Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

The Gum Creek Cluster: Protohistoric Caddo Sites In The Little Cypress Creek Basin, Ca. 1670-1720, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson

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

The Gum Creek cluster represents a group of contemporaneous Caddo sites in the Little Cypress Creek basin of East Texas that were apparently occupied between ca. A.D. 1670-1720. These sites are closely affiliated with the Titus phase and may represent some of the very latest occupied Titus phase settlements in the Cypress Creek basin.

The Gum Creek cluster Caddo sites were excavated by Buddy Calvin Jones in the 1950s and 1960s, but were never reported by him during his lifetime. After his death, his vessel collection and other artifacts were documented by Perttula, with the able assistance of Bo Nelson …

A Survey Of Historic Caddo Sites In Nacogdoches County, Texas, Tom Middlebrook

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

This review was originally prepared for presentation to the East Texas Caddo Research Group held in Nacogdoches, Texas on December 2 and 3, 2006. The primary purpose of this article is to summarize the archaeological resources currently known relating to the Historic Caddo period of Nacogdoches County. No attempt is made here to provide analysis of the data or to draw synthetic conclusions. The author's hope is that this survey will be helpful to workers in this area of inquiry by speeding access to available resources and exposing possible research problems.

Documentation Of A Native American Church Altar In Caddo County, Oklahoma, Robert Cast

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

What little research that has been done in Caddo County, Oklahoma (and elsewhere) with Caddo Native American Church altars or "fireplace" locations show that there is a desperate need to document and record these locations for future generations. However, even with the paucity of this research, it is feasible to suggest that these ceremonial altars, their stylistic differences, and the passing of this religion to future generations of traditional practitioners have had a very long history.

Others have discussed the ceremonial uses of fire, structures, objects, and mounds in the archaeological record, yet have not addressed the appearance and importance …

Proposal For A 2007 Caddo Archaeology Summit Meeting, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Caddo Indian peoples lived in parts of the four states of Arkansas (specifically southwest Arkansas), Louisiana (the northwestern part of the state), Oklahoma (the eastern region), and Texas (all of East Texas) from deep in prehistoric times until the early 1840s. They left behind an extensive archaeological record marked by important mound centers where the social and political elite lived and led community-wide rituals, ceremonies, and traditions; villages, hamlets, and farmsteads where the people carried out their daily lives; numerous cemeteries and burial grounds where the people were laid to rest following long-standing religious burial ceremonies; as well as …

Byram Ferry (16bo17): A Middle To Late Caddo Period Mound Site In The Red River Floodplain, Northwest Louisiana, Jeffery S. Girard

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

One of the few remaining Caddo mounds in northwest Louisiana is located at the Byram Ferry site (16BO17) in northern Bossier Parish near the Arkansas state line. Until recently, a brief description by Clarence B. Moore (1912) and a few comments by Clarence H. Webb in his undated and unpublished field notes constituted the only information about the site available to archeological researchers. A collection of sherds and one intact vessel from Byram Ferry are present in the Ralph McKinney collection currently on loan to the History Center at the Bossier Parish Library in Bossier City, Louisiana. Examination of this …

Remote Sensing At The Horace Cabe Site (41bw14), Chester P. Walker, Timothy K. Perttula

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

A magnetometer survey was conducted at the Horace Cabe Mound site (41BW14) in 2005 by Walker and Schultz as part of the Bowie County Levee Realignment project in Bowie County, Texas. The purpose of the survey was to attempt to locate anomalies that may represent potential archaeological features at this important Late Caddo mound center near the Red River. The area was surveyed using a Geometrics portable G858 cesium sensor magnetometer and a G-856 proton magnetometer base station. This article puts on record another substantive example of Caddo archaeology as seen through the use of remote sensing technology.

The original …

The History Of Archaeological Investigations At The Jamestown Mound Site (41sm54), An Archaeological Conservancy Preserve In Smith County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Jamestown Mound site (41SM54) is an Archaeological Conservancy (TAC) preserve in northern Smith Country, Texas in the northeastern part of the state. The Jamestown site is one of the largest Caddo mound centers in East Texas, with seven recorded mounds and an associated village area of unknown extent and internal complexity. It is also one of the four premier mound centers in the Sabine River basin, the other three being Hudnall-Pirtle (41RK4), a TAC preserve, Pine Tree Mounds (41HS15), also a TAC preserve as of 2006, and Boxed Springs (41UR30), and was obviously an important civic and ceremonial center …

The Organization Of Novaculite Tool Production: Quarry-Workshop Debitage Comparisons, Mary Beth D. Trubitt

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

Arkansas novaculite, outcropping in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma, has been an important regional lithic resource for thousands of years. Because of the stone’s durability, by-products of past novaculite procurement and tool production and use activities litter the landscape in southwest Arkansas. Recent work situates novaculite quarries in the broader context of tool production and exchange systems. This article focuses on the organization of tool production, and explores analytical techniques that can be used to identify spatial separation of the lithic reduction process between quarry, workshop, and habitation sites.

