scholarly journals The Caddo Ceramic Sherd Assemblage from the Hawkins Site (41SM144) on the Sabine River in Smith County, Texas

Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

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.

Author(s):  
Mark Walters ◽  
Timothy K. Perttula

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.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Mark Thacker

The Alligator Pond site is a substantial multi-component prehistoric and historic archaeological site (ca. 1.5 acres) on an upland ridge on the east side of Saline Creek. Saline Creek is a northward-flowing tributary to the Sabine River, and the site is ca. 10 km south of the confluence of Saline Creek with the Sabine River, in the Post Oak Savannah in northern Smith County, Texas. This is the third article that reports on the artifact assemblages from the site. Previous analyses of the artifact assemblages indicate that the principal component is a pre-A.D. 1200 Caddo habitation site, but there is also evidence from temporally diagnostic ceramic sherds and dart points that the site was used to some extent during the Woodland (ca. 500 B.C.-A.D. 800), Late Archaic (ca. 3000-500 B.C.), and Middle Archaic (ca. 6000-3000 B.C.) periods. Finally, there is an early 19th century historic component at the Alligator Pond site that is marked by blade gunflints, glass seed beads, refined earthenware rim and body sherds, possibly pearlware, that have hand-painted floral decorations, and an alkaline-glazed stoneware crock sherd.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The L. L. Winterbauer site (41WD6) is an ancestral Caddo habitation site in the Lake Fork Creek basin in the Post Oak Savannah of East Texas (Figure 1). It is situated along a small tributary stream that flows west into Lake Fork Creek, itself a tributary to the Sabine River, about 1.5 miles west of Quitman, the county seat of Wood County. The recovered artifacts from the investigations of the Winterbauer site indicate that the site was occupied during the Late Caddo period Titus phase, dated generally between ca. A.D. 1430-1680.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The Cherokee Lake site (41RK132), also called the Tiawichi Creek Burial site, was discovered by Buddy Calvin Jones in 1956, on a terrace area along Tiawichi Creek at its confluence with Mill Creek, inundated by the construction of Lake Cherokee in 1947, that had been graded for the construction of fish hatcheries there. Tiawichi Creek is a tributary stream in the mid–Sabine River basin. Jones identified a single burial and a large storage pit in Area A at the southern end of the terrace, where there was a shallow (0–30 cm bs) midden deposit. The burial in Area A is an Historic Nadaco Caddo grave that probably dates to the early 18th century based on the recovery of 15 blue glass beads. This strand of beads was placed near the legs of the deceased individual. The Caddo person had been placed in an extended supine position in a pit that was 1.83 m long and 0.76 cm in width, with the head facing towards the west. The estimated depth of the grave was 0.76 m, and its fill was a dark charcoal–stained midden. In addition to the strand of glass beads, three ceramic vessels had been placed as funerary offerings in the grave along with a Fresno arrow point by the upper left leg. One Simms Engraved vessel was on the left side of the body, near the foot of the grave, while a second Simms Engraved vessel had been placed by the individual’s right foot, along with a Maydelle Incised jar. A plain clay elbow pipe had been placed inside the jar. A storage pit excavated by Jones in Area A at the Cherokee Lake site appears to have been primarily associated with a pre–A.D. 1200 Caddo occupation, based on the recovery of Hickory Engraved and Dunkin Incised pottery sherds, long–stemmed Red River clay pipe sherds, and Catahoula, Alba, and Bonham arrow points. This occupation probably created the midden deposits found in Area A. In this article, I discuss ceramic sherds collected by Jones from Area A at the Cherokee Lake site. Some of the sherds were surface collected in March 1956 from the midden deposits, but it is not clear if this ceramic sherd assemblage is part of the sample of 300 sherds discussed by Jones from an Area A surface collection. The present ceramic sherd assemblage is curated at the Gregg County Historical Museum (GCHM).


