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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, …

The M. S. Roberts Site (41he8): Archaeological Investigations At A Caddo Mound Site In The Upper Neches River Basin In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Mark Walters, Bo Nelson

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

The first archaeological investigations at the M. S. Roberts site in the Caddo Creek valley of the upper Neches River basin in East Texas (Figure 1) was by University of Texas (UT) archaeologists in 1931 (Perttula 2016). In that work, UT archaeologists excavated a trench of unknown size in the ancestral Caddo mound at the site, and gathered a surface collection from the plowed cotton field around the mound.

No further archaeological work was done at the site until January 2015 when a surface collection was obtained at the site with the permission of the landowners, Jim and Denise Renfroe …

Renewed Archaeological Investigations At The Bowles Creek (41ce475), Cornfield (41ce476), And Peach Orchard (41ce477) Sites In The Bowles Creek Valley, Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley

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

There are a number of Allen phase Historic Caddo sites on Bowles Creek (Figure 1), a southwardflowing tributary to the Neches River in the East Texas Pineywoods, including the Bowles Creek (41CE475), Cornfield (41CE476), and Peach Orchard (41CE477) sites (Perttula and Stingley 2016a, 2016b; Perttula et al. 2016). In conjunction with remote sensing investigations conducted by Dr. Duncan P. McKinnon (University of Central Arkansas), renewed archaeological investigations have been completed in January 2016 at these three sites to better understand the subsurface character of their archaeological deposits.

At the Bowles Creek site, on a low alluvial rise, the first investigations …

Southwestern Pottery Sherd From The Caddo Creek Valley In The Upper Neches River Basin Of East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Mark Walters

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

There are material culture remains found on East Texas sites that provide direct evidence of farflung contacts between East Texas’s native American peoples and native American communities in the Southwest (see Baugh 1998). Such material culture items include obsidian from the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico (Perttula and Hester 2016), turquoise from New Mexico sources (Walters 2006), and sherds from ceramic vessels made in the Puebloan Southwest (Hayner 1955; Jurney and Young 1995; Krieger 1946:Plate 6j). Such artifacts, however, are rarely recovered in East Texas archaeological sites. In this article, we discuss a sherd found from an archaeological site in …

1939-1940 Wpa Archaeological Collections From Ancestral Caddo Sites In Nacogdoches County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Gus Arnold identified and recorded a number of ancestral Caddo sites during his 1939-1940 WPAsponsored archaeological survey of East Texas (Im 1975). The artifact collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL), especially the ceramic sherd assemblages since Arnold typically collected substantial sherd samples from plowed fields, have been recently documented from 10 sites in the Attoyac, Ayish, and Palo Gaucho bayou basins in San Augustine County (Perttula 2015a, 2016), sherds from the Jonas Short mound site (41SA101) in San Augustine County (Perttula and Walters 2016), and 13 Caddo sites in the Patroon, …

Early Sixteenth Century Caddo Population Distributions, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Milner’s (2015:Figure 2.1) summary of the distribution of Native American population aggregates in eastern North America in the early sixteenth century depicts much of the southern Caddo area (of southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, southeastern Oklahoma, and East Texas) as being sparsely settled or uninhabited in the early sixteenth century. Rather, as attested to by many years of archaeological investigations of a variety of Caddo sites across the southern Caddo area, as well as the 1542 accounts of the de Soto-Moscoso entrada, the distribution and density of Caddo farming groups and communities reached its full and peak extent at around this …

The Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblage From The D. W. Moye Site (41jp3) On The Angelina River, Jasper County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The D. W. Moye site (41JP3) was recorded by Gus E. Arnold in June 1940 as part of the WPA archaeological survey of East Texas. The site, estimated to cover ca. 2 acres, is located on an alluvial terrace of the Angelina River (Figure 1), at the far southern end of the Caddo archaeological area in the East Texas Pineywoods.

During the 1940 archaeological survey of the landform, Arnold collected a substantial sample of ceramic vessel sherds from the surface of the site (see below). He also recovered a few chipped stone tools.

The Garden Site (41ce480) On Bowles Creek, Cherokee County, Texas, Kevin Stingley, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Recent archaeological investigations in the Bowles Creek Valley in the Neches River basin in East Texas (Figure 1) have identified a number of ancestral Caddo habitation sites (Perttula and Stingley 2016a, 2016b, 2017; Perttula et al. 2016). The Garden site (41CE480) is another of these Caddo sites, and was probably a farmstead occupied by one or a few families for a generation or two.