Archeological Investigations Of The Lang Pasture (41an38) Midden Deposits On Private Property West Of The Sh 155 Right-Of-Way, Anderson County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson, Mark Walters, Leeanna Schniebs

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

In the spring of 2006 data recovery investigations were completed at the Lang Pasture site (41AN38) by Coastal Environments, Inc. (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) and Archeological & Environmental Consultants, LLC (Austin and Pittsburg, Texas) for the Texas Department of Transportation. The site is situated along the SH 155 rightof- way in the Caddo Creek basin in northeastern Anderson County, Texas, in the Caddo archeological area of Northeast Texas. The archeological excavations indicate that the site was primarily occupied by Caddo peoples during the Frankston phase, sometime after A.D. 1400. The number and kinds of features identified in the right-of-way—portions of two …

Leaning Rock Site (41sm325) Lithics, Harry J. Shafer

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

The intent of the lithic analysis from the Leaning Rock site (41SM325) in Smith County, Texas, is to glean all possible information from the artifacts. Lithic studies have taken the back seat in materials analysis from sites and projects in East Texas where archaeologists focus primarily, if not exclusively, on formal tool analysis, if any analysis is done at all. Stone tools often had complex histories, and reading these histories can provide some useful, if not the only source for, insights into tool technologies, function, style, and social inferences. Stone tools were used in entirely different functional contexts than were …

Marine Shell Ear Disks From Protohistoric Caddo Sites On Stoots Creek, Hopkins County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Lee Green

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

In this article, we discuss three engraved marine shell ear disks from two protohistoric (ca. A.D. 1670-1700) Caddo sites on Stouts Creek in Hopkins County, Texas. These rather unique engraved marine shell disks have only been reported from three other archaeological sites in the entire southern Caddo area. Stouts Creek is a tributary to White Oak Creek. The drainage is situated in the modern Post Oak Savanna, at the far western edge of the distribution of Late Caddo Titus phase sites in Northeast Texas.

The Stouts Creek marine shell ear disks we report on have been recovered from two different …

The Lake Clear (41sm243) Site And Crotalus Horridus Atricaudatus, Mark Walters

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

I fell heir to a collection of prehistoric Caddo sherds from my late Uncle Sam Whiteside and a location on a 7.5’ topographic map labeled Lake Clear. Sam Whiteside during the period from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s was very active in the East Texas area working through the old East Texas Archeological Society headquartered in Tyler, Texas.

The name Lake Clear was vaguely familiar but a check of local maps failed to reveal its location. However, an older map jolted my memory. The lake had been built on east Mill Creek west of Winona, Texas, as a club …

From Mounds To Monasteries: A Look At Spiro And Other Centers Through The Use Of Metaphor, Robert L. Brooks

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

Previous study of the extensive and elaborate funerary offerings at the Spiro site have explained their presence by an exchange system with Spiro functioning as a gateway center. More recently, Schambach has argued extensively and passionately for Spiro’s role as an entrepôt redistributive center. However, this argument fails to account for much of the accumulation of funerary items present at Spiro. As an alternative, I propose that some ceremonial centers such as Spiro functioned solely as religious centers, much like the monasteries of medieval Europe with parallels in the use of architecture, economic support, relics, and the treatment of individuals …

Archeological Investigations At The Hudnall-Pirtle Site (41rk4) An Early Caddo Mound Center In Northeast Texas, James E. Bruseth, Timothy K. Perttula, Gayle J. Fritz, Bonnie C. Yates

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

The Hudnall-Pirtle site (41RK4) is situated on a large T-1 alluvial terrace of the Sabine River in northern Rusk County in Texas. This area of the state, commonly called Northeast Texas, is part of the Southern Gulf Coastal Plain, a relatively level, sloping plain formed by the pre-Pleistocene embayment of the Gulf of Mexico.

From a biogeographical perspective, the site is located in the Oak-Hickory-Pine forest of eastern Texas, otherwise known as the Pineywoods. This area represents the western extension of the southern coniferous forests and is dominated by shortleaf and loblolly pine trees. Hardwood trees, including various oaks, hickory, …

The M. W. Burks Site (41wd52): A Late Caddo Hamlet In Wood County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bob D. Skiles, Bonnie C. Yates

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

While attempting to locate and evaluate prehistoric Caddo archaeological sites in the Dry Creek watershed, Wood County, Texas, that had been originally recorded by A. T. Jackson and M. M. Reese in 1930, the M. W. Burks site (41WD52) was discovered by James E. Bruseth and Bob D. Skiles in June 1977. The site is in the Forest Hill community, about 5 km north of Quitman, Texas, in the East Texas Pineywoods and Gulf Coastal Plain. It is on a small rise in the uplands overlooking a small intermittent drainage that is an unnamed tributary of Little Dry Creek.