Author(s):  
Mark Walters ◽  
Patti Haskins ◽  
David H. Jurney ◽  
S. Eileen Goldborer ◽  
Timothy K. Perttula

The Redwine site (41SM193) is a probable Middle Caddoan habitation site located on an upland terrace (Figure I) on the headwaters of Auburn Creek, a small tributary of the Sabine River in central Smith County; the Angelina River drainage basin begins about 1.5 km to the south of the site. Auburn Creek is about 100 meters to the north of the site. The Sabine River lies approximately 24 km to the north. Soils on the Redwine site are Bowie fine sandy loam. The site was discovered in the early 1960s by Sam Whlteside an avocational archaeologist who lived in the Tyler area. His work consisted of trenching, and he located and excavated several burials and a small house mound. In an attempt to relocate the site limited controlled excavations were undertaken in 1995 by the authors, under the direction of Dr. John Keller of Southern Archaeological Consultants, Inc. We hoped to gain enough information about the size, age, and integrity of the Redwine site to apply for legal designation and protection under the Antiquities Code of Texas. After confirming that the Redwine site contained important archaeological information, an application for State Archeological Landmark (SAL) designation was made in 1996, and in July 1996, the Redwine site was officially designated an SAL by the Texas Historical Commission, the first SAL in Smith County. This paper describes our findings, and discusses the artifacts and plant and animal remains recovered during the work. We also provide information on the 1960s excavations of a small house mound at the site, along with the grave goods recovered by Sam Whiteside from the four Redwine site burials.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels were found along the bank of an eroded ditch in the early 1930s at the W. J. Barnett site (41SM2). They were purchased by The University of Texas about 1935. The site is in the uplands about 6 km south of the Sabine River floodplain and ca. 2 km east of the Jamestown (41SM54) mound center.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

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 a number of ancestral Caddo burial features with associated ceramic vessel funerary offerings. These ceramic vessels are presently curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). In this article I document and analyze the Culpepper site vessels to better ascertain the likely chronological age and social and cultural affiliation of the Caddo populations that occupied the Stouts Creek area, as well as their interrelationships with other known Caddo communities in East Texas.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Gus Arnold identified and recorded many ancestral Caddo sites during his 1939-1940 Works Progress Administration (WPA)-sponsored archeological survey of East Texas. Currently, I have been engaged in studying the artifact collections from 51 WPA sites in Angelina, Cherokee, Gregg, Jasper, Nacogdoches, Sabine, and San Augustine counties, especially the ceramic sherd assemblages, held by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas. The sites are located in the Sabine River, Neches River, Angelina River, and Attoyac Bayou stream basins.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula
Keyword(s):  
A Site ◽  

The Oil Road site (D–2) in Rusk County is along Tiawichi Creek in northern Rusk County in the East Texas Pineywoods, about 1 mile east of the small town of Monroe, Texas. Tiawichi Creek is a tributary to Cherokee Bayou, which is in turn a northeastern–flowing tributary to the Sabine River. The Early Caddo period Hudnall–Pirtle mound site (41RK4) is on the Sabine River just east of its confluence with Cherokee Bayou. The site was located by Buddy Calvin Jones, probably in the 1950s; it has not been formally recorded or received a site trinomial. The recovered artifacts discussed in this article are probably from a surface collection obtained by Jones from the Oil Road site.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The Salt Lick site (16SA37) is an ancestral Caddo site at Toledo Bend Reservoir in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. Before the creation of the reservoir, archaeological investigations on the Sabine River and tributaries in both Louisiana and Texas took place primarily took during the 1960s, with survey and excavations, sometimes of a very limited nature by the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University. The Salt Lick site was investigated by McClurkan in the Fall of 1964. The Salt Lick site (16SA37a) was a Caddo habitation site (with midden deposits) on a natural rise south of La Nana bayou, a westward-flowing tributary to the Sabine River. Hand and backhoe trench excavations uncovered 10 burials, six that may have been flexed and four that were extended burials with the deceased placed in an extended supine position on the floor of the grave. Only two of the flexed burials had funerary offerings: a Pease Brushed-Incised jar and an engraved carinated bowl with a poorly executed design (Burial 1), and two engraved bowls (Burial 4). The engraved bowls resemble varieties of Womack Engraved and Patton Engraved. The extended burials, on the other hand, had a number of funerary offerings, including ceramic vessels (n=25), a clay elbow pipe (n=1), a quiver of Perdiz arrow points (n=12), a sandstone ear spool, mussel shells (n=2), and turtle shells (n=3).


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