Material culture and mission inventories: A comparison of archaeological and archival data from the Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá, Menard County, Texas

Franciscan missionaries established the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba in 1757. The simple compound, located on the San Saba River in present-day Menard County, Texas, was destroyed in less than one year. Documentary research and archeological investigations of the mission site, 41MN23, produced an abundance of data. The purpose of this thesis is to present, organize, compare, contrast, and interpret the records from the mission period and the archaeological artifact inventory from the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba. This thesis applies middle-range theory to the documentary and archaeological records. Anomalies between the two data sets are identified and interpretations of these discrepancies are discussed. Finally, a reconstruction of daily life at the mission is presented and future research avenues are discussed.