Effigy Vessel Documentation, Caddo Collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K. and Selden, Robert Z. Jr. (2015) "Effigy Vessel Documentation, Caddo Collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2015, Article 11. https://doi.org/ 10.21112/ita.2015.1.11 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2015/iss1/11

vi Effigy Vessel Documentation, Caddo Collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory Introduction Ceramic vessels from ancestral Caddo sites in East Texas are diverse in form, size, manufacture, and decoration, both spatially and temporally. Variation in these attributes, including vessel form as well as any attachments, also "is connected with particular local and regional traditions" (Brown 1996:335). To both appreciate and understand the meaning of vessel form diversity in Caddo vessel assemblages in East Texas-or any other part of the much larger southern Caddo area-the consistent identification of different vessel forms and vessel shapes is crucial (Perttula 2015). The formal identification of the diverse vessel forms and vessel shapes, in conjunction with other vessel attributes, most notably decorative motifs and elements, present in Caddo vessel assemblages should contribute to delimiting the existence and spatial distribution of communities of Caddo potters that were sharing or not sharing ceramic practices and traditions in both short-term and long-term spatial scales, and illuminating small or expansive networks of social groups tied together through regional interaction.
In this study, the focus is on ceramic effigy vessels from Caddo sites in East Texas that are in the collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL) (Figure 1). Ceramic effigy vessels are a very rare vessel form found on Caddo sites, as they comprise about 1 percent of the more than 3100 Caddo vessels currently in the TARL collections.

Figure 1. Location of East Texas sites mentioned in the text with effigy vessels.
Three different effigy bowl shapes have been identified in East Texas Caddo vessel assemblages (Perttula 2015: Figure 8a-c). The differences primarily resolve around the character of the effigy head (both bird and abstract forms) as well as the nature of any other appendages, such as tab tails (Perttula 2015: Figure 8b) and tail riders (Perttula 2015: Figure 8a). The effigy bowls themselves are simple in form, with rounded body wall contours.

Sites in the Upper Neches River Basin
The majority of the Caddo effigy vessels found in East Texas come from ancestral Caddo sites of Frankston (ca. A.D. 1400-1650) and Allen phase (ca. A.D. 1650-1830) age in the upper Neches River basin. This is an area that was heavily populated by Caddo peoples, and there are now known many Caddo settlements and cemeteries preserved in the regional archaeological record (Figure 2a). Both Hood Engraved, var. Hood and Hood Engraved, var. Allen effigy vessels have been recovered from upper Neches River basin Caddo cemeteries (Figure 2b), and Hood Engraved, var. Hood vessels from Frankston phase contexts have a broader distribution in the basin than do the Hood Engraved, var. Allen effigy vessels with tail riders known from Allen phase cemeteries.

Mrs. J. M. Cook Site (41AN1)
The Mrs. J. M. Cook was excavated in 1931 by a UT crew (Jackson 1931). All six burials found at this sub-phase 2 Frankston phase (ca. A.D. 1480-1560) cemetery had associated vessels as funerary offerings. A total of 33 vessels are in the TARL collections from the site. They include 11 carinated bowls, one compound bowl, nine jars, eight bowls, and four bottles.

Pierce Freeman Site (41AN34)
The Pierce Freeman site is a small probable Allen phase Caddo cemetery excavated by UT archaeologists in 1931; the landowner had first found the site in 1914 (Cole 1975:89). Twenty ceramic vessels were among the funerary objects from the four excavated burials; there were no European trade goods recovered from the site (Marceaux 2011:424  The effigy head appears to be a bird facing outwards, while the tail rider is looking inward towards the effigy head ( Figure 6). the tail rider is a quadruped, possibly a dog or bear, with a long tail, and a head with two eyes, mouth, and erect ears.

