Texas
Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U. S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast. Houston is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth largest in the U. S. while San Antonio is the second-most populous in the state and seventh largest in the U. S. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and fifth largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, respectively. Other major cities include Austin, the second-most populous state capital in the U. S. and El Paso. Texas is nicknamed "The Lone Star State" to signify its former status as an independent republic, as a reminder of the state's struggle for independence from Mexico; the "Lone Star" can be found on the Texan state seal.
The origin of Texas's name is from the word taysha. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, Texas contains diverse landscapes common to both the U. S. Southern and Southwestern regions. Although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10% of Texas's land area is desert. Most of the population centers are in areas of former prairies, grasslands and the coastline. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the desert and mountains of the Big Bend; the term "six flags over Texas" refers to several nations. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas. France held a short-lived colony. Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the union as the 28th state; the state's annexation set off a chain of events that led to the Mexican–American War in 1846.
A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, joined the Confederate States of America on March 2nd of the same year. After the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. Four major industries shaped the Texas economy prior to World War II: cattle and bison, cotton and oil. Before and after the U. S. Civil War the cattle industry, which Texas came to dominate, was a major economic driver for the state, thus creating the traditional image of the Texas cowboy. In the 19th century cotton and lumber grew to be major industries as the cattle industry became less lucrative, it was though, the discovery of major petroleum deposits that initiated an economic boom which became the driving force behind the economy for much of the 20th century. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy and high tech industry in the mid-20th century.
As of 2015, it is second on the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with 54. With a growing base of industry, the state leads in many industries, including agriculture, energy and electronics, biomedical sciences. Texas has led the U. S. in state export revenue since 2002, has the second-highest gross state product. If Texas were a sovereign state, it would be the 10th largest economy in the world; the name Texas, based on the Caddo word táyshaʼ "friend", was applied, in the spelling Tejas or Texas, by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves the Hasinai Confederacy, the final -s representing the Spanish plural. The Mission San Francisco de los Tejas was completed near the Hasinai village of Nabedaches in May 1690, in what is now Houston County, East Texas. During Spanish colonial rule, in the 18th century, the area was known as Nuevo Reino de Filipinas "New Kingdom of the Philippines", or as provincia de los Tejas "province of the Tejas" also provincia de Texas, "province of Texas", it was incorporated as provincia de Texas into the Mexican Empire in 1821, declared a republic in 1836.
The Royal Spanish Academy recognizes both spellings and Texas, as Spanish-language forms of the name of the U. S. State of Texas; the English pronunciation with /ks/ is unetymological, based in the value of the letter x in historical Spanish orthography. Alternative etymologies of the name advanced in the late 19th century connected the Spanish teja "rooftile", the plural tejas being used to designate indigenous Pueblo settlements. A 1760s map by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin shows a village named Teijas on Trinity River, close to the site of modern Crockett. Texas is the second-largest U. S. state, with an area of 268,820 square miles. Though 10% larger than France and twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Zambia. Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers; the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas to the south.
The Red River forms a natural border with Arkansas to the north. The Sabine River forms a natural border with Louisiana to the east; the Texas Panhandle has an eastern border with Oklahoma at 100° W, a northern border with Oklahoma at 36°30' N and a western
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the Pre-Columbian peoples of North and South America and their descendants. Although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture; the impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas. Although some societies depended on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, states and empires. Among these are the Aztec and Maya states that until the 16th century were among the most politically and advanced nations in the world, they had a vast knowledge of engineering, mathematics, writing, medicine and irrigation, mining and goldsmithing. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous peoples.
At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Guaraní, Mayan languages and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Many maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects but cater to modern needs; some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. Indigenous peoples of the United States are known as Native Americans or American Indians and Alaska Natives. Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for India, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies; those islands came to be known as the "West Indies", a name still used. This led to the blanket term "Indies" and "Indians" for the indigenous inhabitants, which implied some kind of racial or cultural unity among the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
This unifying concept, codified in law and politics, was not accepted by the myriad groups of indigenous peoples themselves, but has since been embraced or tolerated, by many over the last two centuries. Though the term "Indian" does not include the culturally and linguistically distinct indigenous peoples of the Arctic regions of the Americas—such as the Aleuts, Inuit or Yupik peoples, who entered the continent as a second more recent wave of migration several thousand years before and have much more recent genetic and cultural commonalities with the aboriginal peoples of the Asiatic Arctic Russian Far East—these groups are nonetheless considered "indigenous peoples of the Americas". Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, which includes not only First Nations and Arctic Inuit, but the minority population of First Nations-European mixed race Métis people who identify culturally and ethnically with indigenous peoplehood; this is contrasted, for instance, to the American Indian-European mixed race mestizos of Hispanic America who, with their larger population, identify as a new ethnic group distinct from both Europeans and Indigenous Americans, but still considering themselves a subset of the European-derived Hispanic or Brazilian peoplehood in culture and ethnicity.
