HA IG

Newsletter of the

History of Archaeology Interest Group Society for American Archaeology

Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

Greetings, So far, things have not calmed down professionally for me at all since the last newsletter. I had hoped to get this to HAIG members before the end of last year, but here it is the first day of spring! Partly inspired by that, and partly inspired by SAA releasing the final program for the 2016 annual meeting last week, I wanted to get this newsletter out to the members now. First, I want to emphasize that we have the Biennial Gordon R. Willey Symposium organized by David R. Wilcox and Andrew L. Christenson: “Collaborations and Competition between Professionals and Nonprofessionals in the Production of Archaeological Knowledge in the Americas.” This session is from 1 pm to 4 pm on Saturday, April 9, 2016 in Australia 2 at the at the conference hotel in Orlando, Florida. This is the first HAIG-sponsored session that I am not directly a part of since I joined HAIG back in 2010 (and became HAIG Chair), but I am looking forward to watching the session from a room that I hope is filled to capacity. Second, I hope to see many of you at our interest group meeting on Friday April 8, 2016 from 12:00pm1:00pm in Europe 9, also in the conference hotel in Orlando, Florida. I hear from the SAA board every year that HAIG is one of the most active of the interest groups, not only in annually sponsoring sessions, but also in our publication output. Let’s start planning for the SAA annual meeting next year in Vancouver, British Columbia, and it is not too soon to think about the 2018 Biennial Gordon R. Willey Symposium in Washington, D.C. Third, I am happy that we have some great original research to present in this issue of the HAIG newsletter, featuring one of my interests, WPA archaeology. Timothy K. Perttula presents in the following pages his recent studies of WPA archaeology in East Texas. I of course welcome any and all original research compilations in this newsletter. Finally, we close out this issue with some recent or noteworthy publications on the History of Archaeology, which seems to be receiving increasing scholarly attention—or, this could be the artifact of excellent sleuthing by Marlin Hawley, who finds most of these references. See you in a few weeks in Orlando! Cheers, Bernard K. Means Send contributions for future issues of the newsletter to: [email protected]

There were many challenges to doing New Deal archaeology in East Texas, especially the mosquitoes. Cover in the public domain.

Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

WPA Archaeology in East Texas: Recent Studies Timothy K. Perttula (Archeological & Environmental Consultants, LLC, Austin, Texas) INTRODUCTION Archaeological investigations in East Texas of ancestral Caddo sites (dating from ca. A.D. 800 to the early 19th century in the region) were conducted through Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored projects by the University of Texas (UT) between 1938 and 1941 (Guy 1990:Table 4). Such projects were relatively commonly done in Texas compared to other states (Means 2015:Figure 1 and Table 1). This work included excavations at the Hatchel (41BW3) and Mitchell (41BW4) sites in Bowie County, the excavations at the George C. Davis site (41CE19) in Cherokee County, excavations at the Yarbrough (41VN6) and Joslin (41VN3) sites in Van Zandt County, test excavations at 41SB35 in Sabine County, and archaeological surveys in 16 East Texas counties conducted by Gus E. Arnold (see Im 1975). With two notable exceptions—that being the extensive excavations in Mound A at the George C. Davis site (Newell and Krieger 1949, 2000) and Areas A and B at the Yarbrough site (Johnson 1962)—the WPA archaeological research done in East Texas has up until very recently remained unpublished and under-studied. Over the last several years, I have made a concerted effort to analyze the identified features and recovered artifact assemblages from the WPA investigations at ancestral Caddo sites in East Texas, and this work is ongoing. In the remainder of this article, I review the findings from recent archaeological studies done at WPA sites. It is important to note that the collections and records from the East Texas WPA investigations are curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). HATCHEL SITE (41BW3) STUDIES The Hatchel site is a major ancestral Caddo village and mound center on a natural levee deposit in the floodplain of the Red River in Bowie County, Texas. The platform mound and the main part of the associated village overlooks two channel lakes of the river; these likely were part of the channel of the river when the site was occupied by the Caddo (Figure 1). The site was occupied by the Caddo from at least A.D. 1040 to the late 17th century. The earliest end of this age range is based on 2-sigma calibrated ages from radiocarbon dates obtained in the site’s village areas (Perttula 2005a). The 1938-1939 WPA archaeological work, from November 1, 1938 to August 25, 1939, completed at the Hatchel site was extensive, particularly in the main earthen mound, in several cemetery areas, and in village areas (see Figure 1b); the village areas were mainly occupied after ca. A.D. 1550. The WPA excavations at the Hatchel site had not been fully studied or the results fully published until recent years (Perttula 2005a, 2005b, 2014a, 2015a), and more analyses of the material culture and preserved plant remains await completion. These studies together represent a renewed examination of the records and collections from the WPA archaeological investigations in the platform mound, and the findings concerning the construction and use of the mound and village areas has contributed to a fuller understanding of the history and prehistory of the Caddo peoples that lived at the Hatchel site and other villages in the Red River valley of East Texas. Only a small remnant of the platform mound remains at the Hatchel site. The platform mound sat in the northern part of the village, with habitation deposits known well to its east, west, and south. At the time, the mound had mainly been grass-covered, with a few trees, and a small wood clapboard tenant structure stood off the western end of the mound. In the WPA platform mound excavations, multiple “floors” or mound surfaces (referred to as zones, below) with structures were recognized in the mound. The WPA work was done by 40-60 laborers and tenant farmers that lived in the local area. Mr. William C. Beatty was in overall charge of the excavations at the mound, assisted by Alden C. Hayes and E. Glenn Martin. The foremen included Robert T. Shelton, Willie C. Lynch, Arthur C. Jones, and Claude E. Dumis. Harry C. Dale and Clarence L. Markham worked as clerks (TARL records on file). 2

