scholarly journals Another Look at the Urbankte Site (41CV26) in Coryell County, Texas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Harry J. Shafer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Considerable Proportion ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Brazos River ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Central Texas ◽  
Cultural Component

Perttula (2016) had analyzed ceramic sherds and other material culture remains curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL) from four sites in the Brazos River basin in the Central Texas prairie that had been identified as Prairie Caddo sites by Shafer; one of the sites was the Urbankte site (41CV26). The Urbankte site is on the Leon River in Coryell County, at Belton Reservoir; the Leon River is a southward-flowing tributary to the Brazos River. The term “Prairie Caddo” used by Shafer refers to Caddo groups affiliated with Caddo communities in East Texas, most likely affiliated with the George C. Davis site in the Neches River valley, that occupied portions of the Central Texas prairies in Late Prehistoric times, from ca. A.D. 1000-1300. Each of the four assemblages in the Brazos River basin have sherds that stylistically compare closely to decorated Caddo vessels from East Texas Caddo sites, and the distinctive character of these decorated sherds suggested that the four sites were occupied between ca. A.D. 1000-1200 or to post-ca. A.D. 1200-1300 times in the case of the Urbankte site. Where these ceramic assemblages seemed to differ from East Texas Caddo ceramics, however, was in their manufacture: the grog and bone temper inclusions added to the paste of the ceramic vessel sherds from these sites had numerous, large, and coarse-grained temper inclusions, while East Texas Caddo ceramics tend to have more fine-grained temper inclusions, even in the manufacture of utility ware jars. The Urbankte site ceramics (n=118 sherds) I examined at TARL were heavily bone-tempered (88 percent) and had a considerable proportion of brushed sherds (46 percent of the decorated sherds). Both characteristics were consistent with a post A.D. 1200-1300 Prairie Caddo occupation, as was the fact that eight of the nine arrow points in the TARL collections from the Urbankte site are Perdiz arrow points. The common occurrence of both Perdiz points and brushed ceramic sherds suggested then that this Prairie Caddo occupation at the Urbankte site took place sometime after ca. A.D. 1200-1300. As Dr. Shafer mentions below, the artifacts from the Urbankte site that he had discussed in the Prairie Caddo module were from a different part of the site than the TARL collection I had documented, and were from a different and earlier cultural component. We will return to those artifacts shortly.

scholarly journals Analysis of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblages from the Gas Line Site (41CE63) and 41CE289, Neches River Basin, Cherokee County, Texas

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
River Basin ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Considerable Proportion ◽  
White Oak ◽  
Alluvial Terrace ◽  
Human Teeth ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Neches River

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. 1300, and 41CE289 is not far north of a ca. A.D. 1560- 1680 Frankston phase component at the George C. Davis site on the northern part of the alluvial terrace east of the Neches River (Fields and Thurmond 1980). The Gas Line site was first identified in 1969 along an excavated gas line trench, and a surface collection was obtained from the site by a University of Texas (UT) crew. Site 41CE289 was identified and investigated by Janice Guy and Susan Lisk, both UT graduate students, just prior to a planned expansion of the Indian Mound Nursery in August 1982. At the time, the landform had been plowed, and surface visibility was excellent; Guy and Lisk conducted a general surface collection of the site, which was estimated to cover a ca. 400 x 150 m area (ca. 15 acres). At the present time, almost all of 41CE289 is on lands owned and controlled by the Texas Historical Commission at Caddo Mounds State Historic Site (see Figure 1). Another ancestral Caddo site in the vicinity of 41CE63 and 41CE289 on Bowles Creek is the R. F. Wallace site (41CE20) in the Bowles Creek floodplain near the confluence of Bowles Creek and White Oak Creek. The site is ca. 2.0 km north of the core area of the George C. Davis site (41CE19) (see Figure 1). The site is a Neche Cluster Historic Caddo Allen phase site with habitation and burial features that was investigated by A. T. Jackson (1932) and a University of Texas crew in June 1932. Human teeth, two glass beads, and ceramic sherds were encountered at ca. 58 cm bs, and the landowner had recovered two ceramic vessels from a burial feature that washed out of the site in 1930; one of the vessels is a Poynor Engraved bottle (Marceaux 2011:595), and the other was a bowl of unknown type or decoration. More than 230 ceramic sherds recovered at the site were analyzed in detail by Marceaux (2011:187- 192, 500-501, 504, 506, 524). The regular occurrence of Patton Engraved sherds, a low plain to decorated sherd ratio (0.40), a considerable proportion of brushed sherds among the decorated sherds, a high brushed to plain sherd ratio (2.07), and a brushed to other wet paste sherd ratio of 5.0, are consistent with a Neche cluster site (Marceaux 2011; Perttula 2016). These metrics are thought to be the material culture correlates of the Neche Caddo, one of the Hasinai Caddo groups that lived on the Neches River in the late 17th and early 18th century just north of the crossing of El Camino Real de los Tejas and the Neches River.