Jasper Tucker/Mrs. Joe Watkins Farm Site (41AN44)
The Jasper Tucker/Mrs. Joe Watkins Farm site is a Late Caddo period Frankston phase habitation site and small cemetery in the upper Neches River basin in East Texas. There are three known burials from the site, one dug by local farmers and the other two excavated by UT archaeologists in November 1935 (Woolsey 1935c). The two burials excavated by UT had 11 ceramic vessels (including Poynor Engraved and Maydelle Incised vessels), an L-shaped elbow pipe, and five Perdiz arrow points as funerary offerings. One burial (AO-1) had five effigy bowls, and burial AO-2 had one effigy bow. The proportion of effigy bowls among the vessels (55 percent) in the two burials is particularly notable.   The effigy head (51 x 73 x 11-18 mm in height, width, and thickness) resembles a duck head. It is facing inwards towards the tab tail, which is broken off. The effigy head has an engraved slit for its mouth and two circular holes for the nose; there are no eyes (see Figure 9). The tab tail is 66 mm in width.  The effigy head appears to be a duck head; it faces outward. It has an engraved slit for its mouth and two circular holes for its nose; there are no eyes (see Figure 10). It measures 51 x 73 x 11 mm in height, width, and thickness. The tab tail is 57 x 27 x 14 mm in length, width, and thickness.  The effigy head resembles a duck head; it is facing inwards towards the tab tail. The duck head has an engraved slit for its mouth and two circular holes for its nose; there are no eyes (see Figure 11). The effigy head is 41 x 62 x 9 mm in height, width, and thickness. The tab tail is 39 x 24 x 9 mm in length, width, and thickness.
PIGMENT: none TYPE: Hood Engraved, var. Hood The effigy head (22 x 14 x 10 mm in height, width, and thickness) appears to be the head, mouth, and ears of an unknown animal; it is not a bird head. The head faces inwards towards the tab tail (see Figure 12). The tab tail is partly broken off the vessel; it is 21 mm in width and 6.0 mm in thickness.
PIGMENT: red pigment in engraved lines TYPE: Hood Engraved, var. Hood

The O. L. Ellis Site (41AN54)
The O. L. Ellis site (41AN54) may be an early Allen phase habitation site and small cemetery on Boggy Creek in the upper Neches River basin. The cemetery was discovered by local farmers in 1934 or 1935, and they excavated two burials. UT archaeologists excavated two more burials (AE-1 and AE-2) in September 1935 (Jackson 1935).
Between the vessels purchased by UT from local farmers and those they recovered in two burials, a total of 14 ceramic vessels had been placed as funerary offerings with the four ancestral Caddo burials.
The vessels include the one effigy vessel discussed below as well as a Hume Engraved bottle, two Patton The effigy head is a bird's head with four prongs (one partially broken) or notching along its perimeter. The head also had two excised circles for eyes. The tail rider attachment is a quadruped with a long tail. Its head, with two ears, is facing inwards towards the effigy head (see Figure 13). The tail rider is 73 x 42 x 37 mm in length, width, and height.
PIGMENT: white pigment in engraved lines TYPE: Hood Engraved, var. Allen

Mrs. J. W. Blackburn Site (41CE4)
The J. W. Blackburn site had six burials in a small cemetery (Woolsey 1935d). The 24 vessels recovered from the burials include 13 carinated bowls, seven bottles, one bowl, and three jars. Kleinschmidt (1982) considers the cemetery to have been used during sub-phase 2 of the Frankston phase, dating from ca. A

E. W. Hackney Site (41CE6)
The E. W. Hackney site is an ancestral Caddo habitation site and small cemetery on a tributary of Killough Creek in the upper Neches River basin. UT archaeologists excavated two burials at the site in 1935 (Cole 1975:101-110;Marceaux 2011:424;Woolsey 1935a) and also identified a nearby midden area. In addition to the recovery of eight ceramic vessels, a possible gunflint and a brass hawk bell were among the funerary objects in the burials.

