Ancient Texans

A Report by David and Daryl Vogel

A major food source was sotol. They took off the leaves and only ate the bulb.

Seminole Canyon, in southern Texas where the Pecos River meets the Rio Grande, is a fascinating place that has been inhabited for thousands of years. The earliest remains of human inhabitants are from approximately 10,000 years ago. Since that time, the canyon has been continuously occupied by people

In the early days of Seminole Canyon the people relied on animals like rabbit for their food. They also killed bison.

The sotol bulbs were cooked in underground ovens.

How is this possible? Bison live in herds and can easily kill an Indian. The answer is simple, drive them off a cliff. There sometimes were shelters under a cliff so the early people would be able to get the bison to their home to cook and eat them.

The people who lived in Seminole Canyon also ate plants such as sotol. The sotol took a little longer to prepare than some of their other foods. First, they would take the spiny leaves off. Second, they brought back the hearts of the plant and put them in an oven of heated stones. They let them sit in the oven for a couple of days. That got the hard “armor” off the actual heart of the sotol. Then they take it out and eat it.


Seminole Canyon is where the Pecos River meets the Rio Grande.	The ancient people left a lot of petroglphs in their caves.

Rabbit was one of the foods the people ate a lot.	Nobody knows exactly why the ancient people painted petroglyphs or what they mean.