Caddo Archaeology Research Articles

Perspectives on East Texas Archaeology

A key to my career as an archaeologist working in East Texas has been a very successful professional-avocational collaboration on a wide range of projects with individuals and avocational organizations working in East Texas, such as the Northeast Texas Archeological Society, the East Texas Archeological Society, the Valley of the Caddo Archeological Society, the East Texas Caddo Research Group, as well as the Gregg County Historical Museum, among other museums in the region that hold ancestral Caddo archaeological collections. It has been my good fortune to work with a number of very knowledgeable and hard-working East Texas avocational archaeologists and Texas Archeological Stewardship Network members over the years, including Bo Nelson (who has gone on to establish a professional career as an archaeologist and also start his own CRM firm, Tejas Archaeology, in 1997), Mark Walters, Tom Middlebrook, Patti Haskins, Robert L. Turner, Jr., Kevin Stingley, Bryan Boyd, Mike Turner, Mark Thatcher, Gary W. Cheatwood, Clyde Amick, Lee Green, and Bill Young, among others.

The Consideration of the Caddo Area in “Food Production in Native North America: An Archaeological Perspective”

Kristen J. Gremillion has written “a highly selective survey of Native North American food production systems from an archaeological perspective,” with a particular focus on plant food production in the Eastern Woodlands and the Southwest. The time frame of the book spans the period from ca. 3000 B.C. to post-European contact, extending up to ca. A.D. 1800. The archaeological evidence for plant food production in the Caddo Archaeological Area of Southwest Arkansas, Northwest Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and East Texas is mentioned by Gremillion, but only rather briefly in her chapter entitled “the Rise of the Three Sisters: Maize in the Eastern Woodlands.”

Current Research: Toward a Collaborative Development of a Truly Comprehensive Multi-State Material Culture Database

Throughout the past several years, I have been compiling, with the help of several Caddo researchers, a comprehensive multi-state database primarily composed of whole Caddo vessels from published excavations, private collections, and archaeological reports. At present, the database contains over 13,000 vessel entries from over 500 sites ranging from a single vessel recorded at a site to hundreds. Over the years, the database has evolved to contain, where applicable, attribute fields on type, variety, motif designs (largely using the Glossary of Motifs published in the Spiro shell engravings, collegiate assignment, form, temper, decorative method (incised, brushed, etc.), context (burial #, site #, intra site location), pigment, archaeological phase, collector, repository, associated photographs, and reference citations. The database is managed using Microsoft Access where data are imported into ESRI ArcGIS and spatial analyses can be conducted. This is a continual, and perhaps never-ending, work in progress where attribute fields are added, types are vetted, and new sites are included. In some cases, “Caddo-like” vessels from sites outside the Caddo Archaeological Area, or Caddo Homeland, are included in order to evaluate social interaction and exchange of ideas. Through this process, some initial insights into landscape scale social interactions and interregional relationships using this growing comprehensive database have been explored.

Distribution of Design: The Rayed Circle

The importance of the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) in archaeological applications has been demonstrated previously. The value of using a GIS approach is an ability to conduct multivariate spatial analyses in order to visualize complex social relationships, interactions, and distributions across a broad cultural landscape. Within Caddo archaeology, the utilization of GIS functionality to explore spatial phenomenon has been employed in a variety of ways, such as site organization and interaction, material distribution and exchange, and environmental modeling and landscape reconstruction, to name a few. The following report adds to the growing list of GIS-based case studies in Caddo archaeology with preliminary results of an on-going project evaluating the distribution of visual imagery depicted on a select corpus of whole Caddo ceramic vessels.

The Caddo Archaeological Record in the Saline Creek and County Line Creek Valleys in Cherokee and Smith Counties, Texas

Both the Saline and County Line creeks in the upper Neches River basin were habitats where significant numbers of Caddo peoples lived in ancestral times. As with recent studies of the ancestral Caddo archaeology of the nearby Caddo Creek valley and the San Pedro Creek valley, the purpose of this consideration of the known archaeological record of Caddo settlement in the Saline and County Line creek valleys is to explore the nature of their permanent use during the lengthy native history of Caddo peoples in East Texas between ca. A.D. 900-1838.