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Figure 1. The mounds and village area at the Hatchel site: a, overview; b, platform mound, WPA village and burial plots, and Village areas. In the excavations of the mound, the mound was first gridded into 5 x 5 ft. squares, and the excavations proceeded in horizontal levels across the mound to completely expose and record structure post hole patterns and associated features on different mound platform surfaces. As the excavations proceeded in depth, the methods changed to one where half of the mound was excavated down by the WPA crew (Figure 2) to where the next structure floor zone was encountered, where the structures and features were mapped, then the excavations continued downward to the next structure zone, and the one after that, so as to obtain profiles after the features were excavated and recorded. After zone H was reached, the remaining half of the mound was then excavated down to that zone, recording the remaining features as they were exposed.

Figure 2. WPA crew excavating down through the mound, standing on Zone H. Image 41BW3-202, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin.

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The lower portions of the mound (zones I and J) were excavated by the methods discussed above, augmented by trenching to reach the original ground surface under the mound before the WPA work was to end. When features were encountered in one area under the mound (in zone K), a large horizontal block was excavated to completely expose a very large (15 m in diameter) circular structure that had been constructed in a habitation area at the ground level. In its final form, the platform mound at the Hatchel site measured approximately 58 m in length (eastwest) and 44 m in width (east-west). A WPA profile of the mound indicates that the mound zones (A-J) are 7.7 m in height. According to Jackson (2004), a large oak stood atop the mound that was 170 years of age (based on the number of its tree rings), suggesting the mound had not been used for at least 200 years, or ca. A.D. 1740. The mound was constructed in several stages (Figure 3). The first, or principal platform comprises zones I and J—built atop the ground surface (Zone K) and a large pre-mound circular structure (Feature 25)— and these stood 4.2 m in height, with flat tops (TARL n.d.:539). Neither of these mound platform zones had structures constructed atop them. Zone J was comprised of red and blue clays and was about 22 m in length, 14 m in width, thus rectangular, stood 2.2 m in height, and had steep sides. It contained little in the way of cultural materials. Zone I, on the other hand, was built up from sandy loam deposits—probably scraped up from the surrounding village deposits since no borrow pits have been identified at the site—and it contained an abundance of debris, especially ceramic sherds (Table 1). Zone I was piled atop Zone J and extended the mound until it was more than 40 m in length; it also had steep sides. According to Jackson (2004), a ramp was constructed on the south central side of the mound, leading down to the plaza and village, as part of the primary mound; Krieger (1946:213, fn42) also mentions a clay ramp on the south side of the mound, apparently associated with Zones I and J. Krieger (1946:211) considers each of these zones to represent two superimposed “flat-topped ‘temple’ mounds.”

Figure 3. Cross-section of Zones A-K in the platform mound excavations at the Hatchel site, redrawn from original WPA profiles (see Perttula 2014a:Figure 14a) to more clearly depict the different zones in the platform mound. Figure prepared by Lance Trask. At that point a second stage of the mound began to be constructed on the northern half of the primary mound platform. This stage, approximately 3.4 m in height and ca. 30 m in length, is comprised of eight stratified zones (A-H) (see Figure 3) with structures and other features. Each zone was subsequently buried by sandy loam and/or clay mound fill deposits. These zones represent the repeated construction and destruction of important structures at regular intervals over more than 100 years that were built atop mound fill zones 4

Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

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covering earlier structures and their associated debris. The few masses of daub, ash, and charred wood/charcoal found in association with the mound structures suggests that the structures were likely mainly thatch-covered, without wattle and daub walls, although at least one structure in Zone C seems to have had a wattle and daub covered extended entranceway. The construction and use of the platform mound has been thought to date to the Middle and Late Caddo period Texarkana phase occupation (ca. A.D. 1300-1690+) at the site. The mound was built over a large structure on floor or Zone K on a buried original ground surface. The floor K structure was occupied sometime prior to ca. A.D. 1300, during the Haley phase (cf. Krieger 1946:213). However, the recovered sherds and arrow points from the platform mound and associated village areas (Perttula 2014a:65-78) indicate that the primary mound (Zones I and J) first began to be built sometime after A.D. 1400, perhaps during the early part of the Texarkana phase. There are circular structures (ranging from 7.3-12.0 m in diameter) on each of the mound structure zones or floors (as the WPA archeologists labeled them), from one to three structures per floor, that are considered temple structures and not ordinary domestic structures; there is a probable granary on Zone B (Perttula 2014a:Table 2). The primary reason they are considered temple structures and not ordinary dwellings is the fact that the structures were built on the different mound platforms/zones, which was assuredly a special and likely sacred place, and they were regularly spaced across the different zones, with either a single central structure on a platform, two structures on the east and west sides of the platform, with an open area between them, or there were three regularly spaced structures across a mound platform (Figure 4a-b). Sometimes the structures were built right atop each other, although in different mound platforms/zones, so that the central point in each structure were superimposed over one another. Other reasons why these structures are likely temples and not dwellings include the character of the structures themselves, which generally lack central hearths, are not characterized by substantial amounts of midden debris inside them (although there are apparent midden deposits outside the structures in several mound structure zones), and frequently they have distinctive extended entranceways or internal/exterior partitions. The former were likely extended to both limit access to the structures themselves and remind those that entered of the special buildings they wished to seek ingress to and the special rituals carried out there, while the latter would have kept areas separate areas within the structure, or former limited direct access to the structure entranceway. Where entrances can be identified in these structures, they were facing to the south or southeast, in the same direction as the ramp that was attached to the principal platform mound, and thus facing in the direction of the central part of the Nasoni Caddo village and other mounds in the larger community. Extended entranceway structures are present in six of the eight mound structure zones; two structures in Zones G and H have double walls; and one structure in Zone H has an exterior post partition (see Figure 4a-b). All these features were likely designed to restrict access to the buildings, probably marking a tangible boundary “between the human and spirit realms” (Sabo 2012:442). MITCHELL SITE (41BW4) STUDIES The Paul Mitchell site (41BW4) is an ancestral Caddo habitation site and cemetery in the larger Upper Nasoni Village on the Red River in Bowie County, in the northeastern corner of the present state of Texas. The large Upper Nasoni village visited in 1691 by the Teran entrada extended several miles along the Red River, likely encompassing contemporaneous sites such as Eli Moores (41BW2), Hatchel, Hargrove Moores (41BW39), and Horace Cabe (41BW14). The Hatchel Mound is about 1.6 km north of the Mitchell site. Extensive WPA excavations were conducted at the site in 1938-1939, but the findings from that work has never been fully analyzed or reported until studies of the records and collections were initiated in 2014 (Perttula 2014b; Perttula et al. 2016). The WPA excavations at the Paul Mitchell site were extensive, and began on November 10, 1938. A. M. Woolsey was the archaeologist in charge and E. Glenn Martin was the project’s time keeper. During the course of the project, which ended on January 10, 1939, 57 different ancestral Caddo burials were excavated in a large cemetery (Figure 5), and habitation features and extensive midden deposits were also identified and excavated during the work. The WPA archaeologists did discover that the cemetery had also been rather thoroughly 5

Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

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Figure 4. Zone H structures and other features on the platform mound at the Hatchel site: a, plan map; b, looking west at Features 16 and 17 in Zone H. Image 41BW3-163, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin. 6

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disturbed by pothunters in earlier years. Excavations were abandoned on January 10, 1939, because of rising water levels in Barkman Creek and McKinney Bayou. Burials and other features (i.e., midden deposits and house sites) were considered likely to also occur to the north and east of the excavation limits, and it was hoped that excavations could be resumed in the summer of 1939. However, the WPA investigations were limited at that time only to the Hatchel site.

Figure 5. WPA excavations at the Mitchell site, and the area excavated by Pete Miroir in 1946. Figure prepared by Lance Trask. The recent analysis of the ceramic vessels placed in the many Caddo burials at the Mitchell site, as well as the analysis of the decorative methods and elements on the decorated sherds from midden excavations and burial fill, indicate that there were two principal periods of Caddo settlement and cemetery use at the site. These were during the Haley phase (ca. A.D. 1200-1400), and then later during the Texarkana phase (ca. A.D. 1400-1600) (Figure 6). In general, there was little variability between child, adult female, and adult male burials in the Mitchell site cemetery with respect to the number and kind of funerary offerings, suggesting these ancestral Caddo individuals were not significantly different in social status or rank. It is not clear where the elite members of the Nasoni Caddo living at the Hatchel, Mitchell, and Moores sites were buried, but it does not appear, at least on the basis of burial treatment (in extended supine positions in individual graves) and range of funerary offerings that individuals of elite status in the community were buried in the Mitchell site cemetery. The only possible exceptions to this possibility are two adult male burials that had conch shell gorgets (Burial 19 in the WPA excavations and Burial No. 2 in earlier 1936 excavations) (Perttula 2014b).

