United States History Commons^™

A Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherd Collection From A Site In The Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Frank H. Watt (1889-1981) was a well-known and well-respected avocational archaeologist that lived in the Waco, Texas, area and studied the archaeology of the central Brazos River valley. He made forays into other parts of the state, however, including the Caddo archaeological area of East Texas. At an unknown date, probably in the 1950s or 1960s, Watt investigated an ancestral Caddo site on the Dennis Farm six miles northwest of the community of Neches, in the upper Neches River basin (probably in the Walnut Creek valley), in Anderson County. He collected 42 sherds from Caddo ceramic vessels from the site, …

Documentation Of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From Sites In Red River County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The vessel collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas (TARL) have ancestral Caddo vessels from a number of sites along the Red River in the Mound Prairie area. Vessels are documented in this article from four such sites, including Wright Plantation (41RR7), Howard Hampton Farm (41RR10), Sam Kaufman (41RR16), and the Abe Cox Place (with no trinomial), in the vicinity of the Rowland Clark site (41RR77). I also discuss a small ceramic sherd assemblage at TARL from the Wright Plantation site.

Archaeological Investigations At The Bowles Creek Site (41ce475), Cherokee County, Texas, In Early 2017, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley, Mark Walters

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

The Bowles Creek is a substantial Historic Caddo period Allen phase settlement on a natural rise in the Bowles Creek floodplain in the Neches River basin in East Texas. There have been several rounds of work completed at the site since it was first recorded by Stingley, including shovel testing, the excavation of 1 x 1 m units, and the remote sensing of a 2400 square meter area. In this article, we discuss the archaeological findings from work done at the site in January and February 2017.

Artifacts From 41sa38 In The Texas Archeological Research Laboratory Collections, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Site 41SA38 (ET-692) was recorded in February 1940 by Gus Arnold of the University of Texas as part of the WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. The site was identified on a natural alluvial rise in a freshly plowed floodplain on the west side of Ayish Bayou, about 1 km southwest of the city of San Augustine, Texas.

Artifact Assemblages From San Augustine County, Texas, Sites Recorded In 1939-1940 By Gus E. Arnold, Timothy K. Perttula

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

During the 1939-1940 WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas, Gus E. Arnold was particularly active in identifying and recording sites in San Augustine County, in the East Texas Pineywoods (see Perttula 2015a, 2017a), as well as sites along Patroon, Palo Gaucho, and Housen bayous in neighboring Sabine County (Perttula 2015b, 2017b), and sites in the Angelina River basin in Angelina County (Perttula 2016c). During his archaeological survey efforts, he collected substantial assemblages of ceramic and lithic artifact assemblages (curated by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin), primarily due to the fact that the surface …

The Historic Caddo Component At The Roseborough Lake Site (41bw5) On The Red River In Bowie County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Roseborough Lake site (41BW5) is on an old meander of the Red River “that was cut off in 1872 and named Roseborough Lake." It lies a few miles west of other important Late Caddo and Historic Caddo period sites, and a few miles west of Texarkana in Bowie County.

The Roseborough Lake site is a large historic Caddo village occupied from the late 17th century until the late 18th century, with habitation features and cemeteries. It also is the location of a Nassonite post established by the French in the 1720s, known by the Spanish as San Luis de …

Selected Caddo Ceramic Artifacts From The E. H. Buchanan Plantation (41rr5), Bowie County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The E. H. Buchanan site is an ancestral Caddo settlement investigated by B. B. Gardner of The University of Texas in July 1930. The site lies between Pond Creek and Salt Well Slough, streams that drain into the nearby Red River, and they are not far upstream from the large Caddo mound and village center at the Sam Kaufman site (41RR16) on Mound Prairie.