Caddo Archaeology in the Caddo Creek Valley of the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson and Henderson Counties, Texas

Caddo Archaeology in the Caddo Creek Valley of the Upper Neches River Basin, Anderson and Henderson Counties, Texas

Syntheses of the Caddo Archaeological Record

The pursuit of Caddo archaeological research over the last 100+ years has led to considerable gains during that time in the understanding of such research issues as settlement patterning, subsistence change and diet, health and adaptive efficiency, sociopolitical organization, ceremony and ritual, iconography, and exchange networks among the Caddo peoples and their past communities. Much of this has been the result of intensive cultural resource management investigations in southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and East Texas, along with focused archaeological research projects conducted by university archaeological programs and state and regional archaeological societies. The years ahead promise to continue to shed new light on the character and understanding of the ca. A.D. 850-1850s Caddo archaeological record.

Historic Caddo Archaeological Sites in Cherokee County, Texas

The historic archaeology of the Caddo Indian peoples in East Texas has been the subject of considerable interest by Caddo archaeologists for a number of years. Much of that interest has been focused on the investigation of the effects of European contact on Caddo cultural traditions and practices, particularly the impact of introduced European epidemic diseases, and the impact of Spanish, French, and American colonization efforts. In recent years, another focus of Historic Caddo archaeological investigations has been on characterizing the material culture record of the different clusters of Caddo Indian sites in East Texas, most notably the study of the diversity in the decorative styles and technologies of their hand-made ceramic vessels as clues to identifying clusters of ethnically and socially related communities in the Angelina and Neches River basins that were living in the region after the mid-17th century A.D. Herein, we discuss the archaeological findings from four Historic Caddo sites in the Bowles Creek basin in Cherokee County, Texas, that have ceramic assemblages that help to better characterize the nature of what has been defined as Neche cluster sites; “a cluster is strictly a group of possibly related sites in close geographic proximity to each other” suggests that certain sites in the middle Neches River basin (and the Bowles Creek valley) are affiliated with the Neche Caddo groups, and the sites described in this article may well belong to the Neche cluster.

The Caddo Archaeology of the San Pedro Creek Valley, Houston County, in East Texas

The Nabedache Caddo that lived on San Pedro Creek in Houston County in the East Texas Pineywoods were a prominent nation during the early years of European contact, from ca. A.D. 1687-1730, if not later. Their villages, hamlets, and farmsteads sat astride an aboriginal Caddo trail that came to be known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, and thus their community was a principal gateway to Europeans and other Native American tribes who came from the west in Spanish Texas to meet with the Tejas or Hasinai Caddo peoples. The first Spanish mission in East Texas was established amidst the Nabedache Caddo community in 1690. According to Swanton, Nabedache means the place of the thorny trees with black berries growing on them (beidatco). The “Na” is the Caddo language locative prefix meaning “the place of;” it can also “refer to the people residing at that place”. Rogers and Sabo indicate that Nabedache means “blackberry place.” The archaeology of the Nabedache Caddo, or that of their pre-A.D. 1542 ancestors, is not well understood, primarily because of the dearth of intensive investigations at a range of Nabedache Caddo sites that likely occur along San Pedro Creek as well as nearby streams in the Neches River basin. Work that has been completed, primarily on sites at Mission Tejas State Park, have included surveys and limited test excavations at a few sites that have Caddo material culture remains (sherds from ceramic vessels, chipped stone tools, etc.) and European trade goods, including glass beads, gunflints, lead balls and sprue, an iron hoe, an iron rowel, a possible strike-a-light, an iron gun cock, trigger plate, butt plate finial, and gun barrel fragments, iron cast iron kettle fragments, iron knife fragments, wrought iron nails, brass tinklers, and Spanish majolica sherds. In this article, I discuss the archaeological material culture remains from ancestral Caddo sites along San Pedro Creek, including those known to have been occupied by the Nabedache Caddo peoples after the mid-1680s.

Utility Ware Ceramic Metrics and Hasinai Caddo Archaeology in East Texas

The use of ceramic metrics (i.e., ratios of various categories of decorated sherds as well as use of different tempers) has become an important analytical tool in assessing the stylistic similarity of different assemblages of Late Caddo and Historic Caddo ceramic assemblages in East Texas. In this article, I employ recent compilations of ceramic vessel sherd assemblages from sites in the Neches, Angelina, and Sabine River basins that focus on the distinctive character of Caddo utility ware vessel decorations, particularly the common use of brushing as a decorative method, and the ratio of brushed to other wet paste decorated sherds.