The Garden site is on a grass and tree-covered upland ridge (385 feet amsl, Figure 2a) between the Turkey Creek and Bowles Creek valleys; Turkey Creek is west of the site and flows south to merge …

The Beckham (41sb35) And Print Bell (41sb36) Woodland Period And Caddo Ceramic Assemblages Collected By G. E. Arnold In 1939, Sabine County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Beckham (41SB35) and Print Bell (41SB36) sites were recorded by Gus E. Arnold of The University of Texas in December 1939 during his WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. Both sites have substantial ancestral Caddo deposits. The Beckham site is in the Housen Bayou basin of the larger Sabine River drainage system, while the Print Bell site is on a tributary of the Angelina River (Figure 1). Excavations were conducted at the Print Bell site in the early 1950s by Jelks (1965:88- 93) prior to the construction of Lake Sam Rayburn, but there have been no further investigations at …

The Bonner Place (41ag3) And J. A. Jordan (41ag5) Sites In The Neches River Basin, Angelina County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Bonner Place (41AG3) and J. A. Jordan (41AG5) sites are ancestral Caddo habitation sites recorded by Gus E. Arnold in November 1939 during his WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. Both sites are in the Crawford Creek drainage; Crawford Creek is a westward-flowing tributary of the Neches River (Figure 1).

Radiocarbon Dates From Aboriginal Sites In Cherokee, Henderson, And Tyler Counties In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The newly obtained radiocarbon dates discussed in this article were done by DirectAMS of Seattle, Washington. Three of the sites have only a single AMS radiocarbon date, while four radiocarbon dates have been obtained from the M. S. Roberts site (41HS8) on Caddo Creek in the Neches River basin. The radiocarbon ages obtained on these samples have been calibrated to 2 sigma using IntCal 13 (Reimer et al. 2013). These dates were obtained to continue to expand the utility of the East Texas Radiocarbon Database to better understand the age of archaeological components at sites in the region, as well …

The J. B. Maxwell Site (41ce43) In The Mud Creek Basin, Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Gus E. Arnold recorded the J. B. Maxwell site (41CE43), an ancestral Caddo site, in March 1940 under the auspices of the WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. The site covered 2 acres of an upland landform/bluff overlooking the Turnpike Creek floodplain. Turnpike Creek is a tributary to Mud Creek in the Angelina River basin (Figure 1).

An Historic Caddo Burial At The Swen Farm Site (41bw65), Bowie County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Swen Farm site is on an alluvial terrace (220-230 ft. amsl) of the Sulphur River. When it was first recorded in 1970 prior to the enlargement of Lake Wright Patman the landform was an island in the reservoir, with the submerged channel of the river along the eastern and northern sides of the island, with artifacts of Archaic, Woodland, and ancestral Caddo period age exposed in several areas, and midden deposits were also present (Briggs and Malone 1970). In 1971, an early 18th century Caddo burial feature was discovered at the site by L. H. Head, Sr., of Texarkana, …

Magnetic Gradient Survey At The M. S. Roberts (41he8) Site In Henderson County, Texas, Duncan P. Mckinnon, Timothy K. Perttula, Arlo Mckee

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

The M. S. Roberts site is located in Henderson County, Texas and it represents one of the few known Caddo mound sites in the upper Neches River Basin in northeast Texas (Figure 1). The site is situated along Caddo Creek – an eastward-flowing tributary of the Neches River (Perttula et al. 2016; Perttula 2016; Perttula and Walters 2016). The site is located southeast of Athens, Texas. When first recorded, the single mound at the site was approximately 24 m long and 20 m wide and roughly 1.7 m in height (Pearce and Jackson 1931). Directly west of the mound was …

41ag9 And 41ag10: Ancestral Caddo Sites On Percella Creek In The Angelina River Basin In East Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Both 41AG9 (ET-609) and 41AG10 (ET-610) were identified and recorded by Gus E. Arnold in late 1939-early 1940 under the auspices of the very successful WPA University of Texas archaeological survey of East Texas; they are only ca. 400 m apart. The sites are on elevated alluvial landforms in the Percella Creek valley; Percella Creek is an eastward-flowing tributary to the Angelina River, and joins the river about 3 km to the east of the sites (Figure 1).

During Arnold’s archaeological survey, he collected substantial numbers of ceramic vessel sherds from both sites, and the sites were in plowed fields …

The Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblage From The Will Odham Site (41ce42) In The Angelina River Basin, Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The Will Odham site (ET-713) was recorded by Gus E. Arnold in March 1940 under the auspices of the WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. The site was on an alluvial rise in the Big Turnpike Creek valley; Big Turnpike Creek is a tributary to Mud Creek in the Angelina River basin in the East Texas Pineywoods (Figure 1). The J. B. Maxwell site (41CE43), also recorded by Arnold, lies ca. 600 m northwest of the Odham site (Perttula 2017).

Archaeological deposits were estimated to cover a 5 acre area, but were concentrated in a ca. 60 m diameter area. …

Continued Shovel Test Investigations At The Historic Caddo Allen Phase Bowles Creek Site (41ce475), Cherokee County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley

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

The Bowles Creek site (41CE475) on Bowles Creek in the Neches River basin in East Texas (Figure 1) is an important and well-preserved Historic Caddo Allen phase habitation site on a low alluvial rise not far north of the current channel of Bowles Creek (Perttula and Stingley 2016, 2017; Perttula et al. 2016). This article summarizes the archaeological findings from the February 2016 excavation of 18 additional shovel tests (ST 40-48 and ST 50-60) at the site, placed between 10-25 m north of the Bowles Creek channel, and excavated in an attempt to clarify the subsurface character and depth of …

The Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Cemetery At 41hs74 On Hatley Creek In The Sabine River Basin, Harrison County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Site 41HS74 is an ancestral Caddo habitation site and cemetery on Hatley Creek, a southwardflowing tributary to the Sabine River, in the East Texas Pineywoods (Figure 1). The site was investigated in 1986 by Heartfield, Price and Greene, Inc. (1988). The re-analysis of the ceramic vessels recovered from nine burial features at the site are the subject of this article. The vessels are curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL).