As described in Gardner’s notes on file at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) at The University of Texas at Austin, the site lay adjacent to a salt lick on “Buchanan’s upper place,” on a natural …

Archaeological Investigations At The Mike Myers Site (41ce481) On Bowles Creek In Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley

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

The Mike Myers site is a multiple component prehistoric site in the Bowles Creek valley in the Neches River basin in East Texas. The site is on an upland landform (400 ft. amsl), now a pasture with low surface visibility, between Bowles Creek to the east ca. 100 m and a spring-fed branch to the west. The confluence of Bowles Creek with Jackson Branch lies ca. 600 m to the south. Soils on the site are classified as Nacogdoches fine sandy loam. Based on the archaeological investigations conducted at the site to date, the known site area covers a ca. …

Analysis Of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblages From The Gas Line Site (41ce63) And 41ce289, Neches River Basin, Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

In this article, I discuss the character of the Caddo archaeological assemblages at two sites on Bowles Creek in the Neches River basin that are just north of the important mound center at the George C. Davis site (41CE19): namely the Gas Line site (41CE63) and 41CE289. All three sites are on a broad alluvial terrace of the Neches River and Bowles Creek (Figure 1); the confluence of the two streams is ca. 4.0 km south of 41CE289. Both sites appear to have been occupied by Caddo peoples after the main occupation at George C. Davis ended at ca. A.D. …

Documentation Of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Knight’S Bluff (41cs14) And Sherwin (41cs26) Sites, Cass County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

A number of years ago, Perttula documented a variety of funerary objects through a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) grant awarded to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. These were from ancestral Caddo sites on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District lands in East Texas, including funerary objects from the Knight’s Bluff and Sherwin sites at Lake Wright Patman in the Sulphur River basin. These NAGPRA materials are held at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL).

At that time, only a few ceramic vessel funerary objects were made available …

Another Look At The Snipes Site (41cs8) On The Sulphur River, Cass County, Texas, Julian A. Sitters, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Snipes site (41CS8) was excavated by Jelks in 1952 as part of the River Basins Surveys (RBS) program administered by the Smithsonian Institution in cooperation with the National Park Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation. Snipes was one of three sites excavated by the RBS prior to the inundation of a large part of the lower Sulphur River valley by Texarkana Reservoir, now Lake Wright Patman. The Snipes site was apparently occupied during at least some part of the Woodland period (ca. 500 B.C.- A.D. 800), mainly during the latter part of the …

Comments On Aboriginal Ceramic Sherds From Sites At The Proposed Lower Bois D’Arc Creek Reservoir, Fannin County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Twelve of the 28 prehistoric archaeological sites recorded by Davis at the proposed Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir in Fannin County have aboriginal ceramic sherds; the reservoir is on Bois d’Arc Creek, a northward-flowing tributary to the Red River. Aboriginal ceramic sherds are not at all common in these sites, as only 123 sherds were recovered from all 12 of the survey sites. The ceramics are found on both Woodland and ancestral Caddo sites, but because the majority of the sherds are undecorated, only general chronological or cultural affiliation information on the ceramics were provided by Davis. I offer comments …

The Robert Richey Site In Northern Van Zandt County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Robert Richey

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

This article discusses a collection of ancestral Caddo ceramic and lithic artifacts found at the Robert Richey site in northern Van Zandt County in East Texas. The site is in a pasture on an upland landform facing year-round flowing Caney Creek about 130-180 m to the east, a northern-flowing tributary that merges with the Sabine River about 2.2 miles to the north. The site lies within the flood pool of the long-defunct Mineola Reservoir, but the Robert Richey site was not recorded at the time of the early 1970s archaeological survey of the reservoir. Sites 41VN53-56, prehistoric sites of either …

Late Caddo Titus Phase Ceramics From The Mckay Site (41tt730), Titus County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The McKay site (41TT730) is a multi-component site on an upland landform about 100 m east of Hart Creek, a southward-flowing tributary of Big Cypress Creek. During house construction in 1990, archaeological deposits covering about 5 acres of the landform were exposed, and these deposits include occupations that date from as early as the Paleoindian and Archaic periods to as late as Early to Late Caddo period times (ca. A.D. 900-1680).

The principal ancestral Caddo component at the McKay site belongs to the Late Caddo period Titus phase, dating generally from ca. A.D. 1430-1680. This component included both habitation deposits …

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From East Texas Sites Held By The Gila Pueblo Museum From 1933 To 2017, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley

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

In the summer of 2017, 21 ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels held since 1933 by the Gila Pueblo Museum and then by the Arizona State Museum were returned to the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). These vessels had not been properly or fully studied and documented when the University of Texas exchanged these vessels, so our purpose in documenting these vessels now is primarily concerned with determining the stylistic (i.e., decorative methods, motifs, and decorative elements) and technological (i.e., vessel form, temper, and vessel size) character of the vessels that are in the collection, …

41vn63: A Late Archaic-Woodland Period Site In The Upper Sabine River Basin, Van Zandt County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bob D. Skiles, Julian A. Sitters

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

Site 41VN63 is a multiple component Late Archaic (circa [ca.] 5000-2500 years B.P.) and Woodland period (ca. 2500-1150 years B.P.) site on an upland landform in the upper Sabine River basin. The site was recorded by James Malone (1972) during the archaeological survey of then-proposed Mineola Reservoir on the Sabine River; the reservoir has not been built.