Archaeological Investigations at the Wade (GC-38) and Estes (GC-49) Sites in the Sabine River Basin, Gregg County, Texas

Buddy C. Jones conducted extensive archaeological investigations in the 1950s and 1960s at many sites in the mid-Sabine River basin of East Texas, especially on Caddo sites of various ages in Gregg, Harrison, and Rusk counties. However, that work has not illuminated our understanding of the archaeology of the Caddo Indian peoples that lived along this stretch of the Sabine River as much as it could have, primarily because little of the work completed by Jones was ever published, or the results and findings shared with professional and avocational archaeological colleagues working in the region. The Caddo archaeology of the Gregg County stretch of the Sabine River, in particular, is poorly known by comparison with the archaeological record in the upper Sabine River or to the archaeological studies recently completed downstream in Harrison County at sites such as Pine Tree Mound (41HS15). To begin to develop a better appreciation of the Caddo archaeology in the mid-Sabine River basin, we have made a concerted effort to analyze and document collections obtained by Jones from Caddo sites in Gregg County and the surrounding region. In this article, we discuss the archaeological findings from the Wade and Estes sites discovered and investigated by Jones in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The sites are near each other in the southeastern part of Gregg County. The Wade site is on a landform near the confluence of Peatown Creek and Dutchman Creek, northern-flowing tributaries to the Sabine River. The Estes site is on a large alluvial terrace on the north side of the Sabine River, across from the confluence of Dutchman Creek and the Sabine River This article focuses particularly on the excavations of portions of an ancestral Caddo house structure at the Wade site and the analysis of the substantial decorated sherd assemblages at both the Wade and Estes sites.

The Caddo Archaeology of the Musgano Site (41RK19) in the Sabine River Basin of East Texas

The Caddo Archaeology of the Musgano Site (41RK19) in the Sabine River Basin of East Texas

History of the East Texas Caddoan/Caddo Research Group, 1996-2008

Recently, the senior author of this article has been working with Hester Davis (Arkansas Archeological Survey) regarding the editing of her manuscript on the history of the Caddo Conference, which had its 50th meeting in March 2008. In her manuscript she laments the fact that there is very little time being spent by its participants in keeping track of its history: either in the form of transcripts of the meetings, notes on each conference, saving photographs and images, or actively maintaining an archive of materials resulting from each Conference. Davis pointed out that it was important to maintain a record of each Conference, and take steps to do a better job in preserving for others that record for present and future Caddo Conference participants and researchers. Hester’s points, which we agree with, led directly to our discussing the need to put on record a history, as best we can recall it, of the East Texas Caddoan/Caddo Research Group. This informal group has met a number of times since 1996, with the purpose of advancing the general understanding of Caddo archaeology in the East Texas region. The meetings have been held to discuss pertinent and current problems and research issues concerning East Texas Caddo archaeology. As we recall, the East Texas Caddoan [now Caddo] Research Group (ETCRG) developed out of discussions between Perttula and Middlebrook in January 1996. Middlebrook’s own interests in the idea had been piqued by reading the obituary of Fred Plog in the October 1995 American Antiquity that described his founding of the Southwestern Anthropological Research Group, the success that group had in working together on common research problems, and in working together to improve understandings of the prehistory of the American Southwest. This seemed to both of us like an idea worth emulating for the Caddo archaeological area, or at least the East Texas part of the area since we were more familiar with this region’s archaeology and the archaeologists working in that area.

Towards the Concerted Study of Caddo Origins

The study of the origins of any people from an archaeological perspective is a considerable undertaking, one that may task the efforts and thoughts of a multitude of people, probably from several disciplines. After the talking and discussion in the 2008 East Texas Caddo Research Group (ETCRG) meeting about Caddo origins, how do we proceed from here on out to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of Caddo origins? For the purposes of discussion, I am assuming that the ETCRG participants agree that the concerted study of Caddo origins is an issue and research problem worth undertaking. I recently had occasion to read “Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology” to see if their consideration of origins may have some relevant and programmatic suggestions to offer that could serve Caddo archaeologists and ETCRG participants well in our future studies. I think they offer some suggestions and an approach well-worth further consideration for future ETCRG meetings as well as for other meetings and avenues of study concerning Caddo archaeology.

Towards the Concerted Study of Caddo Origins

The study of the origins of any people from an archaeological perspective is a considerable undertaking, one that may task the efforts and thoughts of a multitude of people, probably from several disciplines. After the talking and discussion in the 2008 East Texas Caddo Research Group (ETCRG) meeting about Caddo origins, how do we proceed from here on out to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of Caddo origins? For the purposes of discussion, I am assuming that the ETCRG participants agree that the concerted study of Caddo origins is an issue and research problem worth undertaking. I recently had occasion to read “Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology” to see if their consideration of origins may have some relevant and programmatic suggestions to offer that could serve Caddo archaeologists and ETCRG participants well in our future studies. I think they offer some suggestions and an approach well-worth further consideration for future ETCRG meetings as well as for other meetings and avenues of study concerning Caddo archaeology.

