Brushy Creek grades, overall, West Northwest (WNW) to East Southeast (ESE) through the Eastern-most portions of the Central Texas Hill Country, in Southern Williamson County. The headwaters originate a Ca. 15 miles West of the Balcones Escarpment, and the creek grades gently out of the Hill Country and onto the Texas Blackland Prairies Ca. 5 miles to the East of the escarpment. Brushy Creek meanders through the flat Blackland Prairies, eventually draining into the Brazos River. The Brazos River runs through the Gulf Coast Prairies eventually draining into the Gulf of Mexico, Ca. 175 miles to the Southeast of the Balcones Escarpment.
Until recently, most of Brushy Creek in the area of this author’s research was unexplored, mainly due to private ownership of very large tracts of farm and ranch land on both sides of the creek. Many of these tracts of land have been owned by the same families since the mid 1800’s. One very significant archeological excavation occurring on Brushy Creek, conducted by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL), and formally reported on in 1998, is The Wilson-Leonard Site. Dr. Michael Collins and an entourage of respected archeologists, paleontologists, and geologists produced an immense amount of information concerning this long inhabited creek:
“The site occurs as multiple cultural levels buried in layers of natural valley fill, which accumulated to a thickness of six meters (19.5 feet) over approximately the last 12,000 years. This is the most complete cultural sequence at any single site in central Texas and one of the more complete in North America. Chronological control is based on more than seventy radiocarbon dates. Deepest in the site is a sparse cultural assemblage assignable to the Clovis horizon. Above this is a bone bed of extinct bison with a small assemblage of artifacts, including an engraved stone, resembling those of Folsom affiliation.”
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/WW/bbw3.html
Dr. Collins’ formal report fills 5-ca 350-page manuals:Wilson-Leonard, An 11,000 Year Archeological Record of Hunter-Gatherers in Central Texas, Volumes I-V. Dr. Collin’s also has a publication in press concerning this unique creek habitat: Stratigraphic, Chronometric, and Lithic Technological Evidence for PreClovis at Wilson-Leonard, Texas. Current Research in the Pleistocene.
This author sees his research as a continuation of Dr. Michael Collin’s, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory’s (TARL), and Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) immense amount of high quality research on this archeologically productive Central Texas creek. This author’s primary research focuses where Brushy Creek has recently dissected an alluvium in several locations. These dissections have exposed several complete geologic columns, mirroring the geologic column documented thoroughly 8 miles upstream at Wilson-Leonard by Dr. Collins, TARL and TxDOT.Wilson-Leonard is located Ca. 5 miles West of the Balcones Escarpment, while Hatchett is positioned Ca. 3 miles to East of the escarpment. The Hatchett Site has been subdivided into 7 subunits, focusing on where the alluvium has been dissected, each subunit separated by an average of 275 meters. Starting with the dissection farthest upstream (Southwest) and ending with the dissection farthest downstream (Northeast), the subsections have been termed Lima, Lima-B, Tango, Tango-B, Foxtrot-B, Foxtrot and Romeo.
 Figure 1. Hatchett Subsections Lima, Lima-B, Tango, Tango-B, Foxtrot-B, Foxtrot and Romeo. Note that the portion of Brushy Creek where the site is located deviates from the creek’s overall WNW-ESE course, draining SW to NE. |
 Figure 2. Hatchett Subsection Lima. |
 Figure 3. Hatchett Subsection Lima-B. |
 Figure 4. Hatchett Subsection Tango. |
 Figure 5. Hatchett Subsection Tango-B. |
 Figure 6. Hatchett Subsection Foxtrot-B. |
 Figure 7. Hatchett Subsection Foxtrot. |
 Figure 8. Hatchett Subsection Romeo. |
Wilson-Leonard was thoroughly documented archeologically from just above the buff gravel stratum (Igl), throughout the alternating silt and small gravel strata (Isi), and on up throughout the clay and silt topsoil (Icl-IIIc). The buff gravel stratum (Igl) was only researched superficially at Wilson-Leonard, as budgeting constraints tightened, brought on in large part by the highly productive Gault site, ca. 25 miles North of Wilson-Leonard. Gault has also produced preClovis artifacts underlying a very well defined Clovis stratum.
My research focuses on the Igl stratum and downward through the underlying 2-3” cementation strata (Ice), 8-12” caliche stratum (Ica), ending at the surface of the creek valley Edwards Formation limestone bedrock (Ked).
I openly admit at the outset, without the many hours of high quality intellect poured into producing the immense amount of research at Wilson-Leonard, producing an extremely solid “backbone” to my research, I would be lost, and would never have been able to create this subsequent research. In Texas, we have a saying connotating deep respect when an individual or an organization of individuals far exceed normal productivity and quality for a given project: “Hat’s off”!