Abstract

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Buddy Calvin Jones of Longview, Texas, identified and investigated archaeological sites across many counties in East Texas. Many of those sites were ancestral Caddo sites occupied from as early as ca. A.D. 850 to the early 1800s, and in his work he obtained surface collections of ceramic sherds from sites as well as large sherd assemblages and ceramic vessels from excavations in habitation deposits and Caddo cemeteries. Jones published only a few papers on his investigations, but his expansive archaeological collections (accompanied by notes and documentation) were donated to the Gregg County Historical Museum in 2003, where they are available for study. Since that time, his various site specific collections of ancestral Caddo material culture remains have begun to be documented, along with more extensive analyses of excavations of Caddo sites in the Little Cypress Creek basin in Upshur County, Texas and along the Red River in Red River County, Texas. This article continues the analyses of the 100+ ancestral Caddo ceramic collections from sites in the Buddy Jones collection by focusing on several of the many previously unanalyzed sherd samples obtained from sites throughout much of East Texas. Jones did not publish analyses of any of these collections in his lifetime.

Highlights

  • Analytical MethodsThe stylistic analysis of the ceramic vessel sherds from East Texas Caddo sites collected by Buddy Calvin Jones in the 1950s and 1960s focuses on the deÀnition of recognizable decorative elements on sherds from the Àne wares (i.e., the engraved and red-slipped vessels, including carinated bowls and bottles) and utility wares (i.e., the coarse paste decorated vessels), usually cooking or storage jars and simple bowls

  • )URPWKHODWHVWRWKHHDUO\V%XGG\&DOYLQ-RQHVRI/RQJYLHZ7H[DVLGHQWLÀHGDQG investigated archaeological sites across many counties in East Texas (Figure 1)

  • Many of the sherd collections are from sites that have not formally been recorded with the State of Texas

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Summary

Analytical Methods

The stylistic analysis of the ceramic vessel sherds from East Texas Caddo sites collected by Buddy Calvin Jones in the 1950s and 1960s focuses on the deÀnition of recognizable decorative elements on sherds from the Àne wares (i.e., the engraved and red-slipped vessels, including carinated bowls and bottles) and utility wares (i.e., the coarse paste decorated vessels), usually cooking or storage jars and simple bowls. These wares are known to have been made and used differently, based on functional, technological, and stylistic analyses on numerous Caddo sherd assemblages in the broader East Texas region, with uses ranging from food service, cooking of food stuffs, as containers for liquids, and for plant food/ seed crop storage. The design elements are deÀned at different levels of association, depending upon variations in the designs (e.g., the number and spacing of engraved lines on a rim), the location of the decoration (e.g., on the rim, body, on the vessel interior, etc.), and the method of decoration (e.g., horizontal vs. vertical brushing)

Sites in East Texas with Ceramic Vessel Sherd Samples
Upshur County
Punctated tool punctated rows
Farm Home Site
Plain Utility Fine
Incised parallel lines straight line
Punctated Àngernail punctated rows tool punctated rows
Summary and Conclusions
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