The …

A Rediscovery Of Caddo Heritage: The W. T. Scott Collection At The American Museum Of Natural History, Robert Cast, Timothy K. Perttula, Bobby Gonzalez, Bo Nelson

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

Back in August 1997, the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma had submitted a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) claim for a cranium that had been obtained by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City in 1877. Very little information was known about these remains, other than it had been obtained "as a purchase/gift" to the museum by Charles C, Jones Jr. and was "found in a mound" somewhere near the "Shreveport vicinity" in Caddo or Bossier Parish, Louisiana. "Based on the presence of artificial cranial deformation," the museum dated these human remains to a …

Note On A Possible Chipped Stone Grubbing Tool From Upshur County, Texas, Christopher Lintz, Floyd Largent

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

During the period August 6-27, and November 18-20, 2003, archeologists from Geo-Marine Inc. (GMI), of Plano, Texas, conducted a pedestrian survey of a 51.5 km-long corridor for the proposed Southside Regional Water System in Marion, Harrison, Upshur, and Gregg counties, Texas. The proposed waterline is intended to draw water from Lake O The Pines in the Big Cypress drainage system and distribute it to various communities in both the Big Cypress and Little Cypress Creek basins in the aforementioned counties. Specifically, the pipeline will benefit the communities of Ore City, Old Diana, Diana, and James before the pipeline crosses Little …

Mapping A Novaculite Quarry In Hot Springs National Park, Mary Beth D. Trubitt

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

Novaculite quarries in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma were created through largescale extraction of lithic raw materials, used for stone tools by Caddos and other Native Americans over the past 11,000 years and in recent centuries by Euro-Americans for whetstones. Quarry sites are characterized by surface features like large pits. trenches, battered boulders, and debris piles. This article summarizes the results of an Arkansas Archeological Survey research project that described and mapped surface features at one site (3GA22J to provide a better understanding of the problems and potential of documenting novaculite quarries.

The Pine Saddle Site (3pl1080) In The Ouachita Mountains, Polk County, Arkansas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson

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

Novaculite was procured and knapped by aboriginal Indian populations living in southwestern Arkansas for thousands of years, and there are numerous prehistoric novaculite quarries in the Ouachita Mountains. In Late Archaic times. this desirable material was widely traded and exchanged with other groups to the south, east, and west, particularly with the peoples living at the Poverty Point site and environs in the lower Mississippi valley in northern Louisiana. Later groups such as the Caddo also made considerable use of this material, since it was in their traditional homelands, and many habitation sites and mound centers in the region contain …

Caddo Archives And Economies, Paul S. Marceaux

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

This article is a discussion of archival research on contact through historic period (ca. A.D. 1519 to 18th century) Caddo groups in eastern Texas and west central Louisiana. First, I describe general objectives for current and long-term research on the Caddo Indians, followed by the central issues the article will address. A brief summary of protohistoric and historic events, actors, and sources will be followed by methodological considerations, as well as a discussion of Caddo economies, concluding with some reflections on Caddo archives and economies. This article explores the complex and interrelated economies of Native American and European populations during …

Cavanaugh: A Late Prehistoric Platform Mound In Western Arkansas, Gregory Vogel

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

Cavanaugh Mound (3SB3, also known as Etter's Mound, Jones Mound, Site Zeta, and occasionally misspelled Cavenaugh) is a largely intact Late Prehistoric platform mound on the Arkansas River just east of the Oklahoma border, about 14 km from the Spiro Mounds complex. The site is situated on a high terrace above the Arkansas River as it runs between the Ouachita Mountains to the south and the Ozarks to the north. The Poteau River enters the Arkansas River floodplain just west of Cavanaugh, creating one of the widest stretches of bottomland in the region. The area immediately around Cavanaugh Mound is …

Bossier Tribes, Caddo In North Louisiana's Pineywoods, Jon L. Gibson

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

Clarence Webb (1948) christened Bossier more than a half century ago. Its namesake was the northwestern Louisiana parish where several Bossier sites were located, but it could just as easily been named after Webster, Claiborne, Harrison, Columbia, or other political subdivisions in northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, or eastern Texas where its distinctive pottery was found. This is Caddo country, linguistically and ethnically. Bossier is the issue of Caddoan cultural tradition, a culmination of agents, practices, and histories that transpired in the Red River valley and adjoining Pineywoods hills between ca. A.D. 1300 and 1500.

