Additional Artifact Collections from the Gardener Site (41CP55), Camp County, Texas

Abstract

The Gardener site (41CP55) was first recorded by Sullivan (1977) prior to construction of Lake Bob Sandlin on Big Cypress Creek. A surface collection of sherds and daub suggested that the site was the locus of a Late Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1450-1680) settlement and burned house. However, no further archaeological work was done at the site before it was inundated by Lake Bob Sandlin in the late 1970s. Recently, because of lower flood pool levels (about 9 ft. below normal flood pool) at Lake Bob Sandlin due to East Texas drought conditions, archaeological materials from the Gardener site have been exposed along the shoreline of the lake. Perttula documented a substantial aboriginal artifact assemblage collected from the shoreline surface of the site, and this article documents a second collection of artifacts from the Gardener site. The Gardener site, whose overall extent is not known, is located along an upland slope (330 ft. amsl) on the west side of Picket Spring Branch, a small and northward-flowing tributary to Big Cypress Creek, in the Post Oak Savanna. The old channel of Big Cypress Creek lies approximately 1.8 km north of the site.