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Historic Caddo Archaeological Sites In Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley, Mark Walters

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The historic archaeology of the Caddo Indian peoples in East Texas has been the subject of considerable interest by Caddo archaeologists for a number of years. Much of that interest has been focused on the investigation of the effects of European contact on Caddo cultural traditions and practices, particularly the impact of introduced European epidemic diseases, and the impact of Spanish, French, and American colonization efforts.

In recent years, another focus of Historic Caddo archaeological investigations has been on characterizing the material culture record of the different clusters of Caddo Indian sites in East Texas, most notably the study of …

An Unusual Caddo Bottle From The Walters Collection, Mark Walters

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In this article, I discuss an unusual Caddo bottle in the Walters Collection. This vessel came from either Smith or Wood counties, Texas. The design on the bottle appears to depict a deer body with a human head. My purpose is to look at the vessel in more depth, explore the relationship between Caddo people and deer, and make information about the vessel available to the public. Plans are in place to curate this vessel at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin.

Analysis Of A 1940 Caddo Sherd Assemblage From The Millsey Williamson Site (41rk3), Rusk County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Millsey Williamson site (41RK3) is an 18th century Nadaco Caddo settlement and cemetery situated on an alluvial terrace on the east side of Martin Creek in the Sabine River basin. Some portions of the site are now covered by the waters of Martin Creek Lake, constructed in the 1970s. The site was first investigated in the 1930s, when at least 11 historic Caddo burials were excavated in the cemetery at the western end of the landform. In 1940, Jack Hughes, then an East Texas resident, but later a prominent Texas archaeologist, gathered a small collection of sherds from the …

The Caddo Ceramic Sherd Assemblage From The Hawkins Site (41sm144) On The Sabine River In Smith County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Hawkins site is an ancestral Caddo habitation site on a Sabine River bluff about 1.7 km southwest of the confluence of Little White Oak Creek with the river, in the Pineywoods of Smith County. The site was located and investigated in the 1950s by Sam Whiteside of Tyler, Texas. This article is concerned with the analysis of the Caddo ceramic wares from the site, as well as an assessment of the probable age and cultural affiliation of the Caddo occupation.

Documentation Of The Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Culpepper Site (41hp1) In Hopkins County In The Upper Sulphur River Basin In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Culpepper site (41HP1) is a late (post-A.D. 1600) Titus phase site in the upper Sulphur River basin in East Texas. It is on a sandy knoll alongside Stouts Creek, a small northward-flowing stream in the White Oak Creek basin of the larger Sulphur River drainage. The site is in the modern-day Post Oak Savannah, but there are areas of tall grass prairie between Stouts Creek and White Oak Creek; the larger White Oak and Sulphur prairies lie approximately 15 km to the west and northwest.

Excavations at the Culpepper site by University of Texas (UT) archaeologists in 1931 uncovered …

New Archaeological Investigations At The M. S. Roberts Site (41he8) In The Caddo Creek Valley In Henderson County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Arlo Mckee, Mark Walters, Bo Nelson

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In this article, we discuss new archaeological investigations at the M. S. Roberts site (41HE8), likely a 14th to early 15th century A.D. Caddo period mound center along Caddo Creek in the upper Neches River basin in Henderson County in East Texas. With the permission and cooperation of the landowners, we completed an aerial survey of the site to produce a detailed topographic map as well as assess the plan and profile of the mound and its associated borrow pit, and we also excavated a number of shovel tests around the mound to locate habitation deposits. Finally, a few auger …

Caddo Ceramic Sherds From Leon River Valley Sites In Coryell County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

This article is concerned with the consideration of “Caddo connections” as expressed in the character of the ceramic assemblages from three sites in the Leon River valley in Central Texas that have been considered to have Caddo pottery and were occupied by Prairie Caddo peoples; these ceramic assemblages are in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). Of particular importance are the stylistic (i.e., decorative methods and decorative elements) and technological (i.e., choice of temper inclusions) attributes of the sherds from the sites that are from plain ware, utility ware, and …

41ce291: An Historic Caddo Settlement In The Neches River Valley In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Site 41CE291 was visited by H. Perry Newell and A. T. Jackson in March 1940, and they made a small surface collection of artifacts at that time; the surface-collected artifacts are in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). The site is on a large terrace of the Neches River, about 0.4 km east of the George C. Davis site (41CE19); the two sites are divided by a small valley of a southward-flowing spring-fed tributary of the Neches River; Forman Branch flows along the east side of this terrace.

