The Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherd and Ceramic Pipe Sherd Assemblage from the A. C. Saunders Site (41AN19) in the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson County, Texas

The A. C. Saunders site (41AN19) is an important ancestral Caddo settlement in the upper Neches River basin in Anderson County in East Texas. The site is one of only a few ancestral Caddo sites with mound features in the upper Neches River basin, particularly those that are known to date after ca. A.D. 1400, but this part of the upper Neches River basin, including its many tributaries, such as Caddo Creek just to the south and west, was widely settled by Caddo farmers after that time. These Caddo groups left behind evidence of year-round occupied settlements with house structures, middens, and outdoor activity areas, impressive artifact assemblages, as well as the creation of numerous cemeteries, most apparently the product of use by families or lineage groups.

Numerical Modeling of Water Movement from Buried Vertical Ceramic Pipes through Coarse Soils

Problem of water scarcity is becoming common in many parts of the world. Thus to overcome this problem proper management of water and an efficient irrigation systems are needed. Irrigation with buried vertical ceramic pipe is known as a very effective in management of irrigation water. The two- dimensional transient flow of water from a buried vertical ceramic pipe through homogenous porous media is simulated numerically using the software HYDRUS/2D to predict empirical formulas that describe the predicted results accurately. Different values of pipe lengths and hydraulic conductivity were selected. In addition, different values of initial volumetric soil water content were assumed in this simulation as initial conditions. Different values of applied head were assumed in this simulation as a boundary conditions. In general, a good agreement was obtained when comparing the predicted results with available measured values. The results of this research showed that greater spreading occur in vertical direction. Increasing applied heads, initial soil water contents, pipe hydraulic conductivities, cause increasing the size of wetting patterns. Also the results showed that the empirical formulas which can be used for expressing the wetted width and depth in terms of applied head, initial soil water content, application time, pipe hydraulic conductivity, and pipe length, are good and can be used as a designing equations.

Numerical Modeling of Water Movement from Buried Vertical Ceramic Pipes through Soils

The problem of water scarcity is becoming common in many parts of the world, to overcome part of this problem proper management of water and an efficient irrigation system are needed. Irrigation with a buried vertical ceramic pipe is known as a very effective in the management of irrigation water. The two- dimensional transient flow of water from a buried vertical ceramic pipe through homogenous porous media is simulated numerically using the HYDRUS/2D software. Different values of pipe lengths and hydraulic conductivity were selected. In addition, different values of initial volumetric soil water content were assumed in this simulation as initial conditions. Different values of the applied head were assumed in this simulation as boundary conditions. The results of this research showed that greater spreading occurs in the horizontal direction. Increasing applied heads, initial soil water contents and pipe hydraulic conductivities, cause increasing the size of wetting patterns but in a few increases. Also, the results showed that the empirical formulas which can be used for expressing the wetted width and depth in terms of applied head, initial soil water content, application time, pipe hydraulic conductivity, and pipe length, are good and can be used as design equations.

Archaeological Investigations at the Walnut Branch (41CE47), Ross I (41CE485), and Ross II (41CE486) Sites, Cherokee County, Texas

The Walnut Branch site (41CE47) was recorded by George Kegley and Dan Witter in 1969 as part of an archaeological survey funded by the Texas Building Commission (now the Texas Historical Commission) in Cherokee County and adjacent counties. This ancestral Caddo site is located about six miles southwest of the city of Rusk, in the Box’s Creek valley in the Neches River basin; Box’s Creek is a generally southern-flowing tributary to the Neches River, and enters the river not far to the westnorthwest of the George C. Davis site (41CE19), otherwise known as Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. The landowner’s son had previously collected ceramic sherds and a ceramic pipe from the Walnut Branch site, and a Caddo burial (and associated ceramic vessel, about which nothing is known) had been found at the site in 1964. Kegley obtained surface collections of ceramic sherds and lithic tools from different parts of the Walnut Branch site, including a number of ceramic sherds (n=69) and one tool fragment from the Walnut Branch stream bed, a tributary to Box’s Creek; at that time, the bank of the stream was actively eroding, exposing artifacts on the surface. Kegley also excavated two small “test pits” or shovel tests at the site, and they contained a small number of ceramic sherds in the archaeological deposits. The sediments in those “test pits” had different zones of alluvial sands to a depth of at least 58 cm. In 2017, the junior author obtained permission to reexamine the Walnut Branch site, and determine its current condition and research significance. This work consisted of an intensive program of shovel testing across a large field and floodplain north of Walnut Branch and east of Box’s Creek, which is discussed below. He also obtained a substantial collection of ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel sherds from the Walnut Branch stream bed just below the Walnut Branch site and the Ross I site; this surface collection was taken before the shovel testing work was initiated. The intensive shovel testing has demonstrated that the large pasture that contains the Walnut Branch site also contains two other spatially related ancestral Caddo sites (Ross I, 41CE485 and Ross II, 41CE486) to the west and northeast, respectively, of the Walnut Branch site; the findings from these other sites will also be discussed in this article.

Upper Neches River Basin Caddo Ceramic Vessels from Anderson, Cherokee, and Henderson Counties in East Texas

The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (NMNH) has extensive collections of artifacts from ancestral Caddo sites in the Caddo area. This includes 19 ceramic vessels and one distinctive ceramic pipe from several sites in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas. The majority of these artifacts were originally collected by noted amateur archaeologist R. King Harris of Dallas, Texas, who sold his collection to the NMNH in 1980, while three of the vessels were originally in Bureau of American Ethnology holdings, and likely are from early archaeological investigations by Dr. J. E. Pearce of The University of Texas at Austin that were funded by the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). Pearce began work in this part of the state under the auspices of the BAE, 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 J. M. Snow Site (41CE8) in the Neches River Basin, Cherokee County, Texas

The J. M. Snow site (41CE8) is an ancestral Caddo habitation site and probable small cemetery in the Pineywoods of East Texas. According to Jackson, the site had two habitation areas along the bank of an old channel of the Neches River, each some 300 m from an area where the landowner found 8-10 ceramic vessels from one or more burials that had eroded into a ravine. A Bullard Brushed jar was purchased from the landowner. One of the habitation areas had a well-preserved midden deposit about 4.6-7.6 m in diameter and ca. 46-76 cm in thickness. University of Texas (UT) excavations in September 1933 concentrated on this midden deposit. The work recovered burned clay, mussel shells, ash, bone awls (n=2), perforated mussel shells, bone beads (n=2), lithic scrapers, deer antler tools, and deer, dog, raccoon, turtle, turkey, fish, rabbit, and squirrel bone refuse, as well as ceramic pipe sherds and many ceramic vessel sherds.

Documentation of Cemeteries and Funerary Offerings from Sites in the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson, Cherokee, and Smith Counties, Texas

This publications concerns the documentation of ceramic vessels, a ceramic pipe, a stemmed arrow point, and glass beads from several post-A.D. 1400 ancestral Caddo sites in the upper Neches River basin in Smith, Anderson, and Cherokee counties, Texas. Two of the sites have been recorded and have state of Texas trinomials: Vanderpool (41SM77) on Saline Creek and Pipe (41AN67) along the Neches River, but the other sites (one also on Saline Creek) and collections have not been. These artifacts were recovered from a series of burials excavated and recorded by Buddy Calvin Jones at the sites in 1956 and 1960. In the case of the Byars site in Smith County, it is not known when it was investigated by Jones. Notes on the excavations and funerary offerings are curated by the Gregg County Historical Museum.