Originally posted June 23, 2026
In recent years, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) archaeologists have uncovered a pit house near the Rio Grande in Far West Texas inside Big Bend Ranch State Park (BBRSP). It’s believed to be the first such site to be excavated since the 1940s, when the archaeologist J. Charles Kelley uncovered other pit houses in the La Junta village in nearby Redford. Pit houses are housing structures dug into the earth, typically used for shelter or storage. There are some variations to the uncovered pit houses in the region, but the similarities in the architecture reveal that other communities formed downstream.
David Keller, a local archeologist and historian, helped the TPWD team with the new site when he could, but he stopped once he learned about the impending construction of a border wall planned for the Big Bend region; if built, it would threaten this site. He felt that he was being called to duty, so he joined the fight against it.
Read the full article at ArchPaper.com
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