Analysis of the Prehistoric Artifacts from the Pace McDonald Site (41AN51), Anderson County, Texas

Abstract

The Pace McDonald site (41AN51) is a poorly known prehistoric Caddo mound center on Mound Prairie Creek in Anderson County, Texas, in the upper Neches River Basin. With the permission of one of the landowners, Mr. Johnny Sanford, the Friends of Northeast Texas Archaeology are planning on initiating an archaeological research effort at the site in 2010. The ultimate purpose of this work is to learn more about the native history of this mound center-when it was occupied and used, and by which prehistoric Caddo group--its intra-site spatial organization, and ultimately obtain site-specific archaeological information that can help understand the site's place and role in the Caddo prehistory of this part of East Texas. It will be a long-term effort to accomplish these tasks. We intend to rely upon both archaeological (i.e., survey, surface collections, systematic shovel testing, and focused hand excavations) and archaeogeophysical disciplines (especially to complete a magnetometer survey of as much as the site as possible, as this has become an important aspect of Caddo archaeological investigations, to gather relevant archaeological information on the location and character of Caddo house features and outdoor activity areas, as well as the associated material culture remains and preserved plant and animal remains. One key aspect of our work is to understand the characteristics of the Caddo material culture from the Pace McDonald site, since this will have a large bearing on the age of the Caddo occupation, which has been a matter of dispute for some years. In this article 1 summarize the results and findings of a recent examination of the site's prehistoric artifacts (especially its prehistoric Caddo artifacts) in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin (TARL).