The Taylor Site (41RK36) and 41RK31 on Martin Creek in Rusk County, Texas

Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula

In the early 1970s, the Texas Archeological Survey at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin completed archaeological investigations in advance of the construction of Martin Lake by Texas Utilities Services, Inc. on Martin Creek in the Sabine River basin (Figure 1). Martin Creek is a northward-flowing tributary of the Sabine River. These investigations included an archaeological survey with limited test excavations (McDonald 1972), and then more extensive excavations at five ancestral Caddo sites (Clark and Ivey 1974), most particularly the Musgano site (41RK19) (Figure 2) (Clark and Ivey 1974; Perttula 2014), a Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400) settlement.

Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Bob D. Skiles ◽  
Julian A. Sitters

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 (n=28) and cores (n=11) . Malone also mentioned finding flake tools as well as plain pottery sherds at the site, but no such artifacts were mentioned in Malone’s tabulations. This collection has yet to be examined at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. Shortly thereafter, Bob D. Skiles learned of the site and, with the permission of the landowner, conducted surface collections there on several occasions over the next two years, and recorded the site as GS-1 in his site recording system. In the late 1980s, Skiles loaned Perttula the artifacts he had collected from the site, and they were studied and documented at that time. Now, this many years later, the results of those analyses are provided in this article.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The 13 ancestral Caddo sites and collections discussed in this article were recorded by G. E. Arnold of The University of Texas at Austin between January and April 1940 as part of a WPA-funded archaeological survey of East Texas. The sites are located along the lower reaches of Patroon, Palo Gaucho, and Housen bayous in Sabine County, Texas. These bayous are eastward-flowing tributaries to the Sabine River in the Toledo Bend Reservoir area, but only 41SB30 is located below the current Toledo Bend Reservoir flood pool. This is an area where the temporal, spatial, and social character of the Caddo archaeological record is not well known, despite the archaeological investigations of Caddo sites at Toledo Bend Reservoir in the 1960s-early 1970s, and in more recent years.


Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula

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 of sites were well-exposed because of plowing, and he was encouraged to collect robust artifact assemblages by A. T. Jackson, the WPA survey director at The University of Texas at Austin. This article concerns the analysis of the recovered artifact assemblages from 14 different WPA sites in various parts of San Augustine County (Figure 1). The 14 archaeological sites are situated in several different stream basins, on a variety of landforms (i.e., floodplain rise, alluvial terrace, and upland ridge), including the Attoyac Bayou basin (41SA1 on Attoyac Bayou; 41SA5, at junction of Little and Big Arenosa Creek; 41SA24 on Price Creek; 41SA9, 41SA15, and 41SA16, Arenosa Creek), Patroon Bayou in the Sabine River basin (41SA11 and 41SA32), Palo Gaucho Bayou in the Sabine River basin (41SA108), Ayish Bayou (41SA77, 41SA80, 41SA95, and 41SA96) in the Angelina River basin; and Hog-Harvey creeks (41SA85) in the Angelina River basin. According to Arnold, these sites ranged from 1-6 acres in size, based on the surface distribution of artifacts as well as the extent of the landforms. In the case of the Hanks site (41SA80), midden deposits marked by mussel shells and animal bones were preserved there. The landowner had also previously collected two ceramic pipes, a celt, and a 33 cm long notched chert biface from the site. Burned and unburned animal bones were also noted on the surface of the Frost Johnson Lumber Co. site (41SA5); and burials associated with ceramic vessels and other material remains were noted when the site was first put into cultivation. Whole ceramic vessels from ancestral Caddo burial features had been reported to have eroded out of the Allan Howill (41SA24) and J. McGilberry (41SA85) sites. The Allan Howill site also had mussel shells and fragments of animal bone visible on the surface, and an area with ancestral Caddo burials (at least three with skeletal remains) was reported on the edge of an upland bluff there. Arnold also excavated several test pits of unknown size at the D. C. Hines site (41SA95), where he encountered archaeological deposits between ca. 60-76 cm bs. Arnold also noted “exceptionally large quantities of petrified wood, chert and flint flakes and chips cover the surface” of the D. C. Hines site.


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 Walters

The Jonas Short site (41SA101) is one of a few known and investigated Woodland period mounds in the Trans–Mississippi south (i.e., East Texas, Northwest Louisiana, Southwest Arkansas, and Southeast Oklahoma). In fact, the site is one of only four identified mound sites of possible Woodland period age—and Mossy Grove cultural tradition—in the Neches–Angelina and Sabine river basins in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana: Coral Snake (16SA48), Anthony (16SA7), Jonas Short, and Westerman (41HO15). The Jonas Short site was located on an alluvial terrace of the Angelina River. It was investigated in 1956 by archaeologists from the University of Texas and the River Basin Survey prior to its inundation by the waters of Lake Sam Rayburn.


Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula

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).


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Excavations in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at the Fred Yarbrough site (41VN6) in the upper Sabine River basin recovered a number of ceramic vessels from Area B of the site. Johnson provided an initial description of the vessels as well as drawings of a number of the reconstructed vessels. In this article, I reexamine the nine vessels from the Fred Yarbrough site held in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin (TARL), employing the vessel documentation protocol used in recent years to document ancestral Caddo vessels from sites in East Texas, and I also provide photographs of each of the vessels.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Two ancestral Caddo vessels were excavated by a J. B. Sparkman from a burial that had been exposed by erosion. The burial was found on the site in the Caney Creek valley in the upper Sabine River basin near the community of Black Oak in southeastern Hopkins County, Texas. The University of Texas purchased the two vessels from Mr. Sparkman in May 1931.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

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 burial feature with skeletal remains and three ceramic vessels. Gus Arnold, working on the University of Texas Archeological survey of East Texas, recorded the site and collected one of the ceramic vessels; no details were obtained on the other two vessels in the feature.


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

A number of ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels are in the collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin from the E. B. Minter (41HP2, n=4 vessels) and Roger Attaway (41HP15, n=5 vessels) in Hopkins County, Texas. We recently had the opportunity to fully document these vessels as part of our long-term efforts to characterize ancestral East Texas Caddo vessel forms, temper usage, and stylistic/decorative elements. The University of Texas conducted excavations at the E. B. Minter site, in the upper White Oak Creek and Sulphur River basin, in May 1931. A 60 x 35 ft. area was excavated on a sandy knoll at that time based on a report that ceramic vessels and ceramic pipes had been found there in years past, but no features were found. A second area by a county road exposed Burial 1 at a depth of ca. 77 cm bs; Jackson noted that ceramic vessels had been found in this area months earlier by road grading work along the road. Burial 1 was laid out in an east-west orientation. The Roger Attaway Farm site (41HP15) was located in the Spring of 1929 when heavy rains exposed a Caddo burial with five ceramic vessels and two arrow points. This site was 2 miles northwest of Black Oak, in the upper Caney Creek valley in the upper Sabine River basin. Mr. Attaway collected the exposed funerary objects, and then gave them to a Mr. George E. Cowan. Cowan sold four of the vessels to the University of Texas shortly thereafter.


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