scholarly journals Current Archeological Research in East Texas: Documentation of WPS-Gus Arnold Archeological Survey Collections

Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Gus Arnold identified and recorded many ancestral Caddo sites during his 1939-1940 Works Progress Administration (WPA)-sponsored archeological survey of East Texas. Currently, I have been engaged in studying the artifact collections from 51 WPA sites in Angelina, Cherokee, Gregg, Jasper, Nacogdoches, Sabine, and San Augustine counties, especially the ceramic sherd assemblages, held by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas. The sites are located in the Sabine River, Neches River, Angelina River, and Attoyac Bayou stream basins.

Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Excavations in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at the Fred Yarbrough site (41VN6) in the upper Sabine River basin recovered a number of ceramic vessels from Area B of the site. Johnson provided an initial description of the vessels as well as drawings of a number of the reconstructed vessels. In this article, I reexamine the nine vessels from the Fred Yarbrough site held in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin (TARL), employing the vessel documentation protocol used in recent years to document ancestral Caddo vessels from sites in East Texas, and I also provide photographs of each of the vessels.


Author(s):  
Mark Walters ◽  
Timothy K. Perttula

In February 1957, Sam Whiteside of Smith County, Texas, excavated a burial at 41SM53. This site was designated P-4 in Mr. Whiteside’s notes and it was one of several Caddo sites along Prairie Creek in the upper Sabine River basin that he investigated to varying degrees in the 1950s and 1960s. As an a vocational archeologist Mr. Whiteside made many important contributions to East Texas archeology. Dr. Dee Ann Story, of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, who corresponded with Mr. Whiteside, later obtained the trinomial 41SM53 for the site.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The W. T. Robinson Farm site (41AN4) is one of a number of ancestral Caddo sites known in the Caddo Creek valley in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas. The site, about 2.5 miles northwest of Frankston, Texas, was investigated by archaeologists from the University of Texas (UT) in 1931 in an area where locals had reportedly excavated 15 Caddo vessels some 20 years earlier. The UT investigations found no Caddo burials or vessels, and recovered only a small assemblage of ceramic vessel sherds.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Site 41SM91 is an ancestral Caddo habitation site on an upland landform east of the Neches River, in the area of Lake Palestine, a large reservoir constructed on the Neches River in the East Texas Pineywoods; the dam is located about 11 km south of the site. The site was found and recorded during a 1957 survey of the proposed reservoir flood pool, and Johnson described it as “a large Frankston Focus habitation site located in a cultivated field on the slope of a large hill to the east of the Neches floodplain”. A large assemblage of ceramic vessel sherds were collected from the surface of the site during the archaeological survey, and these sherds are in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.


Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula

The Sam Stripling site (41NA197) is an ancestral Caddo settlement on a series of alluvial knolls in the floodplain on the east side of Bayou Loco in the Angelina River basin in the East Texas Pineywoods. The site was first located by Robert L. Turner, Sr. and Jr. in 1938, and in 1939 they told Gus Arnold of the University of Texas about the site when Arnold was conducting a Works Progress Administration (WPA)-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas. Arnold collected a large sample of ceramic vessel sherds from the site (ET-601) during his 1939 survey work, and these collections are held by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin; the Turner’s had also amassed a substantial collection during their work; and in 1996 Tom Middlebrook returned to the site and officially recorded it, noting a well-preserved midden deposit in one part of the site, while also inventorying the Turner’s collection. In this article, I discuss the specific character of the ancestral Caddo ceramic assemblage from the Sam Stripling site recovered during Arnold’s work. Analyses by Middlebrook of the other known collections from the site are in progress.


Author(s):  
Timothy Perttula

Site 41HS74 is an ancestral Caddo habitation site and cemetery on Hatley Creek, a southwardflowing tributary to the Sabine River, in the East Texas Pineywoods (Figure 1). The site was investigated in 1986 by Heartfield, Price and Greene, Inc. (1988). The re-analysis of the ceramic vessels recovered from nine burial features at the site are the subject of this article. The vessels are curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL).


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The Brooks-Lindsey site is a probable post-A.D. 1650 Caddo settlement in the Neches River basin in the East Texas Pineywoods. The site was brought to professional archaeological attention in 1986, when collectors who were working the site contacted archaeologists at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL), and allowed them to examine the ceramic vessel sherd collection they had assembled at that time from surface collections and various excavations.


Author(s):  
TImothy K. Perttula

Sam Whiteside was an active avocational archaeologist in East Texas in the 1950s and early 1960s, and investigated a number of important ancestral Caddo sites in Smith and Upshur counties. Much of his collection of artifacts and notes has been donated to the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas, and there have been several published studies of the archaeological findings from these sites. In this article, I document select collections that have recently become available for study from sites in the Sabine and Neches River basin in Upshur, Smith, and Cherokee counties.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

Site 41HS144 is a Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1450) settlement and cemetery in the Sabine River basin in the East Texas Pineywoods. The site was excavated by collectors, including Mr. Red McFarland, a well-known collector and looter of Caddo burials, in the mid-1970s. McFarland provided to the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL) basic information on the site and the cultural features that he and other collectors found there, and he also donated to TARL a collection of recovered artifacts. This article is an analysis of the available records and collectors from 41HS144.


Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula

The Forest Mound site (41CE290) is an ancestral Caddo site on a sandy knoll on an alluvial terrace of Larrison Creek, a southward-flowing tributary to the Neches River in the East Texas Pineywoods. Raymond Ring, an avocational archaeologist, found and investigated the site in 1962, and amassed a small collection of ceramic sherds and one arrow point that he subsequently donated to the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL).


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