The Toyah complex of south and central Texas: Long-range mobility and the emergence of dual economies

Abstract

The Late Prehistoric Toyah complex of south and central Texas has fostered a long-running debate on the origins, identity, and economic basis of the society that employed the distinctive toolkit. Over the last two decades, researchers have taken the general position of Toyah as generalized foragers operating within fixed territories and interacting with adjacent groups such as the Caddo, Jumano, and maritime-adapted Rockport groups, all of whom shared components of the same toolkit. However, coinciding with Toyah times many areas around the Great Plains show the rise of a widespread adaptation of semi-sedentary bison-hunting farmers, often sharing common elements of the Toyah toolkits, using seasonal long-range mobility. These groups operated dual economies within formalized socio-economic networks. The two theoretical positions offer highly contrastive archeological expectations. This paper presents multiple lines of evidence in support of the long-range mobility model as the better explanation for the hallmarks of the Toyah complex.