scholarly journals 41AG9 and 41AG10: Ancestral Caddo Sites on Percella Creek in the Angelina River Basin in East Texas

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
East Texas ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The Core ◽  
Good Surface ◽  
Ceramic Vessel

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 with good surface visibility. 41AG9 was estimated to cover ca. 1.5 acres, and had midden deposits, as well as disturbed remnants of Caddo burial features. Midden deposits and remnants of possible disturbed Caddo burial features were also noted at 41AG10, and the core of the site covered a ca. 60 x 60 m area (ca. 0.9 acres).

scholarly journals A Late Caddo Period Vessel from the De Long Farm Site (41AN16) in the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson County, Texas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Small Town ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Large Area ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Local Farmer ◽  
The One ◽  
Neches River

The De Long Farm site (41AN16) is in the Caddo Creek valley in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas, about 3.2 km northwest of the small town of Frankston, Texas. A Caddo midden area was about 200 m to the east. The site was found by a local farmer after a vessel was discovered in a gully in a field after plowing. University of Texas archaeologists investigated the find spot in October 1935, but after excavating a large area around the vessel find spot, no other vessels or any evidence of burials were found. UT did purchase the one vessel from the local farmer.

scholarly journals The De Rossett Farm (41HE75) and Quate Place (41HE81) Sites in the Cobb Creek Valley in the Upper Neches River Basin, Henderson County, Texas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
The State ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
East Texas ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The North ◽  
North Side ◽  
The University ◽  
Neches River ◽  
The Town

The De Rossett Farm and Quate Place sites were among the earliest East Texas archaeological sites to be investigated by professional archaeologists at The University of Texas (UT), which began under the direction of Dr. J. E. Pearce between 1918-1920. According to Pearce, UT began work in this part of the state under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and that work “had led me to suppose that I should find this part of the State rich in archeological material of a high order.” The two sites were investigated in August 1920. They are on Cobb Creek, a small and eastward-flowing tributary to the Neches River, nor far to the northeast of the town of Frankston, Texas; the sites are across the valley from each other. The De Rossett Farm site is on an upland slope on the north side of the valley, while the Quate Place site is on an upland slope on the south side of the Cobb Creek valley, about 2 km west of the Neches River, and slightly southeast from the De Rossett Farm. Both sites have domestic Caddo archaeological deposits, and there was an ancestral Caddo cemetery of an unknown extent and character at the De Rossett Farm.

scholarly journals 41SM53 (P-4) on Prairie Creek, Smith County, Texas

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Walters ◽  
Timothy K. Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Research Laboratory ◽  
East Texas ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The University ◽  
Sabine River ◽  
Smith County

In February 1957, Sam Whiteside of Smith County, Texas, excavated a burial at 41SM53. This site was designated P-4 in Mr. Whiteside’s notes and it was one of several Caddo sites along Prairie Creek in the upper Sabine River basin that he investigated to varying degrees in the 1950s and 1960s. As an a vocational archeologist Mr. Whiteside made many important contributions to East Texas archeology. Dr. Dee Ann Story, of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, who corresponded with Mr. Whiteside, later obtained the trinomial 41SM53 for the site.

scholarly journals The A. C. Gibson Site (41WD1), a Middle Caddo Period Component on the Sabine River in Wood County, Texas

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
East Texas ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Post Oak ◽  
Southern Methodist University ◽  
Sabine River

The A. C. Gibson site (41WD1) is an ancestral Caddo site of probable Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400) age in the Sabine River basin in the Post Oak Savannah of East Texas (Figure 1). The site is on a natural alluvial knoll in the floodplain of the Sabine River and Cottonwood Creek, just north of Cedar Lake, an old channel of the river. The site has been known since the early 1930s by collectors and site looters, early University of Texas (UT) archeologists, and then by later archaeologists from UT and Southern Methodist University, but it has heretofore not been scrutinized by Caddo archaeologists to any serious degree.