Malone described the site in 1971 as being located on an upland ridge on the southeast side of Caney Creek, and covered a 20 x 50 m area. He noted and/or collected from the site surface chert, quartzite, and petrified wood lithic debris …

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From Sites In Nacogdoches And Panola Counties In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels discussed in this article are from four different sites in Nacogdoches and Panola counties, in East Texas. The one site in Nacogdoches County, namely the Gatewood site (41NA3) is located in the Angelina River basin, while the three Panola County sites (41PN5, 41PN15, and H. L. English Farm) are on tributaries that flow into the Sabine River.

The Gatewood site is on the west bank of Attoyac Bayou, a major tributary of the Angelina River basin, in the easternmost part of Nacogdoches County. In 1939, a road grader working along a county road had exposed …

An Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessel From The Molly Cameron Site (41bw18) In The Sulphur River Basin In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Molly Cameron site is an ancestral Caddo habitation site with burial features in the Sulphur River basin in East Texas, specifically on Aiken Creek, a southward-flowing tributary, about one mile east of the dam at Lake Wright Patman. The site was first exposed in 1928, when plowing of the land owned by W. K. Cameron exposed several ceramic vessels and human remains. One of the vessels was purchased by The University of Texas at Austin in August 1932; that vessel is documented below.

Documentation Of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Harold Williams Site (41cp10), Camp County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Harold Williams site (41CP10) is a large ancestral Caddo community cemetery on Dry Creek in the Big Cypress Creek basin in Camp County, Texas. Caddo burials and associated ceramic vessel funerary offerings have been discovered and dug at the Harold Williams site since the 1940s, and in 1967 the Texas Archeological Society (TAS) held their annual field school at the site.

During the course of the 1967 TAS excavations in Area A and B, several burial features were encountered and excavated, and these had associated ceramic vessels and other grave goods. These vessels were illustrated and cursorily described by …

Archaeological Investigations At The Walnut Branch (41ce47), Ross I (41ce485), And Ross Ii (41ce486) Sites, Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley

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

The Walnut Branch site (41CE47) was recorded by George Kegley and Dan Witter in 1969 as part of an archaeological survey funded by the Texas Building Commission (now the Texas Historical Commission) in Cherokee County and adjacent counties. This ancestral Caddo site is located about six miles southwest of the city of Rusk, in the Box’s Creek valley in the Neches River basin; Box’s Creek is a generally southern-flowing tributary to the Neches River, and enters the river not far to the westnorthwest of the George C. Davis site (41CE19), otherwise known as Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. The landowner’s …

Documentation Of Caddo Vessels From Red River Sites In Bowie And Red River Counties, Texas, In The Collections Of The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum Of Natural History, Timothy K. Perttula, Mark Walters, Bo Nelson

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

We recently had the opportunity to document three ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels from Red River Caddo sites in Bowie and Red River counties, Texas, that are held by the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Only one vessel is from a known and recorded site: Bentsen-Clark (41RR41).

A Caddo Ceramic Vessel From The Atkinson Farm Site (41rr1), Red River County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Atkinson Farm site (41RR1) is an ancestral Caddo settlement on the Mound Prairie area of the Red River alluvial valley, about midway between the Wright Plantation site (41RR7) to the west and the Sam Kaufman site (41RR16) to the east. The site was investigated by B. B. Gardner of The University of Texas in 1930. At that time, he exposed and investigated the remains of three burials, one of which had five ceramic vessels placed with it as funerary offerings; the vessels had been damaged and broken by previous plowing. One of the vessels from this burial remains in …

A Ripley Engraved Vessel From East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

An ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel from East Texas has been recently donated to the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas (TARL). The vessel comes from an unknown site in an unknown East Texas county, and had been purchased in Marshall, Texas some years ago. The decorative style of the ceramic vessel, however, does indicate the defined ceramic type, its likely age, and where in East Texas the ceramic vessel was likely manufactured.

