An Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessel from the Mack Spence Site (41CS6) in the Sulphur River Basin in East Texas

There is a single ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel in the vessel collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin from the Mack Spencer site (41CS6) near the Sulphur River in Cass County, in East Texas. The 2D documentation of the vessel is put on record in this article.

An Ancestral Caddo Site (41CS125) on the Sulphur River at Lake Wright Patman, Cass County, Texas

ln December 2017, AmaTerra Environmental lnc. conducted an intensive archeological survey of 41CS125, a previously reported ancestral Caddo site at Lake Wright Patman in Cass County, Texas. The work was done at the request of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District in advance of a proposed bank stabilization pro}ect. The site was occupied from the Late Paleoindian period through historic times with extensive occupations during the Formative to Early Caddo and Late Caddo periods. Artifacts recovered in the investigations included both arrow and dart points, lithic debitage, bifaces, ground stone, a celt fragment, pitted stone, ceramic sherds, a ceramic bead, charred organic material, unidentified bone fragments, and 19th century historic domestic materials. While the site has been adversely affected through alluvial erosion and looting, survey results indicate that intact components of the site still exist along the northern and western periphery of the landform.

Ceramic Sherd Assemblages from the Hawkins Bluff (41CS2), Snipes (41CS8), and 41CS44 Sites on the lower Sulphur River at Lake Wright Patman, Cass County, Texas

Many documented sites on the lower Sulphur River in the East Texas Pineywoods were occupied by Caddo peoples, and there are a number of such sites at Lake Wright Patman, including better known sites such as Knight’s Bluff (41CS14) and Sherwin (41CS26). These sites appear to have been small villages with family cemeteries, occupied between ca. A.D. 1200-1400. In this article, I discuss the ceramic sherd assemblages from three less well-known Middle Caddo period occupations at other sites at Lake Wright Patman.

Armstrong Landing Site (41CS37): An Ancestral Caddo Site on the Sulphur River, Cass County, Texas

The Armstrong Landing site (41CS37) is an ancestral Caddo site on an alluvial terrace of the Sulphur River at Lake Wright Patman. It was formally recorded by Briggs and Malone (1970) prior to a planned enlargement of Lake Wright Patman. According to records on file at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin (TARL), collectors from the Texarkana area had worked the site in the early 1960s, digging four burials there and noting extensive midden deposits. The site remains above the normal conservation flood pool of the lake at present, but is subject to erosion from wave action.

Artifacts in the Raymond Powell Collection from East Texas

In March 2010, Raymond Powell of Mansfield, Louisiana, allowed the examination and photographic documentation of several artifacts in his possession. The specimens were given to him approximately 60 years ago by a friend who reportedly excavated them from a burial located in either Cass County or Titus County in East Texas. The collection consists of six ceramic vessels and three stone artifacts. The vessels appear to relate to both the Late Caddo Titus phase (ca. A.D. 1430-1680) as well as to contemporaneous sites in Bowie and Cass counties on the Red River near the Great Bend area, and the lower Sulphur River, that have been associated with the Nasoni Caddo.