The term Amerindian and its cognates find preferred use in scientific contexts and in Quebec, the Guianas and the English-speaking Caribbean. Indígenas or pueblos indígenas is a common term in Spanish-speaking countries and pueblos nativos or nativos may be heard, while aborigen is used in Argentina and pueblos originarios is common in Chile. In Brazil, indígenas or povos indígenas are common if formal-sounding designations, while índio is still the more often-heard term and aborígene and nativo being used in Amerindian-specific contexts; the Spanish and Portuguese equivalents to Indian could be used to mean any hunter-gatherer or full-blooded Indigenous person to continents other than Europe or Africa—for example, indios filipinos. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research and discussion. According to archaeological and genetic evidence and South America were the last continents in the world to gain human habitation.
During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the land bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium; the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation, conjectured to be Beringia; the isolat
Arable land
Arable land is, according to one definition, land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. In Britain, it was traditionally contrasted with pasturable land such as heaths which could be used for sheep-rearing but not farmland. A quite different kind of definition is used by various agencies concerned with agriculture. In providing statistics on arable land, the FAO and the World Bank use the definition offered in the glossary accompanying FAOSTAT: "Arable land is the land under temporary agricultural crops, temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow; the abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for ‘Arable land’ are not meant to indicate the amount of land, cultivable." A more concise definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary refers to actual, rather than potential use: "land worked generally under a system of crop rotation." Cultivation of the land is an important process to make land arable by loosening and tilling of the soil.
According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the world's arable land amounted to 1,407 M ha, out of a total 4,924 M ha land used for agriculture, as for year 2013. Agricultural land, not arable according to the FAO definition above includes: Permanent crop – land that produces crops from woody vegetation, e.g. orchardland, coffee plantations, rubber plantations, land producing nut trees. Other non-arable land includes land, not suitable for any agricultural use. Land, not arable, in the sense of lacking capability or suitability for cultivation for crop production, has one or more limitations e.g. lack of sufficient fresh water for irrigation, steepness, adverse climate, excessive wetness with impracticality of drainage, excessive salts, among others. Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, large areas unsuitable for cultivation are agriculturally productive. For example, US NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock.
In British Columbia, Canada, 41 percent of the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve area is unsuitable for production of cultivated crops, but is suitable for uncultivated production of forage usable by grazing livestock. Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere. Land incapable of being cultivated for production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food, can reduce starvation; this outcome makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, reverse osmosis water processors, PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas.
This process is extremely expensive. An alternative is the Seawater Greenhouse which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input; this technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea. Some examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land are: Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland, were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky; the people covered the islands with a shallow layer of sand from the ocean. Today, crops are grown there though, the islands are still considered non-arable. Israel: The construction of desalination plants along Israel's coast allowed agriculture in some areas that were desert; the desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have created a new source of water for farming and washing. Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash. Terra preta, fertile tropical soils created by adding charcoal; some examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land are: Droughts like the'dust bowl' of the Great Depression in the U.
S. turned farmland into desert. Rainforest deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become totally barren, as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of s
Rangeland
Rangelands are grasslands, woodlands and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, savannas, chaparrals and tundras. Rangelands do not include forests lacking grazable understory vegetation, barren desert, farmland, or land covered by solid rock, concrete and/or glaciers. Rangelands are distinguished from pasture lands because they grow native vegetation, rather than plants established by humans. Rangelands are managed principally with practices such as managed livestock grazing and prescribed fire rather than more intensive agricultural practices of seeding and the use of fertilizers. Grazing is an important use of rangelands but the term "rangeland" is not synonymous with "grazinglands". Livestock grazing can be used to manage rangelands by harvesting forage to produce livestock, changing plant composition or reducing fuel loads. Fire is an important regulator of range vegetation, whether set by humans or resulting from lightning.
Fires tend to reduce the abundance of woody plants and promote herbaceous plants including grasses and grass-like plants. The suppression or reduction of periodic wildfires from desert shrublands, savannas, or woodlands invites the dominance of trees and shrubs to the near exclusion of grasses and forbs; the United States Environmental Protection Agency defines rangeland as "lands on which the native vegetation is predominantly grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, or shrubs suitable for grazing or browsing use." The EPA classifies natural grassland and savannas as rangeland, in some cases includes wetlands, tundra, "certain forb and shrub communities." The primary difference between rangeland and pasture is management. Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, grasses and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, the steppes of Eurasia.
