| DATES |
PERIOD |
CHARACTERISTICS |
|
|
earliest occupations by Native Americans, with Pleistocene or ice age ending around 8000B.C.; first peoples are known as Clovis and hunted mammoths and other ice-age animals |
|
|
development of modern vegetation and fauna; hunting and gathering; possible period of aridity 5500-3000 B.C. |
|
|
hunters and gatherers across Texas; rock art begins in lower Pecos; burned-rock middens in Central Texas |
|
|
bison hunting in Panhandle, lower Pecos, Central Texas; increased trade; cemeteries in Southeast and South Texas |
|
|
first mounds in East Texas; hunters and gatherers continue elsewhere |
|
|
Toyah phase bison hunters; villages in the Panhandle; Caddo cultures in East Texas |
|
|
Cabeza de Vaca; Spanish missions; entry of Tonkawas, Apaches, and Comanches |