scholarly journals Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic Dart Points from the Wolfshead Site (41SA117) in the Angelina River Basin in East Texas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Mark Walters
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Southern Plains ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
South Central ◽  
Petrified Wood ◽  
Late Paleoindian ◽  
The University ◽  
Plow Zone

The Wolfshead site (41SA117) was excavated by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project at The University of Texas in 1960 prior to the inundation of the site by the waters of Lake Sam Rayburn in the Angelina River basin in East Texas. The site was located on a sandy terrace and covered ca. 1 acre in size; the sandy deposits were a maximum of ca. 60 cm in thickness below an historic plow zone. The excavations in the northern and southern parts of the site indicated that the Wolfshead site had an extensive Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic San Patrice culture occupation estimated to date between ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P. based on the radiocarbon dating of archaeological deposits with San Patrice points in sites in the Woodland and Southern Plains in south central North America. San Patrice components cluster “in the eastern half of Texas, where prairies and woodlands would have predominated." The component at the Wolfshead site is marked by a number of distinctive dart points, as discussed in the next section, as well as scraping tools, and Albany scrapers. The Albany scrapers were made on local petrified wood, while the unifacial side and end scrapers were manufactured on both petrified wood and pebble cherts.

scholarly journals A Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherd Collection from a Site in the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson County, Texas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
The State ◽  
River Valley ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Brazos River ◽  
Baylor University ◽  
Ceramic Vessel ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
A Site ◽  
Neches River

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, and these collections are in the holdings of the Mayborn Museum Complex at Baylor University.

scholarly journals Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels from Sites in the Upper Neches River Basin in Anderson and Cherokee Counties, Texas

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula ◽  
Julian Sitters
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
East Texas ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Ceramic Vessel ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Ceramic Assemblages ◽  
Trade And Exchange ◽  
Neches River

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 Estates (41AN53, n=4 vessels), O. L. Ellis (41AN54, n=15), Lee Ellis (41AN56, n=1), Dabbs Estate (41AN57, n=3), A. H. Reagor (41CE15, n=3), and John Bragg (41CE23, n=8 vessels) sites. Our first purpose is to put on record these ceramic vessels from six poorly known ancestral Caddo sites in order to better understand the history of Caddo settlement in the upper Neches River basin, including the history of burial interments at these sites. The second purpose is much broader, and is part of an effort to establish an East Texas Caddo ceramic vessel database that can be employed for a variety of research purposes. The synthesis of the stylistically diverse Caddo ceramic wares in different recognized ancestral communities across the Caddo area, including the upper Neches River basin occupied by a Hasinai Caddo group, would seem to be tailor-made for studies of ancestral Caddo social networks and social identities that rely on large regional ceramic datasets. The formal and statistical assessment of the regional variation in Caddo ceramic assemblages is currently being assembled in a Geographic Information System by Robert Z. Selden, Jr. (Stephen F. Austin State University), and the assemblages include the vessels from the six sites discussed herein. This is based on the delineation of temporal and spatial divisions in the character of Caddo ceramics (i.e., principally data on decorative methods, vessel forms, defined types and varieties, and the use of different tempers) across East Texas sites and other parts of the Caddo area, and then constructing networks of similarities between ceramic assemblages from these sites that can be used to assess the strength of cultural and social relationships among Caddo communities in the region through time and across space. The identification of such postulated relationships can then be explored to determine the underlying reasons for the existence of such relationships, including factors such as the frequency of interaction and direct contact between communities, the trade and exchange of ceramic vessels, population movement, and similarities in the organization of ceramic vessel production. In conjunction with a database on 2D/3D-scanned Caddo ceramic vessels from East Texas sites, the East Texas Caddo ceramic vessel database is made part of a digital database where comprehensive mathematical and quantitative analyses of morphological attributes and decorative elements on vessels can be conducted. Queries to such a combined database of vessels and sherds should lead to better understandings of regional Caddo ceramic stylistic and technological attributes and their spatial and temporal underpinnings. The results of past and current instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and petrographic analysis of Caddo Area ceramics, including East Texas (where there is a robust INAA database) can also be explored as a means to corroborate production locales, and establish the chemical and paste characteristics of local fine ware and utility ware ceramics in assemblages of different ages. These in turn allow the evaluation of the possible movement of ceramic vessels between different Caddo communities in East Texas and the broader Caddo world.

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