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by other herbaceous plants. However and rush families can be found. Grasslands occur on all continents except Antarctica. In temperate latitudes, such as northwest Europe and the Great Plains and California in North America, native grasslands are dominated by perennial bunch grass species, whereas in warmer climates annual species form a greater component of the vegetation. Steppe, in physical geography, refers to a biome region characterized by grassland plain without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes; the prairie is an example of a steppe, though it is not called such. It may be semi-desert, or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude; the term is used to denote the climate encountered in regions too dry to support a forest, but not dry enough to be a desert. Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, the State of Rio Grande do Sul, in the southernmost end of Brazil covering more than 750,000 km2.
These vast plains are only interrupted by the low Ventana and Tandil hills near Bahía Blanca and Tandil, with a height of 1,300 m and 500 m respectively. The climate is mild, with precipitation of 600 mm to 1,200 mm, more or less evenly distributed through the year, making the soils appropriate for agriculture; this area is one of the distinct physiography provinces of the larger Paraná-Paraguay Plain division. These plains contain unique wildlife because of the different terrains around it; some of this wildlife includes the rhea, the badger, the prairie chicken. Shrubland is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs also including grasses and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur or be the result of human activity, it may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as browsing.
Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term "shrubland" was first coined in 1903. Woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of primary or secondary succession. Higher densities and areas of trees, with closed canopy, provide extensive and nearly continuous shade are referred to as forest. Savanna is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or spaced so that the canopy does not close; the open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting of C4 grasses. Desert is a landscape or region that receives an low amount of precipitation, defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres per year, or as areas where m
Stockade
A stockade is an enclosure of palisades and tall walls made of logs placed side by side vertically with the tops sharpened as a defensive wall. Stockade fortifications were simple forms of defence of military camps or settlements, used since ancient Roman times and earlier; the troops or settlers would build a stockade by clearing a space of woodland and using the trees whole or chopped in half, with one end sharpened on each. They would dig a narrow trench around the area, stand the sharpened logs side-by-side inside it, encircling the perimeter. Sometimes they would add additional defence by placing sharpened sticks in a shallow secondary trench outside the stockade. In colder climates sometimes the stockade received a coating of clay or mud that would make the crude wall wind-proof. Builders could place stones or thick mud layers at the foot of the stockade, improving the resistance of the wall. From that the defenders could, if they had the materials, raise a stone or brick wall inside the stockade, creating a more permanent defence while working protected.
The word stockade refers to a military prison in an army camp, in some cases a crude prison camp or a slave camp. In these cases, the stockade keeps people inside, rather than out. Nowadays, stockade walls are used as garden fencing, made of finished planks more useful for privacy fencing and more decoration than security. Security fence Tower and stockade
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is a city in the U. S. state of Texas. It is fifth-largest city in Texas, it is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly 350 square miles into four other counties: Denton, Johnson and Wise. According to the 2017 census estimates, Fort Worth's population is 874,168. Fort Worth is the second-largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, the 4th most populous metropolitan area in the United States; the city of Fort Worth was established in 1849 as an army outpost on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. Fort Worth has been a center of the longhorn cattle trade, it still embraces traditional architecture and design. USS Fort Worth is the first ship of the United States Navy named after the city. Fort Worth is home to the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and several world-class museums designed by internationally known contemporary architects; the Kimbell Art Museum, considered to have one of the best art collections in Texas, is housed in what is regarded as one of the outstanding architectural achievements of the modern era.
The museum was designed by the American architect Louis Kahn, with an addition designed by world-renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano opening November 2013. Of note is the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, designed by Tadao Ando; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, designed by Philip Johnson, houses one of the world's most extensive collections of American art. The Sid Richardson Museum, redesigned by David M. Schwarz, has one of the most focused collections of Western art in the U. S. emphasizing Frederic Remington and Charles Russell. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, designed by famed architect Ricardo Legorreta of Mexico, engages the diverse Fort Worth community through creative, vibrant programs and exhibits; the city is stimulated by several university communities: Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas A&M University School of Law, many multinational corporations, including Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, American Airlines, BNSF Railway, Pier 1 Imports, XTO Energy and RadioShack.
