The Greater Southwest Chapter of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society presents,
Alibates: The Rainbow Flint of Indian Country
by Jon and Diana Denton
November 20 at 2pm
at the Museum of the Great Plains
601 NW Ferris Avenue
Lawton OK 73507
The Alibates Quarry is adjacent to the Texas Panhandle town of Fritch. One of the most colorful rock formations in America is found there. It is the source of fine flint tools crafted by Indians over thousands of years. Jon and Diana Denton, Mustang, have a strong avocational interest in archeology and Oklahoma history. The Alibates Flint Quarries Monument is among their favorite places to visit. A retired journalist, Jon is editor of Trowel Marks, the quarterly newsletter of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society (OAS). Diana, a retired Physician Assistant at the OU Health Sciences Center, shares her husband's interest in archeology and photography. Avid travelers, they have joined OAS excavations and explored archeological sites, museums and other points of historic interest. From several trips to the Alibates Monument, they have created a show they title “Alibates: The Rainbow Flint of Indian Country.
Isolated in the high canyons of the Southwest, the national monument has a low visitor count. Even so, it rewards visitors with a small museum, well informed park rangers, winding caliche paths, and High Plains flora and fauna. Yet it is the outcroppings of brilliant, flinty agate that people come to see.The rocks are geologically classified as agatized dolomite. Collected and cleaned, they resemble the shiny marbles treasured by children. Swirling streaks of red, yellow, blue and green flow together in tiny rivulets of color. In fact, each stone is unique in its brilliance and luster.
For millennia, Native Americans mined the colorful alibates for tools and trade. The stone has been found as far south as Mexico City, north to Canada, and east to the Mississippi River. Other Indian cultures prized it for its fine texture and vivid colors. The flint, abundant near the Canadian Valley now known as the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, exists in abundance no place else in the world – at least none that has been reported. For much of the time, life was good for Indians of the Texas Canadian River Valley. The canyon had ample water and fertile soil for agriculture. Stone slabs were easily gathered and stacked to make homes. This left Indians ample leisure time to mine the mineral, trade, socialize, and craft their prized alibate flint. It all ended about 1400 AD. Severe drought and invaders from the north forced the inhabitants to abandon their canyon homes. They are thought to have merged into other tribes, the forbearers of today’s Caddo, Wichita and Pawnee.
Although the National Monument forbids collecting alibates at the site today, visitors have much to enjoy. Rangers guide visitors to the rocky outcrops where boulders of alibate, once as big as refrigerators, are now cut to the nub. Alibate glitters in the landscape. In their presentation, the Dentons explore the history, both geological and archeological, of the brilliant rainbow rock of Texas.
The Greater Southwest Chapter of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society meets each month. Meetings are open to the public. For more information call Jana Brown, at (580) 581-3460.
