Stone Age village and artifacts found on local ranch

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Stone Age village and artifacts found on local ranch

The McInroe family has found a Stone Age village site and several artifacts on their ranch. Carroll McInroe has inherited the ranch and will reveal an old water well to possibly date the site.

Carroll McInroe and his family discovered a Stone Age village on the family's Erath County ranch when he was about 10 years old. Over the years, they have collected more than 25 manos (Indian grinding stones), arrowheads, a dart point, a stone drill piece and a hide-scraper. McInroe and an archaeologist are about to uncover an old hand-dug well, by the ranch creek, that he and his father discovered back in the 1950s. They are hoping to date it along with the village.

“My father and I found it in 1954, it was during a drought and we were down there digging around looking for some water for the cattle,” McInroe said.

His father, a cousin and a friend dug up the well.

“It turned out to be 8 feet deep and when they got to the bottom, the water began to come in visibly,” he said. “When we returned the next day that well was full of crystal clear cold water.”

Since then the well has been covered back up and now McInroe wants to have it excavated to reveal its true age.

“This well could only be a couple hundred years old, or it could be a couple thousand years old,” he said. “We know this is a Stone Age village.” McInroe also knows that the well was not on the property when his ancestor owned the land in the 1880s.

Another remarkable find was made by McInroe’s father in 1971. His father had gone down to the creek and said he had found something.

“He said, ‘I think I found a tusk from one of those old elephants,'” said McInroe. “We had some geologists come out and excavate it; it was clearly a mammoth's tusk.”

The tusk was found just down the stream from the water well and the family donated it to Tarleton State University.

McInroe will have a hired crew out Saturday morning to dig up the well. An archaeologist will also be on site to try and determine the age of the well and possibly link that to the village and artifacts as a whole.

“We’re going to be very careful with this thing,” said McInroe. “Carefully expose the well without doing any damage to it.”