Newell noted …

The Caddo Occupation Of The L. B. Miller Farm (41he4/55) In The Post Oak Savanna And Trinity River Basin In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The L. B. Miller Farm site (41HE4/55) is a Late Caddo period Frankston phase Caddo habitation site and small cemetery on an upland landform (400 ft. amsl) in the Coon Creek-Catfish Creek drainage in the Post Oak Savannah of the Trinity River basin. The ancestral Caddo artifact collections from the site at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL) include four vessels from a burial feature, sherds from two unreconstructed ceramic jars found in habitation contexts, and 178 ceramic sherds from midden deposits.

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherd Studies: Buddy Calvin Jones Sites In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Buddy Calvin Jones of Longview, Texas, identified and investigated archaeological sites across many counties in East Texas. Many of those sites were ancestral Caddo sites occupied from as early as ca. A.D. 850 to the early 1800s, and in his work he obtained surface collections of ceramic sherds from sites as well as large sherd assemblages and ceramic vessels from excavations in habitation deposits and Caddo cemeteries.

Jones published only a few papers on his investigations, but his expansive archaeological collections (accompanied by notes and documentation) were donated to the Gregg County …

New Radiocarbon Dates From Ancestral Caddo Sites In Cherokee, Fannin, Hopkins, Nacogdoches, And Wood Counties, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In order to continue to expand the utility of the East Texas Radiocarbon Database to better understand the age of archaeological components at sites, as well as temporal trends in settlement by Native Americans in East Texas, archaeologists need to seek out samples wherever such samples can be obtained. This includes organic remains (i.e., plant and animal remains) from intact archaeological deposits as well as organic remains preserved in well-maintained curated collections. This article presents the results of AMS dating of plant remains or animal bones at five different ancestral Caddo sites in East Texas.

Ceramics At Three Ancestral Caddo Sites In The Upper Neches River Basin, Smith County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The upper Neches River Basin in the Pineywoods and Post Oak Savannah of East Texas is one part of the southern Caddo area where populations of ancestral Caddo groups were notably higher during the Late Caddo period, ca. A.D. 1400-1680, than at other times over their ca. 1000 year settlement of the region. The Frankston phase is comprised of farmsteads, hamlets, and small villages in the Neches and Angelina river basins in East Texas. Other Frankston phase sites are represented by small residential settlements in dispersed agricultural communities, with small family and/or community cemeteries not used for long periods of …

Ancestral Caddo Ceramics From Three Sites On Mill Race Creek, Wood County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Archaeological survey investigations were conducted in 1987 and 1988 in a large tract of land along Mill Race Creek, a southwestward-flowing tributary to Lake Fork Creek in the East Texas Pineywoods. During the course of the survey, ancestral Caddo ceramic sherds were recovered from 15 sites, including the reanalyzed sherds from the three sites discussed in this article.

The Haines Varner Allen site (41WD573) is located on an upland landform overlooking the Mill Race Creek valley; it is an ancestral Caddo settlement with midden deposits that cover about 1.2 acres and has deposits that are a maximum of 75 cm …

Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherds In A 2004 Surface Collection From The Sanders Site (41lr2), Lamar County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Mark Walters

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The T. M. Sanders site (41LR2) is one of the more important ancestral Caddo sites known in East Texas, primarily because of its two earthen mounds and the well-preserved mortuary features of Caddo elite persons buried in Mound No. 1 (the East Mound), as well as its extensive (200+ acres) habitation deposits and material culture remains of the Middle Caddo and Historic Caddo period components. The T. M. Sanders site is located on a broad alluvial terrace just south of the confluence of Bois d’Arc Creek and the Red River.

The Caddo Archaeological Record In The Saline Creek And County Line Creek Valleys In Cherokee And Smith Counties, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson, Mark Walters

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Both the Saline and County Line creeks in the upper Neches River basin were habitats where significant numbers of Caddo peoples lived in ancestral times. As with recent studies of the ancestral Caddo archaeology of the nearby Caddo Creek valley and the San Pedro Creek valley, the purpose of this consideration of the known archaeological record of Caddo settlement in the Saline and County Line creek valleys is to explore the nature of their permanent use during the lengthy native history of Caddo peoples in East Texas between ca. A.D. 900-1838.

