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

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.

The Woodland Period Component at the Wolfshead Site (41SA117), San Augustine County, Texas

The Wolfshead site (41SA117) was excavated by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project at The University of Texas in the fall and winter of 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 were in the northern and southern parts of the site, and indicated that the Wolfshead site had an extensive Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic San Patrice culture occupation dating ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P., as well as a Woodland period (ca. 2500–1150 years B.P.) occupation in both site areas. The latter occupation is a component of the inland and deep East Texas Mossy Grove culture defined by Story. This component is recognized by the occurrence of sandy paste Goose Creek Plain ceramic vessel sherds, contracting stem dart points (in the earlier part of the Woodland period), and various stemmed arrow points (after ca. A.D. 700 in the Woodland period).

The T. M. Joslin Site (41VN3) in the Sabine River Basin, Van Zandt County, Texas

The T. M. Joslin site (41VN3) is a multi-component prehistoric site that was investigated by the University of Texas (UT) in September 1940 as Works Progress Administration (WPA) Project No. 15409. The excavations began immediately after the UT WPA crew had finished work at the nearby Yarbrough site (41VN6). The site is on a sandy knoll on Caney Creek, a northward-flowing tributary of the Sabine River in the Post Oak Savannah of East Texas. Supervised by William A. Duffen of UT, a crew of 16 local laborers excavated a 100 x 100 ft. block (30.5 x 30.5 m) on the knoll between September 12-30, 1940. The local labor began their excavations with shovels at the southern end of the block, and moved north at the completion of each 10 ft. row, working from the completed vertical face of the previous row. The archaeological deposits were described by Duffen as a shallow midden overlying a red clay subsoil; the subsoil was reached between 1.0-1.3 ft. bs (ca. 30-41 cm bs) and the upper plow zone extended from 0-13 cm bs. No cultural features were identified in the WPA excavations, but a very large Canton Incised jar was reconstructed from a large sherd concentration encountered at ca. 25 cm bs. A. T. Jackson, who had first visited the site in the Spring of 1930, before he began to work at UT, had discovered in a “test hole” portions of a large ceramic bowl (36 cm in diameter) and a large water bottle, presumably from a Caddo burial feature, but he did not further explore the feature. About 15 m away he found remnants of a dog burial. It is not known where these finds were in relationship to the WPA excavations.

Making Sense of Flake Scatters: Lithic Technological Strategies and Mobility

Recent theoretical developments in the organization of lithic technology provide powerful tools for learning about prehistoric settlement systems and the roles of sites within settlement systems. Strong relationships between mobility and the designs and production methods of stone tools provide a means for testing hypotheses about the functional and organizational roles of sites; this is especially important for learning about "plow zone lithic scatters" and other small, poorly preserved sites. Subsistence-settlement models for three periods of western New York prehistory imply different roles for small sites in the interior of the region. These hypotheses are tested by the analysis of dominant tool-production methods. Strong differences in stone tool assemblages indicate major differences in site roles, but greater analytical detail and discriminatory power are obtained from the analysis of tool-production methods from flakes.

A Simulation Study of Plow Zone Excavation Sample Designs: How Much is Enough

A sample simulation study was undertaken using a data base from an eighteenth-nineteenth century farmstead site in Delaware where the plow zone over the site core was completely excavated. Systematically stratified aligned samples based on quadrats provided more accurate, more precise, and more efficient estimates than did transect-based designs. Sampling fractions greater than 25 percent did not return significant increases in accuracy, precision, and efficiency relative to the costs of the larger samples.