Aerial shot of a plant baking facility or “burned rock midden” that archeologists (aided by heavy equipment) exposed at the Higgins site (41BX184) on the north side of San Antonio. In essence, the midden is donut-shaped with a dark central baking pit, surrounded by a thick ring of small fire-cracked (“burned”) limestone rocks that were pitched out of the pit when the rocks became too small to be useful. Large earth ovens some 5-8 feet across were built over and over again in the central pit (and sometimes elsewhere as well). In fact, the remains of three earth ovens are visible, one in the dark center of the midden, one at the top and one on the far right. TARL archives.