Mittel Site

Mittel Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Address restricted[2]
Nearest city	Eldorado, Texas
NRHP reference No.	89002278[1]
Added to NRHP	January 4, 1990

The Mittel Site (41SL15) is a Late Prehistoric archaeological site located near Eldorado in rural Schleicher County, Texas, on the Edwards Plateau. It includes six rock middens that show evidence of burning, as well as several graves inside a natural sinkhole.^[3] The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Archaeology

The Mittel Site was discovered by a private landowner, who was clearing brush in the area and came across the sinkhole containing human remains. The Texas Archeological Research Laboratory then carried out an archaeological survey between 1988 and 1989. The remains of at least five individuals were identified inside the sinkhole gravesite. Additionally, they found the remains of six burned rock middens and concentrations dotted throughout the site, which they determined to have been used to bake plants,^[3] dating to the Middle to Late Archaic period. The burials were found to have been interred sometime after the rock middens were created and date to the Late Prehistoric period, sometime after A.D. 1300.^[4]

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
2. Federal and state laws and practices restrict general public access to information regarding the specific location of this resource. In some cases, this is to protect archeological sites from vandalism, while in other cases it is restricted at the request of the owner. See: Knoerl, John; Miller, Diane; Shrimpton, Rebecca H. (1990), Guidelines for Restricting Information about Historic and Prehistoric Resources, National Register Bulletin, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, OCLC 20706997.
3. "Mittel Site". Texas Beyond History. Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved December 13, 2023.
4. "Current Research". American Antiquity. 54 (3): 637–654. July 1989. Retrieved December 12, 2023.