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Artifacts In The Jesse Martin Glasco Collection From Upshur County, Texas, At The National Museum Of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Jesse Martin Glasco, or J. M. Glasco, lived in Gilmer in Upshur County, Texas, between the mid- 1840s and 1886. During most of those years he served as Upshur County surveyor and deputy surveyor, as well as deputy county clerk, postmaster, and tax assessor, and he also represented Upshur County in the 11th Texas legislature. Between 1859-1861 and 1867-1873, he was a meteorological observer for Upshur County for the Smithsonian Institution, and also collected Native American pottery for the Smithsonian’s collections from the Gilmer area.

41sm150: A Middle Caddo Period Site In The Angelina River Basin, Smith County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Site 41SM150 is an ancestral Caddo settlement and cemetery in the headwaters of the Angelina River basin in East Texas. The site was recorded by Jan Guy in 1983 as part of a University of Texas at Austin Field School, when a collector who was working at the site shared information about what he, and others, had been finding there. Apparently the site had been worked by collectors for approximately 30 years by that time. The current condition of the site is not known.

The site, including both habitation and cemetery areas, is located just south of a large knoll …

Caddo Ceramic Assemblages From Sites In The Ayish And Palo Gaucho Bayou Basins, San Augustine County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In 1939 and 1940, G. E. Arnold recorded a number of archaeological sites in and around San Augustine, in East Texas, as part of a Works Progress Administration-funded (WPA) archaeological survey of East Texas. The eight sites of concern in this article are in either the Ayish Bayou or Palo Gaucho Bayou basins; the former is a southward-flowing tributary to the Angelina River, while the latter is a southeast-flowing tributary to the Sabine River.

In several instances, depending upon the circumstances, Arnold was able to collect substantial numbers of ancestral Caddo ceramic and lithic artifacts from several of these sites. …

The Caddo Archaeology Of The San Pedro Creek Valley, Houston County, In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson, Leeanna Schniebs, Mark Walters

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Nabedache Caddo that lived on San Pedro Creek in Houston County in the East Texas Pineywoods were a prominent nation during the early years of European contact, from ca. A.D. 1687-1730, if not later. Their villages, hamlets, and farmsteads sat astride an aboriginal Caddo trail that came to be known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, and thus their community was a principal gateway to Europeans and other Native American tribes who came from the west in Spanish Texas to meet with the Tejas or Hasinai Caddo peoples. The first Spanish mission in East Texas was established amidst …

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblage From The Spoonbill Site (41wd109) In The Lake Fork Creek Basin, Wood County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bob D. Skiles

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Ancestral Caddo habitation sites are common in the upper Sabine River basin in East Texas, as well as along tributaries of the Sabine River, including Lake Fork Creek. In this article we discuss the ceramic vessel sherd assemblages from the Spoonbill site (41WD109) that was investigated in the area in the 1970s. The site is in the Lake Fork Creek basin in the immediate vicinity of Lake Fork Reservoir.

Upper Neches River Basin Caddo Ceramic Vessels From Anderson, Cherokee, And Henderson Counties In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (NMNH) has extensive collections of artifacts from ancestral Caddo sites in the Caddo area. This includes 19 ceramic vessels and one distinctive ceramic pipe from several sites in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas. The majority of these artifacts were originally collected by noted amateur archaeologist R. King Harris of Dallas, Texas, who sold his collection to the NMNH in 1980, while three of the vessels were originally in Bureau of American Ethnology holdings, and likely are from early archaeological investigations by Dr. J. E. Pearce of The University of …

Utility Ware Ceramic Metrics And Hasinai Caddo Archaeology In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The use of ceramic metrics (i.e., ratios of various categories of decorated sherds as well as use of different tempers) has become an important analytical tool in assessing the stylistic similarity of different assemblages of Late Caddo and Historic Caddo ceramic assemblages in East Texas. In this article, I employ recent compilations of ceramic vessel sherd assemblages from sites in the Neches, Angelina, and Sabine River basins that focus on the distinctive character of Caddo utility ware vessel decorations, particularly the common use of brushing as a decorative method, and the ratio of brushed to other wet paste decorated sherds.

Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Sam Kaufman Site (41rr16) In The R. K. Harris Collection At The National Museum Of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Over the years, R. King Harris and his Dallas Archeological Society colleagues excavated a number of ancestral Caddo burials (Burials 1-19) from cemeteries exposed along the eroding bank of the Red River at the Sam Kaufman site (41RR16) and have published their findings. These burials are from upper and lower cemeteries of McCurtain phase and Historic Caddo age both north and east of the principal mound at the Sam Kaufman site on the Red River.

During a 2005 documentation visit to the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution (NMNH), I had the opportunity, along with Bo Nelson, …

Comparing Caddo And Coles Creek Pottery Using Petrographic Analysis, Jeffery S. Girard, Leslie G. Cecil

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Pottery classified as “Coles Creek Incised” is common both to the earliest Caddo sites along the Red River and to contemporary sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Although it often is suggested that Coles Creek pottery from the two regions can be distinguished by differences in paste, no detailed comparative studies have been carried out. An initial attempt to identify variation through the use of petrographic analysis was carried out by comparing 50 samples drawn from sites in northwest and central Louisiana. Although no sharp dichotomy was noted between the regions, the study identified distinctions that support the notion that …

How The Ji’Kmaqn Came To Spiro: Possible Additions To The Inventory Of Sound-Making Instruments Depicted In The Spiro Engravings, James A. Rees Jr.

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

While doing research on turtle shell rattles the author stumbled onto a photograph of a rare and unusual idiophone whose exact likeness appears twice in one of the engraved shell images from Spiro. This paper describes the instrument and the Spiro image and discusses how an instrument currently found only in the Maritime Provinces of Canada may have come to be portrayed on a marine shell cup found at Spiro.

Syntheses Of The Caddo Archaeological Record, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The pursuit of Caddo archaeological research over the last 100+ years has led to considerable gains during that time in the understanding of such research issues as settlement patterning, subsistence change and diet, health and adaptive efficiency, sociopolitical organization, ceremony and ritual, iconography, and exchange networks among the Caddo peoples and their past communities. Much of this has been the result of intensive cultural resource management investigations in southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and East Texas, along with focused archaeological research projects conducted by university archaeological programs and state and regional archaeological societies. The years ahead promise to continue …

Distribution Of Design: The Rayed Circle, Duncan P. Mckinnon

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The importance of the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) in archaeological applications has been demonstrated previously. The value of using a GIS approach is an ability to conduct multivariate spatial analyses in order to visualize complex social relationships, interactions, and distributions across a broad cultural landscape. Within Caddo archaeology, the utilization of GIS functionality to explore spatial phenomenon has been employed in a variety of ways, such as site organization and interaction, material distribution and exchange, and environmental modeling and landscape reconstruction, to name a few. The following report adds to the growing list of GIS-based case studies …

Ouachita Mountains Foodways: Preliminary Results From 2013-2014 Excavations At 3mn298, Mary Beth D. Trubitt, Leslie L. Bush, Lucretia S. Kelly, Katie Leslie

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

New excavations in the Ouachita National Forest in west-central Arkansas, co-directed by Meeks Etchieson and Mary Beth Trubitt, are resulting in significant information about foodways of ancestral Caddo Indians living in the Ouachita Mountains region. This work has focused on the Dragover site (3MN298), located on a floodplain of the upper Ouachita River. Artifacts from this extensive archeological site indicate use from about 6000 B.C. to the A.D. 1900s, but it was its potential for well-preserved organic material – animal bone, mussel shell, and charred plant seeds – that drew our research attention. Initial site testing in the 1980s uncovered …

Copper Artifacts From Caddo Sites In The Southern Caddo Area, Jeffery S. Girard, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Copper artifacts have been found at only 18 Caddo sites in the southern Caddo area of Southwest Arkansas, Northwest Louisiana, southeastern Oklahoma, and East Texas. Most of these exotic copper artifacts are found in burial mound context in important civic-ceremonial centers, or in burials in non-mound cemeteries. About 80 percent of the known copper artifacts occur in contexts in sites that date to the Early Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1000-1200). These copper items likely are linked to the Cahokia exchange system, and represent prestige goods with ritual status acquired and displayed by leaders in different Caddo communities. By Late Caddo …