 Letters in the Pearce archives contain reference to extensive looting at the Gault site in 1929, and this continued (it was actually a "pay-to-dig" site for many years) until 1998, when new owners stopped the practice.Fortunately, the looters and collectors apparently rarely dug into the earlier deposits below the Archaic midden due to the lower density of collectible or marketable artifacts.Limited test excavations were conducted in 1991, and sustained geoarchaeological investigations began in 1998, and continued through 2002, and from 2007 to 2015, under the auspices of the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, the Gault School of Archaeological Research (GSAR) and the Prehistory Research Project at Texas State University .