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Sherds From 2016 Investigations At 41mr211, Marion County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Renewed archaeological investigations in 2016 by the Texas Historical Commission at the early 19th century Caddo site 41MR211 recovered a small number of ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel sherds from a variety of contexts in Locus 3 (Table 1), which is located just east of the main 1999 excavation block (Figure 1). The sherds are from grog-tempered (70 percent) and shell-tempered (30 percent) vessels. In the larger vessel sherd assemblage (n=368) reported by Parsons et al. (2002a, 2002b) from 41MR211, 36.8 percent of the sherds are from shell-tempered vessels and 59.4 percent are from vessels made with grog temper.

Caddo Ceramic Vessel Database From Sites In Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, And Arkansas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

This compilation of more than 9310 ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels is from 356 sites and collections primarily in Texas (i.e., about 87 percent of the vessels and 88 percent of the sites and collections), although there are significant collections in this compilation from sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The ceramic vessel database has been compiled from available published and unpublished articles, monographs, and technical reports, as well as ceramic vessel inventory forms (when available) on file at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory.

New Radiocarbon Dates From The Sanders Site (41lr2), Lamar County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

Recent archaeological investigations at the West Mound at the Sanders site (41LR2), on the Red River in Lamar County, Texas, disclosed substantial archaeological deposits associated with a burned clay floor to an ancestral Caddo structure in the mound. A significant part of the archaeological deposit were unburned animal bones of turtle, deer, and bison, along with Middle Caddo period, Sanders phase, fine and utility ware ceramic sherds; Sanders is one of 26 known Caddo sites in East Texas with bison bones and/or tools. In this article, I discuss the results of the radiocarbon dating of two samples of animal bone—deer …

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The Tom Shumate Site (41rk2), Rusk County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The subject of this article are the four ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels from the Tom Shumate site (41RK2) in Rusk County. The site is on Dry Creek in the upper Angelina River basin, about 5 km southeast of the town of Mount Enterprise, Texas (Figure 1). The ceramic vessels were found by the landowner after a flood in April 1935 had exposed a burial feature. Later work in 1935 by The University of Texas at Austin, led by A. T. Jackson, recovered no additional burial features; Jackson purchased the vessels from the landowner.

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels From Sites In The Upper Neches River Basin In Anderson And Cherokee Counties, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Julian A. Sitters

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

Late Caddo period sites belonging to the Frankston phase (ca. A.D. 1400-1680) and the Historic Caddo Allen phase (ca. A.D. 1680-1800) are common in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas, including habitation sites as well as associated and unassociated cemeteries. As is well known, ancestral Caddo cemeteries have burial features with associated funerary offerings, most commonly ceramic vessels. In this article, we document 34 ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL) from six different sites in the upper Neches River basin, including the Ballard …

Report On Magnetic Gradient Survey At Three Caddo Sites In East Texas, Duncan P. Mckinnon

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

The use of magnetic gradient at Caddo sites located throughout the Caddo people’s ancestral lands within the current areas of east Texas, southwest Arkansas, northeast Louisiana, and eastern Oklahoma has been very successful in the elucidation and mapping of the distributional characteristics of buried cultural features. January 2016 surveys conducted at three Caddo sites in East Texas (41CE475, 41CE476, and 41CE477) add to this growing corpus of remote sensing spatial data. The survey work was conducted in order to assess the nature of sub-surface preservation in different environmental and historical contexts and map the distribution of geophysical anomalies attributed to …

Caddo Ceramic Vessels From The A. C. Gibson Site (41wd1) In The Sabine River Valley, Wood County, Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Bob D. Skiles

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

The A. C. Gibson site (41WD1) is an ancestral Caddo site located on a natural knoll at the base of an upland landform, adjacent to the floodplain of the Sabine River and Cedar Lake, an old channel of the river, in southwestern Wood County, in the Post Oak Savannah of East Texas. Two Caddo ceramic vessels are in the collections from the site held by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. These vessels are documented in this article.

The Use Of Clay Pigments On Ceramic Vessel Sherds From The Hatchel Site (41bw3) And Comparisons To Ancestral East Texas Caddo Ceramic Vessel Assemblages, Timothy K. Perttula

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

The most distinctive material culture item of the Caddo groups living in East Texas were the ceramics they made for cooking, storage, and serving needs, and also included as necessary funerary goods. The styles and forms of ceramics found on sites in the region hint at the variety, temporal span, and geographic extent of a number of ancestral Caddo groups spread across the landscape. The diversity in decoration and shape in Caddo ceramics is substantial, both in the utility ware jars and bowls, as well as in the fine ware bottles, carinated bowls, and compound vessels, and these characteristics are …

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.

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 …