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Figure 6. Earlier and Main Late periods of cemetery use at the Mitchell site. Figure prepared by Lance Trask. The Paul Mitchell site also had habitation features investigated during the WPA project as well as the large cemetery. The principal habitation feature is a midden deposit on the northern and eastern sides of the cemetery (see Figure 5), on the side of the cemetery nearest to McKinney Bayou. The principal midden deposit is situated in the northern portion of the area excavated by UT during the WPA investigations, and it is at least 8

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ca. 8-13 m in width and as much as ca. 55 m in length. The black midden deposit was encountered between 4146 cm bs, and is buried by alluvial deposits. It had ash, charcoal, pottery sherds, animal bones and mussel shells; mussel shell hoes were also common in the midden. A second and smaller midden deposit was exposed ca. 6 m south of the central part of the cemetery. Other habitation features that were identified included a pit feature in the northeastern part of the cemetery, a hearth (Feature 1), ash beds (Features 2 and 3), and Feature 4, another pit (see Figure 5). The ash deposits appear to be part of burned structural debris because they rested on a zone of burned or baked red clay, and there were six post holes exposed as part of Feature 2 where they penetrated the red clay. The structural debris contained many ceramic sherds, chipped stone flakes, mussel shell fragments, and animal bones (including bird bones). GEORGE C. DAVIS SITE (41CE19) STUDIES Certainly the most thoroughly Early Caddo period site in East Texas is the George C. Davis site, a large village and mound center (ca. 120 acres) on a fertile alluvial terrace of the Neches River, just east of the river crossing on El Camino Real de los Tejas. This mound center has extensive habitation areas, plazas, and spatially restricted temple and burial mound locales (Figure 7) (Newell and Krieger 1949, 2000; Story 1997, 1998, 2000). Shaft burials of high status individuals have been documented in Mound C contexts over a period of about 300 years.

Figure 7. Map of previous excavations at the George C. Davis site (Story 1997). Figure courtesy of the Texas Archeological Society.

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The 1938-1941 WPA excavations at the site led by H. Perry Newell were concentrated in Mound A, a large flat-topped platform mound, and later 1960s-1980s work by Story was done in mounds B and C and in non-mound habitation areas (see Figure 7). The WPA investigations were published in a justly acclaimed monograph by Newell and Krieger (1949, 2000). However, not all of the WPA work was discussed in Newell and Krieger (1949), most significantly they omitted discussion of the excavations carried out in March 1940 in an area where Spanish colonial ceramic sherds had been recovered. H. Perry Newell, the WPA excavator of the site, had noted in the published report on the 1939-1941 excavations at the George C. Davis site, that: some pieces of Spanish pottery found near a spring in one of the ravines cutting the slope a few hundred yards southeast from the mound [Mound A]…The Spanish ware were examined by Arthur Woodward, Los Angeles County Museum…The Spanish ware was analyzed as follows: “The fragment of blue and white glazed ware is Mexican majolica, made at Puebla, Mexico, sometime between 1700-76 but more than likely it dates from 1720-1750” (Newell and Krieger 1949:12 and footnote 26). This majolica from the George C. Davis site, about 20 sherds in total, has been recently relocated in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (Figure 8). The sherds are from early 18th century (ca. 1720) Puebla Blue on White plates, a bowl, and a cup (Perttula 2016a). Given the rarity of majolica on archaeological sites in East Texas outside of Spanish Colonial archaeological deposits, its presence at the George C. Davis site is especially notable given the fact that Mission San Francisco de Tejas/de los Nechas or Neches was built in this part of the Neches River valley in 1716, then rebuilt in 1721, and finally abandoned in 1730.

Figure 8. Mexican majolica plate sherd from the George C. Davis site. Photograph by Marybeth Tomka, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin.

