The Caddo Ceramics from Three Sites on Hawkins Creek in the Sabine River Basin, Gregg County, Texas

Timothy K Perttula

doi:10.21112/.ita.2014.1.48

Abstract

Buddy Jones collected ceramic sherds from Caddo sites across the mid-Sabine River basin, in Gregg, Harrison, and Rusk counties, in the 1950s and 1960s. With only a few exceptions, however, did Jones complete analyses or publications on his collecting activities, and in most cases his general collections have not been fully inventoried or analyzed. In an attempt to remedy that, and in the process gather important information on the technological and stylistic character of Caddo ceramics found in Caddo settlements in the mid-Sabine River basin, this article discusses the ancestral Caddo ceramic assemblages from three sites in the Hawkins Creek drainage in central Gregg County, Texas. Hawkins Creek is a small and southern-flowing tributary to the river.

Highlights

The Washington Square Paneled vessel sherds are indicative of Middle Caddo period
A.D. 1200-1450) components. while the other identified types can be expected in both Middle and Late Caddo components in the mid-Sabine River basin. Another indication of the age of the ceramics on these Caddo components is the proportions of brushed sherds in broadly contemporaneous mid-Sabine River Harrison and Rusk County sites, which range from 26-67% (Heartfield, Price, and Greene, Inc. 1988; Gadus et al 2006; Dockall et al 2008: Dockall and Fields 2011; Perttula and Nelson 2013)
The site with the lowest proportion of brushed pottery in the decorated sherd assemblages is 41 HS84o (Gadus et al 2006), which has Bonham arrow points and two calibrated l o umal r~f Northeast Texas Archaeology 45 (2014) 29 radiocarbon dates that range from A.D. 1280-1420 at two sigma (Gadus eta!. 2006)

Summary

D Post Oak SaYannah

There are 199 ceramic sherds from the Group's Place site. 132 plain sherds, 52 utility ware shcrcls. and 15 fine ware shertls (Table I). The most common are sherds from vessels with brushed or brushed-incised bodies.likely decorated with vertical brushing and/or incised marks and lines that extend from the rim-body juncture to near the vessel hase. Incised utility wares include a single rim with diagonal incised lines, prohahly from a Maydelle Incised vessel, as well as body sherds with cross-hatcht:d or parallel incised lines. The second sherd has horizontal incised lines below the rim-hody juncture, followed by a row of linear tool punctations, and by horizontal brushing marks (sec Figure 2e). The one incised-punctated-brushed body sherd has an incised panel filled with two rows of tool pum:tates, with the panel above vertical and horizontal opposed brushing marks (see Figure 2a). Both incised-punetated sherds are rims (see Table 3) Both have a row of tool punctates under the vessel lip and abovt: horizontal incised lines. The other engraved body sherds have curvilinear elemeULs: the first has a panel with ovals, semi-circles, and open triangles (see Figure 3d), while the other has a set of two curvilinear lines adjacent to a set of several parallel engraved lines (see Figure 3e)

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Findings

Decorative Method