Bossier is best known for its …

Casanas, Hidalgo, And Espinosa: A Spanish Leaming Curve, Mariah F. Wade

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

In 1690, Alonso de Leon arrived in East Texas to establish two missions among the Asinai. He was accompanied by Fr. Fontcuberta, Fr. Casanas, Fr. Bordoy, Fr. Massanet, and Brother Antonio. Fr. Massanet returned to Mexico to inform the Viceroy about the trip, and came back to East Texas with Teran de Los Rios in August 1691. Fr. Fontcuberta died in February 1691 of an epidemic that, according to Fr. Casanas, killed about 3,000 natives in the area. Fr. Casanas who died in New Mexico in 1696, left us the first intimate view of the Caddoan-speaking groups in East Texas. …

The Crabb Site (41tt650), A Prehistoric Caddo Site On Tankersley Creek, Titus County, Texas, Bo Nelson, Marty Crabb, Timothy K. Perttula, Leeannaa Schniebs

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

In this article, we discuss the archaeological findings at the Crabb site (411T650), a prehistoric Caddo settlement on an upland remnant/knoll in the Tankersley Creek floodplain in Titus County, Texas. Tankersley Creek is one of the principal tributaries of Big Cypress Creek, and it flows south past the Crabb site to merge with the larger creek a few miles downstream. This part of Titus County is in the Pineywoods, an area with abundant moisture and a warm, moderate climate in modem times, with an overstory vegetation of pines and a variety of hardwoods (principally several species of oaks and hickory). …

Certain Caddo Sites In The Ouachita Mountains Of Southwestern Arkansas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson

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

In the last few years, we have had the opportunity to study a number of prehistoric Caddo Indian sites in the Ouachita Mountains of southwestern Arkansas through conducting archeological surveys of more than 2700 acres at three lakes constructed and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District. The three lakes are DeGray Lake on the Caddo River, Lake Ouachita on the Ouachita River, and Lake Greeson on the Little Missouri River.

Our purpose in this article is to summarize the archeological character of the prehistoric Caddo sites in these three different parts of the Ouachita Mountains. We …

Book Reviews: Tribal Cultural Resource Management: The Full Circle To Stewardship, Robert Cast

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

With only ten chapters, Tribal Cultural Resource Management provides model strategies of what it takes to properly “manage” cultural resources. Although it is geared toward tribal governments and creating the right combination of preservation and protection of their culture, don’t let the title fool you, this book is for any person who has a responsibility as a land manager. Those currently involved in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) work should give this book a close read. Off hand, I can think of several federal agencies, especially those operating without Cultural Resource Management Plans, who could truly benefit from following the practical …

A Spatial Analysis Approach To Understanding Caddoan Mounds In The Arkansas River Drainage, Gregory Vogel

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

In this article I present a theoretical framework for understanding Caddoan mounds in the central Arkansas River drainage and the implications they may hold for the social structure and environmental adaptations of the people who made them. The power and efficiency of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling now allows for large-scale, computationally intensive spatial analysis simply not possible before. Questions of landscape organization or spatial relationships that previously would have taken months or even years to answer can now be solved in a matter of minutes with GIS and related technologies, given the appropriate datasets. Quite importantly, though, such analyses …

41sm195a, The Browning Site, Mark Walters

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

A surface collection of early 19th century historic sherds led to archeological investigations in 2002 and 2003 at the Browning site (41SM195A) in Smith County, Texas. My interest was whetted by mention in the original land abstract that the property had once been deeded to the Cherokee. In all, a total of 6.5 cubic meters was excavated, including twenty-two shovel tests and 10 1 x 1 m test units, and a fine-screen sample was taken from the midden. As a result, 1076 prehistoric and historic artifacts were recovered, along with new information about the Woodland period archeology in this part …

Excavation Of An Earth Mound, Bowie County, Texas, A. T. Jackson

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

This large artificial mound is known as Site ET-30, A.J. Hatchel place [41BW3], Bowie County. The mound, located on what seems to be an old channel of Red River about one mile from the present stream, is part of an extensive village, perhaps related to other mound and village groups within a radius of three miles. The entire area, containing nine or more mounds, shows evidence of long-continued occupation by fairly large numbers of people. Judging from its size, and the surrounding indications of a large village, this particular mound may have been the early cultural center of the region. …

Titus Phase Archeology At The S. Stockade Site (41tt865) On Tankersley Creek, Titus County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson, Leeanna Schniebs

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

The S. Stockade site was discovered on a small rise (330 feet amsl) in the Tankersley Creek floodplain during a recent archeological survey for the Texas Department of Transportation. Tankersley Creek is a southward-flowing tributary to Big Cypress Creek, and enters that creek’s floodplain a few miles below the Lake Bob Sandlin dam. There is a dense concentration of prehistoric archeological sites throughout the Tankersley Creek valley, particularly post-A.D. 800 Caddo Indian sites. This paper discusses the archeology of the S. Stockade site, a Late Caddoan Titus phase settlement.

The rise at the S. Stockade site is grass-covered (with a …