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Newell and Krieger’s (1949:12 and footnote 26) indicated that the majolica sherds were found well south of Mound A at the George C. Davis site, on what would be the southern edge of the Neches River alluvial terrace the site is on (see Figure 7). More specific contextual information on the majolica finds was discovered in one of Newell’s (1940) quarterly reports to the WPA on the progress of excavations at the site. Newell (1940:23-24) noted that: A total of thirteen small fragments of a possible Spanish ware, with blue design, were found in certain sections excavated about six hundred feet southeast of the site proper [Mound A]. These sections were on the edge of a large gully and near two large springs. The Spanish pottery varied from 1 inch to 19 inches below surface. Indian pottery was found at about the same depth, and this pottery had decoration patterns similar to those found at the main site [Mound A]. Field specimen inventory records for the George C. Davis excavations indicate that the majolica sherds came from two separate 10 x 10 ft. units (46L36 and 47L37) in a block of 18 10 x 10 ft. units excavated between March 7-12, 1940, in the southern part of the site. Grid coordinate designations followed the designations used in the Mound A excavations (see Newell and Krieger 1949:Figure 4), except that the 10 x 10 ft. units were 45-48 sections south of the Mound A excavations. The majolica sherds are from two 10 x 10 ft. units in the eastern part of the block. In 46L36, the one majolica sherd came from 1 inch below the surface (ca. 2.5 cm bs), according to the field specimen inventory records. The other sherds were recovered between 4-19 inches below the surface (ca. 10-48 cm bs) in 47L37, but most of the sherds and the largest pieces were from 5 and 10 inches below the surface (ca. 13-25 cm bs). The recovery of early 18th century Mexican majolica sherds in one locale at the George C. Davis site indicates that there are preserved Spanish colonial archaeological deposits there; the overall extent and character of those deposits is not known at the present time. The WPA collections from this southern block are slated for detailed analysis and publication. New field work led by myself and Dr. Tom Middlebrook is underway on this southern terrace to relocate and study the Spanish colonial deposits preserved there, and determine if these archaeological deposits are associated with the 1716-1719 and 1721-1730 Mission San Francisco de Tejas/de los Nechas. Dr. Robert Z. Selden Jr. (Stephen F. Austin State University) and I have recently completed 2D and 3D studies of the Early Caddo period ceramic vessels from the George C. Davis as part of broader studies of Caddo ceramic stylistic and formal traditions in East Texas (Perttula 2016b). Of the 47 Caddo vessels or vessel sections that are in the TARL collections, the majority of the vessels (n=27, 57 percent) are from the 1939-1941 WPA investigations in and around Mound A and immediately adjacent village areas (see Newell and Krieger 1949, 2000; Story 2000). Finally, as part of this most recent phase of archaeological investigations at the George C. Davis site, Arlo McKee (University of Texas at Dallas) completed a low altitude aerial survey of a ca. 32 acre portion of the site, between Mound A and the suspected location of the archaeological deposits containing the majolica sherds. The work was done goal to produce a high-resolution aerial image and a photo-realistic 3D model of the site area south of and around Mound A (see Figure 7). Site 41CE291 was visited by H. Perry Newell and A. T. Jackson in March 1940, as part of the WPA work at the nearby George C. Davis site, and they made a small surface collection of artifacts at that time. Newell (in Newell and Krieger [1949:12, fn 26) noted about the site that “A. T. Jackson and I found some fragments of what may possibly be Spanish bricks in a heavily wooded area near a spring, about a mile east of the mound,” the mound namely being Mound A at the George C. Davis site. Notes by Newell in the site file for 41CE291 provide more detail about the finds there, which he suggests are from a Spanish mission, namely Mission Nuestra Padre San Francisco de Tejas or San Francisco de los Nechas (1716-1719, 1721-1730): Mission site on hill adjacent to spring (N) and prehistoric village to S of Branch. Mission site contains Spanish sherds and fragments of Spanish brick with a few flint artifacts. Old village some 200 yds. [S] shows no evidence of white contacts but has Indian potsherds and artifacts. 11

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Given that the location of Mission San Francisco de Tejas has not been definitively located by archaeologists, I wanted to examine the collections gathered by Newell and Jackson in 1940 to determine what evidence they had found of Spanish use of 41CE291. If there were Spanish artifacts from 41CE291, their discovery may be the first real indication that the mission was on this Neches River terrace. However, the March 1940 artifact collection from 41CE291 does not contain any 18 th century Spanish artifacts (Perttula 2016c). There are only mid-19th century whiteware and stoneware sherds in the collection. The collection of ancestral Caddo sherds in the collection from 41CE291 turned out to be intriguing, however, because of the common occurrence of Patton Engraved sherds in the assemblage, a fine ware found on post-A.D. 1680 Historic Caddo Allen phase sites in the Neches River basin in East Texas (Marceaux 2011). This suggests that 41CE291 is one of the settlements occupied by a Neches Caddo group at the time of the late 17 th-early 18th century Spanish colonization of the middle reaches of the Neches River, when several missions were established in this locale: Mission San Francisco de los Tejas (1690-1693), Mission El Santisimo de Nombre Maria (1690-1692), and Mission Nuestra Padre de San Francisco de Tejas. YARBROUGH SITE (41VN6) AND JOSLIN SITE (41VN3) STUDIES Excavations in 1940 by the WPA at the Fred Yarbrough site in the upper Sabine River basin recovered a number of ceramic vessels from Area B of the site (Johnson 1962:225). Johnson (1962:226-230 and Figure 22a-g) had provided an initial description of the vessels as well as drawings of a number of the reconstructed vessels. I undertook a re-analysis of the vessels as part of the long-term study of the stylistic and formal character of Caddo vessel assemblages in East Texas. The Yarbrough site is a multi-component Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and ancestral Caddo occupation in the Sabine River floodplain in the upper Sabine River basin (Johnson 1962:155). Area B was described by Johnson (1962:224-225) as follows: This consisted of a small area, approximately 20 feet in diameter, of dark humus-stained midden soil containing many potsherds and bone scraps…it was a small habitation area of one, or at the most, two houses. The WPA excavations recovered nine small to medium-sized Caddo ceramic vessels or reconstructed vessel sections, none clearly from burial context. Instead, given the association of a number of the vessels with a burned area in Area B midden deposits, it is probable that these vessels were in a habitation context that was burned in prehistoric times, preserving the vessels in situ. The nine vessels included two jars (Figure 9), two carinated bowls, three bowls, and two bottles. One of the carinated bowls and one of the bowls are Sanders Engraved vessels, one of the bottles is a Sanders Slipped vessel, and one jar is a Canton Incised vessel. These types at the site indicate that the Area B habitation and midden deposits were deposited in the Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400), in a cultural context analogous to ancestral Caddo sites in the upper Red, Sulphur, Big Cypress, and Sabine River basins in East Texas (Perttula 2016d).

