research Collections at SMU

10/07/2026

10/07/2026

No, that's not green flint.

Prior to digital photography, it was commonplace to coat artifacts in a matte-finish paint (even in neon green) that enhanced visibility of flake scars and other details in monochrome film.

The fact that nobody bothered to remove this coating after photography poses problems for us today. This is one of the many things we have to address in working with legacy collections.

Photographs of artifacts from SMU's study of sites along Hog Creek in Bosque County, Texas as they are today, and as they were presented in the 1974 technical report.

10/07/2026

Archaeology Pro-Tip #260610: Coding your spatial analyses as "ALL PREHISTORIC CRAP" in SYMAPs should only be done when mapping coprolites and defecatory-site-furniture zones.

10/02/2026

https://www.peoplenewspapers.com/community/2026/10/calling-all-archeologists/

With a mission to tackle the fundamental questions of human culture and society, SMU’s Department of Anthropology is home to some pretty impressive minds.  But while the department is made up of Members of the National Academy of Sciences, Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and...

09/30/2026

08/30/2026

Standing room only at the Open Lab Day today with North Texas Archeological Society. Thanks for everyone who came out — we finished cataloguing another site's assemblage and started flotation and water-screening of soil samples.

08/17/2026

A little update on what we've been up to over the past year, and on what we're doing to build community-based archaeology in North Texas.

Students, researchers and volunteers preserve artifacts spanning 500,000 years at SMU's Archaeology Research Collections lab in Dallas.

07/16/2026

07/15/2026

Had a wonderful visit today with a group from Kyrgizstan visiting the U.S. to learn about cultural heritage preservation organized through World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. We also performed the ceremonial reciprocal exchange of archaeology swag!

07/13/2026

Yet another artifact from SMU's 1966/1967 work in Crockett County to salvage archaeological resources before construction of I-10. This sequent scraper was found in the uppermost level at Sotol Shelter (41CX9) along with two Garza points.

Object: Sequent side-scraper Material: Indurated shale Provenience: 41CX9 (Sotol Shelter), Crockett County, Texas Period: Late Prehistoric Attribution: Archaeology Research Collections, Southern Methodist University.