Sherd Assemblages From Sites In Bowie, Cass, Gregg, Lamar, And Red River Counties In East Texas Held By The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum Of Natural History, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson

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

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (SNOMNH) has in their collections several assemblages of ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel sherds from sites in East Texas. We recently had an opportunity to examine and document these collections during a trip to the SNOMNH, and in this article, we put those findings on record.

2016 Archaeological Investigations At The T. M. Sanders Site (41lr2), Lamar County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson, Mark Walters

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

On March 4th and 5th, 2016, Bo Nelson and Mark Walters returned to the T. M. Sanders site (41LR2) to inspect the property after Julia Trigg Crawford, the main landowner of the site, informed us that the fields at the site had been prepped for this year ’s planting. This article summarizes the findings from these archaeological investigations, which also included the surface examination of the 40 acres of the Sanders site owned by the Sanders family.

The Sanders site is a large and impressive ancestral Caddo mound center and village situated on an alluvial terrace (450 ft. amsl) at …

The Prairie Caddo Model And The J.B. White Site, Ross C. Fields

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

This article summarizes an hypothesis—called the Prairie Caddo model—presented in a research module published in 2006 to help explain some obvious connections in material culture between Caddo sites in east Texas and sites in central Texas. Harry J. Shafer prepared this module, entitled People of the Prairie: A Possible Connection to the Davis Site Caddo, as an outgrowth in part of excavations that Prewitt and Associates, Inc., performed at the J. B. White site in 2002 for the Texas Department of Transportation. Following the summary of the hypothesis is a synopsis of the results of the excavations at J. B. …

The Adair Site: Caddo Relations Through Ceramic Analysis, Joanne D. Starr

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

The Adair site (3GA1), located in the Upper Ouachita River Valley in Garland County, Arkansas is an Upper Ouachita Caddo site. The people at the site are presume to be at the center of cultural dominance for the area and had interaction with Caddo sites in the region. This article explores this by studying the whole vessel collections that were excavated at the Adair site in the 1930s. Comparing the Adair collection to three other Caddo sites provides information about the social standing of the Adair site, its relations with other sites, and how it fits into the greater fabric …

A Report On A Long Term Research Program On The Bowman Site In Arkansas, Duncan P. Mckinnon

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

The Bowman (3LR46) and Bowman/Wallace (3LR50) sites represent a Caddo multi-mound center on the Red River in Little River County, Arkansas. Southeastern researchers may recognize the site name from an engraved shell cup and several additional “SECC” objects found in Mound 2. Hoffman provides a brief summary of digging at the sites and offers a proposed site organization of eight mounds (both burial and “temple mounds”) surrounding a possible plaza area and at least three offmound cemeteries. Material collected from Mounds 1 and 2 and two off-mound cemeteries suggest Haley phase (ca. A.D. 1200-1400) occupations. Additionally, data from Mound 1 …

Salvage Along The Red River: The Red Cox (3la18) Site And Its Place On The Caddo Landscape, Duncan P. Mckinnon, Ryan Nguyen, Tyler Yeager, Leslie L. Bush

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

The Red Cox (3LA18) site is located in Lafayette County, Arkansas along the Red River. As recounted in his weekly report of April 9, 1975, Dr. Frank Schambach received word that the site was being directly impacted by land leveling machinery. Salvage efforts collected the remains from the floor of a burned Caddo farmstead structure. Remains include ceramic sherds, carbonized corn kernels, acorn nutmeat and nutshells, burned wood fragments, and bits of daub. In this paper, we present the results of a recent analysis of the materials and situate the farmstead within the Red River landscape during a period shortly …

Patterns Of Cranial Trauma At The Akers Site (34lf32) Of Southeastern Oklahoma, Simone Rowe

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

Previous work at Wister Valley Fourche Maline sites in southeastern Oklahoma has concluded that the area was a contested landscape with extensive feuding, resulting trophy-taking behavior, and mass burials. Preliminary paleopathological work at the Akers site (34Lf32) suggested that there may have been a high percentage of broken bones, however complete analyses had not been completed. New paleopathological work at the Akers site indicates that 35 percent of the adults buried there had at least one fractured bone at time of death. Furthermore, adult females were more likely to have lower limb fractures and multiple fractures, suggesting different patterns of …