Figure 9. Canton Incised jar from the Yarbrough site. Photograph taken by Bo Nelson. 12

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The T. M. Joslin site is a multi-component prehistoric site that was investigated by UT in September 1940 as WPA Project No. 15409 (Duffen 1940). The excavations began immediately after the UT WPA crew had finished work at the nearby Yarbrough site (Johnson 1962:156). 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 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 (Figure 10).

Figure 10. Canton Incised jar from the T. M. Joslin site. Figure prepared by Lance Trask. 13

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The archaeological material culture remains recovered in the investigations that I documented are evidence of the long-term and periodic use of the T. M. Joslin site by aboriginal peoples (Perttula 2015b). A variety of chipped stone projectile points recovered indicate that it was occupied initially during the Late Paleoindian period, then more substantially during the Late Archaic and Woodland periods. The principal archaeological component at the T. M. Joslin site was during the Middle Caddo period, from ca. A.D. 12001400, when it was likely a settlement occupied for several years by a group of Caddo peoples. The component’s ceramic assemblage is dominated by sherds from grog-tempered plain, utility, and fine ware vessels, including Canton Incised jars, Sanders Plain bowls and carinated bowls, Sanders Engraved bowls and carinated bowls, and a Spoonbill Engraved bowl. The ancestral Caddo ceramic assemblage here shares both technological and stylistic characteristics with other Middle Caddo period sites in the upper Sabine River basin. WPA-GUS ARNOLD ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY STUDIES Gus Arnold identified and recorded a number of ancestral Caddo sites during his 1940 WPAsponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. To date, I have been able to study the artifact collections, especially the ceramic sherd assemblages, as Arnold typically collected substantial sherd samples from plowed fields during the survey effort, from 10 sites in the Attoyac (Perttula 2015c, 2016e), Ayish, and Palo Gaucho bayou basins in San Augustine County and 13 Caddo sites in the Patroon, Palo Gaucho, and Housen bayous in Sabine County (Perttula 2015d). These are areas where the temporal, spatial, and social character of the Caddo archaeological record is not well known. The character of these ceramic sherds—and their stylistic (Figure 11) and technological similarities or differences to other studied ceramic assemblages in the region—were the primary focus of the analyses. This work documented ancestral Caddo components that were occupied as early as ca. A.D. 1000 and as late as the late 18 th century (at Mission Dolores de los Ais [41SA25] in San Augustine County).

Figure 11. Selected decorative elements on utility ware sherds from 41SB34: a-b, f-i, incised-punctated; c-d, incisedstamped; e, brushed-incised-punctated. Figure prepared by Lance Trask.

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Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS A variety of WPA-sponsored archaeological projects in East Texas on ancestral Caddo sites were conducted between 1938-1941 by University of Texas archaeologists. During that work, the main focus was on large Caddo villages and/or mound centers at the Hatchel (41BW3), Mitchell (41BW4), and George C. Davis (41CE19) sites, but non-mound habitation sites were also investigated at the Yarbrough (41VN6) and Joslin (41VN3) sites in the Sabine River basin, and many other Caddo sites were identified and recorded by Gus E. Arnold during a wide ranging archaeological survey of 16 East Texas counties. These sites were occupied between ca. A.D. 1000 to the early 18th century by different Caddo groups. Much of the WPA work had never been fully studied, documented, or published until just recently, because monies had not been provided by the WPA to complete detailed analyses that would have led to the publication of journal articles, monographs, and technical reports. However, because the WPA collections and records from the East Texas work have been readily available at TARL, I have been able to recently complete, with the assistance of colleagues, analytical studies of these extensive collections. This article discusses the archaeological findings that have been newly obtained about Caddo native history from the detailed analysis of features (including constructed mounds, structures, and burials) and material culture remains, in particular ceramic vessels from burial features and ceramic vessel sherds and pipes, from different archaeological contexts at the aforementioned WPA-investigated sites. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I appreciate the fine work done by the staff at TARL in facilitating access to the well-maintained collections and records from the WPA-investigated archaeological sites in East Texas, particularly Marybeth Tomka, Jonathan Jarvis, and Jean Hughes. Various figures and photographs in this article have been prepared by Bo Nelson, Marybeth Tomka, and Lance Trask. REFERENCES CITED Duffen, W. A. 1940 Site No. 28A5-3, T. M. Joslin Place, 2 miles northwest of Grand Saline, Van Zandt County, Texas. MS on file, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin. Guy, Janice A. 1990 Previous Archeological Investigations. In The Archeology and Bioarcheology of the Gulf Coastal Plain, by Dee Ann Story, Janice A Guy, Barbara A. Burnett, Martha D. Freeman, Jerome C. Rose, D. Gentry Steele, Ben W. Olive, and Karl J. Reinhard, pp. 27-130. Research Series No. 38. 2 Vols. Arkansas Archeological Survey, Fayetteville. Im, Hyo-Jai 1975 An Analysis of the G. E. Arnold Survey of East Texas. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin. Jackson, A. T. 2004 Excavation of an Earth Mound, Bowie County, Texas. Caddoan Archeology Journal 13 (No. 3/4):57-64. Johnson, Leroy, Jr. 1962 The Yarbrough and Miller Sites of Northeastern Texas, with a Preliminary Definition of the LaHarpe Aspect. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 32:141-284. Krieger, Alex D. 1946 Culture Complexes and Chronology in Northern Texas with Extension of Puebloan Datings to the Mississippi Valley. Publication No. 4640. The University of Texas, Austin. Marceaux, P. Shawn 2011 The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Hasinai Caddo: Material Culture and the Course of European Contact. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin. Means, Bernard K. 2015 Labouring in the Fields of the Past: Geographic Variation in New Deal Archaeology Across the Lower 48 United States. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 25(2):1-11. Newell, H. Perry 1940 Report for Second Quarter of 1940 on East Texas Crew No. 1 (Works Project No. 15312): Continuation of Work in Village and Mound. Report on file, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin.