The Treaty of Bird's Fort between the Republic of Texas and several Native American tribes was signed in 1843 at Bird's Fort in present-day Arlington, Texas. Article XI of the treaty provided that no one may "pass the line of trading houses" without permission of the President of Texas, may not reside or remain in the Indians' territory; these "trading houses" were established at the junction of the Clear Fork and West Fork of the Trinity River in present-day Fort Worth. At this river junction, the U. S. War Department established Fort Worth in 1849 as the northernmost of a system of 10 forts for protecting the American Frontier following the end of the Mexican–American War; the city of Fort Worth continues to be known as "where the West begins." A line of seven army posts were established in 1848–49 after the Mexican War to protect the settlers of Texas along the western American Frontier and included Fort Worth, Fort Graham, Fort Gates, Fort Croghan, Fort Martin Scott, Fort Lincoln, Fort Duncan.
10 forts had been proposed by Major General William Jenkins Worth, who commanded the Department of Texas in 1849. In January 1849, Worth proposed a line of 10 forts to mark the western Texas frontier from Eagle Pass to the confluence of the West Fork and Clear Fork of the Trinity River. One month Worth died from cholera in South Texas. General William S. Harney assumed command of the Department of Texas and ordered Major Ripley A. Arnold to find a new fort site near the West Clear Fork. On June 6, 1849, advised by Middleton Tate Johnson, established a camp on the bank of the Trinity River and named the post Camp Worth in honor of the late General Worth. In August 1849, Arnold moved the camp to the north-facing bluff, which overlooked the mouth of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River; the United States War Department named the post Fort Worth on November 14, 1849. Native American attacks were still a threat in the area, as this was their traditional territory and they resented encroachment by European-American settlers, but people from the United States set up homesteads near the fort.
E. S. Terrell from Tennessee claimed to be the first resident of Fort Worth; the fort was moved to the top of the bluff. The fort was abandoned September 17, 1853. No trace of it remains; as a stop on the legendary Chisholm Trail, Fort Worth was stimulated by the business of the cattle drives and became a brawling, bustling town. Millions of head of cattle were driven north to market along this trail. Fort Worth became the center of the cattle drives, the ranching industry, it was given the nickname of Cowtown. During the Civil War, Fort Worth suffered from shortages of money and supplies; the population began to recover during Reconstruction. By 1872, Jacob Samuels, William Jesse Boaz, William Henry Davis had opened general stores; the next year, Khleber M. Van Zandt established Tidball, Van Zandt, Company, which became Fort Worth National Bank in 1884. In 1875, the Dallas Herald published an article by a former Fort Worth lawyer, Robert E. Cowart, who wrote that the decimation of Fort Worth's population, caused by the economic disaster and hard winter of 1873, had dealt a severe blow to the cattle industry.
Added to the slowdown due to the railroad's stopping the laying of track 30 miles outside of Fort Worth, Cowart said that Fort Worth was so slow th
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact, or artefact, is something made or given shape by humans, such as a tool or a work of art an object of archaeological interest. In archaeology, the word has become a term of particular nuance and is defined as: an object recovered by archaeological endeavor, which may be a cultural artifact having cultural interest. However, modern archaeologists take care to distinguish material culture from ethnicity, more complex, as expressed by Carol Kramer in the dictum "pots are not people". Examples include stone tools, pottery vessels, metal objects such as weapons, items of personal adornment such as buttons and clothing. Bones that show signs of human modification are examples. Natural objects, such as fire cracked rocks from a hearth or plant material used for food, are classified by archeologists as ecofacts rather than as artifacts. Artifacts can come from any archaeological context or source such as: Buried along with a body From any feature such as a midden or other domestic setting Votive offerings Hoards, such as at wellsArtifacts are distinguished from the main body of the archaeological record such as stratigraphic features, which are non-portable remains of human activity, such as hearths, deposits, trenches or similar remains, from biofacts or ecofacts, which are objects of archaeological interest made by other organisms, such as seeds or animal bone.
Natural objects that humans have moved but not changed are called manuports. Examples include seashells moved inland, or rounded pebbles placed away from the water action that made them; these distinctions are blurred. For instance, a bone removed from an animal carcass is a biofact, but a bone carved into a useful implement is an artifact. There can be debate over early stone objects that could be either crude artifacts or occurring and happen to resemble early objects made by early humans or Homo sapiens, it can be difficult to distinguish the differences between actual man-made lithic artifacts and geofacts – occurring lithics that resemble man-made tools. It is possible to authenticate artifacts by examining the general characteristics attributed to man-made tools and local characteristics of the site. In ethnography and archaeology, a category of "ancestral artifact" has been proposed, defined as "any object of natural raw material made by a people following a lifestyle based on foraging and/or basic agriculture or pastoralism".
Artifact Collection at the Royal Military College of Canada Museum in Kingston, Ontario
