AMARILLO, Texas(KAMR/KCIT) —John Erickson, best known for bringing us the Hank the Cowdog series is back with another book called Porch Talk. He’s teamed up with Archaeologist friend Douglas Boyd to have a great discussion about who was here before us.

That’s now turned into a discussion event on October 19th from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Tickets are $5 for general admission, and free for PPHM members, WT faculty, students, and staff, and children under 12 get in for free.

For more on this event and to purchase tickets click here. More details on the book are below.

“When John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog book series, saved up and purchased a tract of Panhandle property near Perryton, it set off a chain of discovery. Who lived in Texas over a thousand years ago? In Porch Talk, John Erickson and his archaeologist friend Doug Boyd investigate this question while explaining the art and science of archaeology for middle readers.

On the Perryton ranch, John and his friends unearthed a ghost town that dated back to around 1300 CE. They found a sprawl of widely spaced pit houses occupying an area of 300 acres in John’s West Pasture. It is unclear how many people lived there, but it was a place where babies were born and the elderly died and were buried. Women nursed children, made cornmeal in stone metates, and stitched clothes of leather while the men hunted bison using arrows tipped with points made from Alibates flint.”