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Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

Newell, H. Perry and Alex D. Krieger 1949 The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas. Memoir No. 5. Society for American Archaeology, Menasha, Wisconsin. 2000 The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas. 2nd Edition. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C. Perttula, Timothy K. 2005a 1938-1939 WPA Excavations at the Hatchel Site (41BW3) on the Red River in Bowie County, Texas. Southeastern Archaeology 24(2):180-198. 2005b Views of the Hatchel Site (41BW3) during the 1938-1939 WPA Excavations. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 21:65-76. 2014a Archaeological Studies of the Hatchel Site (41BW3) on the Red River in Bowie County, Texas. Special Publication No. 23. Friends of Northeast Texas Archaeology, Austin and Pittsburg. 2014b The Mitchell Site (41BW4): An Ancestral Caddo Settlement and Cemetery on McKinney Bayou, Bowie County, Texas. Special Publication No. 32. Friends of Northeast Texas Archaeology, Pittsburg and Austin. 2015a Caddo Ceramic Vessels from the Hatchel Site (41BW3) on the Red River in Bowie County, Texas. Special Publication No. 39. Friends of Northeast Texas Archaeology, Austin and Pittsburg. 2015b The T. M. Joslin Site (41VN3) in the Sabine River Basin, Van Zandt County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 52:89-98. 2015c Two Caddo Sites in the Attoyac Bayou Basin in the East Texas Pineywoods, San Augustine County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 54:41-53. 2015d Caddo Sites on Patroon, Palo Gaucho, and Housen Bayous in Sabine County in the Sabine River Basin of East Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 54:63-91. 2016a 18th Century Mexican Majolica Sherds from the George C. Davis Site (41CE19), Cherokee County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 67, in press. 2016b Documentation of Early Caddo Period Ceramic Vessels from the George C. Davis Site on the Neches River in Cherokee County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 64, in press. 2016c 41CE291: An Historic Caddo Settlement in the Neches River Valley in East Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 66, in press. 2016d Caddo Ceramic Vessels from the Fred Yarbrough Site (41VN6) in the Upper Sabine River Basin, Van Zandt County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 64, in press. 2016e Caddo Ceramic Assemblages from Sites in the Ayish and Palo Gaucho Bayou Basins, San Augustine County, Texas. Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 70, in press. Perttula, Timothy K., Bo Nelson, and Mark Walters 2016 Caddo Ceramic Vessels from the Paul Mitchell Site (41BW4) on the Red River, Bowie County, Texas. Special Publication No. 44. Friends of Northeast Texas Archaeology, Austin and Pittsburg, in press. Sabo, George, III 2012 The Teran map and Caddo Cosmology. In The Archaeology of the Caddo, edited by Timothy K. Perttula and Chester P. Walker, pp. 431-447. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Story, Dee Ann 1997 1968-1970 Archeological Investigations at the George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 68:1-113. 1998 The George C. Davis Site: Glimpses into Early Caddoan Symbolism and Ideology. In The Native History of the Caddo: Their Place in Southeastern Archeology and Ethnohistory, edited by Timothy K. Perttula and James E. Bruseth, pp. 9-43. Studies in Archeology 30. Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin. 2000 Introduction. In The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas, by H. Perry Newell and Alex D. Krieger, pp. 1-31. Second edition. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C.