Historic Caddo Archaeology on the Red and Lower Sulphur River Areas of Northeast Texas

Post-ca. A.D. 1685 Caddo archaeological sites are somewhat surprisingly uncommon on the Red and lower Sulphur rivers in Northeast Texas compared to other parts of this broad region. For instance, there are more Historic Caddo sites known in Nacogdoches County in the Neches and Angelina river basin in East Texas than there are in all of the Red and lower Sulphur river regions. The low density of Historic Caddo archaeological sites on the Red and lower Sulphur river areas of Northeast Texas is a product of several factors, the most important likely being the rapid abandonment of much of the area after ca. A.D. 1685 because of regional depopulation caused by the introduction of European epidemic diseases. Other factors would include the effects of looting and river flooding that has destroyed sites and collections before they could ever be documented, as well as the overall sporadic nature of professional archaeological research along these rivers in the Caddo area. A committed and long-term Historic Caddo archaeological and ethnohistorical research program along the Red and lower Sulphur rivers is long overdue. Post-ca. A.D. 1685 Historic Caddo sites on the Red and lower Sulphur are recognized from two kinds of archaeological materials. These include European trade goods of glass, metal, and wheelmade ceramics, generally more common in post-A.D. 1720 contexts, as well as certain kinds of distinctive decorated Caddo pottery wares, particularly engraved fine wares such as Natchitoches Engraved and varieties of Simms Engraved and Avery Engraved, along with Keno Trailed, var. Phillips. Emory Punctated-lncised (some with constricted necks), Nash Neck Banded, and McKinney Plain types are important decorated utility wares in these two locales. In this article, I provide short summaries of the current state of archaeological knowledge about the Historic Caddo settlement of the Red and lower Sulphur river areas of Northeast Texas. Most of that knowledge, for better or worse, from some specific areas derives from the excavation of Caddo burials, rather than from detailed investigations of habitation contexts.

Historic Caddo Archaeology: An Occasional Meeting of the East Texas Caddo Research Group, December 2-3, 2006, in Nacogdoches Texas

The articles in this issue of the Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology had their origins in a meeting held in December 2006 of the East Texas Caddo Research Group (ETCRG). The meeting of archaeologists was held on December 2 and 3, 2006 at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. The ETCRG is an informal group of individuals interested in advancing the general understanding of Caddo archaeology in the East Texas region, and we have attempted to do this by convening meetings at various times to discuss pertinent and current problems and research issues concerning East Texas Caddo archaeology. The group has met several times between 1996 and 1999, and our most productive sessions dealt with a specific topic: namely, new understandings of the Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400).

Proposal for a 2007 Caddo Archaeology Summit Meeting

The Caddo Indian peoples lived in parts of the four states of Arkansas (specifically southwest Arkansas), Louisiana (the northwestern part of the state), Oklahoma (the eastern region), and Texas (all of East Texas) from deep in prehistoric times until the early 1840s. They left behind an extensive archaeological record marked by important mound centers where the social and political elite lived and led community-wide rituals, ceremonies, and traditions; villages, hamlets, and farmsteads where the people carried out their daily lives; numerous cemeteries and burial grounds where the people were laid to rest following long-standing religious burial ceremonies; as well as salt-making sites, stone tool quarries, hunting camps, and other evidence of the Caddo people’s use of the land long before Americans settled the region.

Remote Sensing at the Horace Cabe Site (41BW14)

A magnetometer survey was conducted at the Horace Cabe Mound site (41BW14) in 2005 by Walker and Schultz as part of the Bowie County Levee Realignment project in Bowie County, Texas. The purpose of the survey was to attempt to locate anomalies that may represent potential archaeological features at this important Late Caddo mound center near the Red River. The area was surveyed using a Geometrics portable G858 cesium sensor magnetometer and a G-856 proton magnetometer base station. This article puts on record another substantive example of Caddo archaeology as seen through the use of remote sensing technology. The original processing and interpretation of this data presented in Sundermeyer et al. are not simply re-hashed here. Further data processing has revealed several possible Caddo structures on and in the immediate vicinity of Mounds B and C at the Cabe site.