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Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

Recent or Noteworthy Publications Editor’s note: As is usual and very much appreciated, Marlin Hawley has worked diligently and most of the references below result from his efforts. Adams, John M. 2013 The Millionaire and the Mummies: Theodore Davis’s Gilded Age in the Valley of the Kings. St. Martin’s Press, New York. Barnhart, Terry A. 2015 American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origins of American Archaeology. The University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln Bloembergen, Marieke and Martijn Eickhoff 2011 Conserving the Past, Mobilizing the Indonesian Future: Archaeological Sites, Regime Change and Heritage Politics in Indonesia in the 1950s. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 167:405-436. Carew, Mairead 2014 'The Pageant of the Celt' World's Fair—Irish Archaeology at the Chicago World's Fair, 1933-4. Archaeology Ireland 28 (1):9-12. Cleland, Charles E. and Teresita Majewski 2008 J. C. Harrington Medal in Historical Archaeology: James Edward Ayres. Historical Archaeology 42(2):15. Doroszenko, Dena 2004/2005 Thirty-Five Years of Archaeology at the Ontario Heritage Foundation. Revista de Arqueología Americana 23:139-152. Ellen, Roy 2013 "These Rude Implements": Competing Claims for Authenticity in the Eolithic Controversy. Anthropological Quarterly 86:445-479. Goodrum, Matthew 2011 Recovering the Vestiges of Primeval Europe: Archaeology and the Significance of Stone Implements, 1750—1800. Journal of the History of Ideas 72:51-74. Hallote, Rachel 2011 Before Albright: Charles Torrey, James Montgomery, and American Biblical Archaeology 1907-1922. Near Eastern Archaeology 74:156-169. Holloway, Steven W. 2004 Nineveh Sails for the New World: Assyria Envisioned by Nineteenth-Century America. Iraq, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One, pp. 243-256. Kosakowsky, Laura J. and Norman Yoffee 2014 T. Patrick Culbert, 1930–2013. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:5-7. Kwas, Mary L. 2008 The Growth of Historical Archaeology and Its Impact in Arkansas. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 67:329-341. Laird, Roderick D. 2015 Meet the Finders, the Unsung People Who Discovered the Milestone Paleoamerican Sites in North America. Saratoga Museum Paper #5, Saratoga, Wyoming. Langemann, Gwyn E. and Sheila Greaves 2015 Curiosities, Collectors and Housepits in Banff National Park: The First Protected Archaeological Site in Canada. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 39(1). Leshikar-Denton, Margaret E. And Toni L. Carrell 2011 J. C. Harrington Medal in Historical Archaeology: Maria del Pinar Luna Erreguerena. Historical Archaeology 45(2): 1-6. Lobell, Jarrett A. 2015 The Minoans of Crete. Archaeology 68 (3):28-35. 17

Newsletter of the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group Volume 6, Number 1

March 2016

Lyman, R. Lee 2015 The History of ‘‘Laundry Lists’’ in North American Zooarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 39:42–50. Mackay, R. 2015 Obituary: James Semple Kerr (1932-2014). Australian Archaeology 80:116-117. MacKenzie, Duncan , Shlomo Bunimovitz, Zvi Lederman, Nicoletta Momigliano 2016 The Excavations of Beth Shemesh, November–December 1912. Routledge, London. McGuinnes, David 2010 Druids' Altars, Carrowmore and the Birth of Irish archaeology. The Journal of Irish Archaeology 19:29-49. Meltzer, David J. 2015 The Great Paleolithic War: How Science Forged an Understanding of America’s Ice Age Past. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Merrilles, Robert S. 2015 Ruminations on a Lifetime Spent in Archaeological Research. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 3 (3):246-250. Murray, John, Heinz Peter Nasheuer, Cathal Seoighe, Grace P. McCormack, D. Michael Williams, and David A.T. Harper 2015 The Contribution of William King to the Early Development of Palaeoanthropology. Irish Journal of Earth Sciences 33:1-16. Nakazawa, Yuichi 2010 Dual Nature in the Creation of Disciplinary Identity: A Socio-historical Review of Palaeolithic Archaeology in Japan. Asian Perspectives 49(2), Special Issue: New and Emergent Trends in Japanese Paleolithic Research (Fall 2010), pp. 231-250. Noble, Vergil E. 2011 A Conversation with Charles E. Cleland. Historical Archaeology 45(2):113-131. Owen, Janet 2013 Darwin's Apprentice: An Archaeological Biography of John Lubbock. Pen and Sword Archaeology. Randall, Asa R. 2015 Constructing Histories: Archaic Freshwater Shell Mounds and Social Landscapes of the St. Johns River, Florida. Ripley P. Bullen Series. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Redman, Samuel J. 2016 Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Roberts, Charlotte 2015 Living with the Ancient Romans: Past and Present in Eighteenth-Century Encounters with Herculaneum and Pompeii. Huntington Library Quarterly 78:61-85. Robin, Cynthia 2014 Elizabeth Brumfiel, 1945–2012. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:1-4. Sheets, Payson 2014 Robert J. Sharer, 1940–2012. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:9-10. Stapp, Darby C. 2009 An Interview with Roderick Sprague. Historical Archaeology 43:135-149. Szuchman, Jeffrey 2015 An Archaeologist in International Development. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 3:250-254. Veit, Richard 2009 J. C. Harrington Medal in Historical Archaeology: Robert L. Schuyler. Historical Archaeology 43 (2):9-14.

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