Jim P. Allen Site (41CE12)
The Jim P. Allen site is also situated about 0.8 km from Killough Creek in the upper Neches River basin. UT archaeologists excavated 18 burials at the site in 1935 (Woolsey 1935b), after the landowner had found and excavated one burial (Perttula et al. 2011: Figure 11-7), and there were three nearby midden areas associated with the cemetery (Cole 1975 Figure 19); these dip down under the attachments for the effigy head and are discontinuous at the tail rider attachment. The effigy head resembles a coxcomb in profile, and this was formed by three deep vertical notches. The tail rider faces inward towards the effigy head, and is a quadruped with two dots for eyes, two small ears, and front and back legs attached to the vessel rim ( Figure  19).

Omer and Otis Hood Site (41CE14)
There are two Frankston phase cemeteries on the Omer and Otis Hood site (Woolsey 1935e). Cemetery #1 had 23 burials (18 of which were dug by a UT crew), and dates to sub-phase 2 of the Frankston phase (Kleinschmidt 1982), from ca. A

Big Cypress Creek Caddo Sites with Effigy Vessels
Four ancestral Caddo sites in the Big Cypress Creek basin in East Texas have ceramic effigy vessels from burial contexts (see Figure 1). These effigy vessels were funerary offerings in post-A.D. 1500-1550 Titus phase ancestral Caddo burials. At least one of these effigy vessels is a Hood Engraved vessel that was likely obtained in trade/exchange from an upper Neches River Caddo group; the other effigy vessels may represent a local effigy vessel tradition.

H. R. Taylor Site (41HS3)
The H. R. Taylor site (41HS3) is a large Titus phase community cemetery in the Big Cypress Creek basin. UT archaeologists excavated the cemetery in 1931, which had 71 known burials (Thurmond 1990: Figure 20). A total of 529 ceramic vessels were placed as funerary offerings with the burials, along with elbow pipes, ceramic ear spools, and more than 320 arrow points in quivers; most of the arrow points are Talco and Maud types. The range of decorated vessels from the cemetery (Thurmond 1990: Ta  The effigy head on this vessel is that of a bird with a rounded head with a long beak. There is an engraved slit for the mouth and two excised circles for the eyes (Figure 28). The effigy head is 47 x 57 x 21 mm in length, height, and width. The tab tail on this vessel is split into two halves. Overall, the tab tail is 52 x 31 x 10 mm in length, width, and thickness.

Thomas B. Caldwell Site (41TT6)
The Thomas B. Caldwell site is a Late Caddo period Titus phase cemetery near Tankersley Creek in the Big Cypress Creek basin (Thurmond 1990: Figure 23; Fields et al. 2014). Goldschmidt (1934) from UT excavated a cemetery with 10 burials at the site in June 1934.
These burials contained 95 ceramic vessels, 87 arrow points, and a few miscellaneous offerings (a celt, pigment stones, and clay masses) (Thurmond 1990: Table 40

W. S. Russell Site (41TT7)
The W. S. Russell or Russell Brothers Farm site (41TT7) is a Titus phase cemetery on the floodplain of Swauano Creek in the Big Cypress Creek basin (Thurmond 1990:183). It was excavated by UT archaeologists in August and September of 1930 (Gardner 1930), and likely contained as many as 27 ancestral Caddo burials (Thurmond 1990:183); burial pits were difficult to define and Gardner (1930) described the vessels from these burials as caches.
In addition to four effigy bowls, the burials at the W. S. Russell site included 232 other ceramic vessels, as well as elbow pipes, 39 arrow points, one siltstone ear spool, celts, and hematite pigment stones (Thurmond 1990:183 5.7; circular and round ESTIMATED VOLUME: 0.20 liters DECORATION: Three horizontal engraved lines below the rim; the lines dip below the effigy head attachment. The effigy head resembles a bird that is looking outwards; it is undecorated and has no evidence for a mouth or eyes. The bottom of the effigy head appears to have been cut and smoothed to form a straight line; there is also a small sac, bulge, or node below the head (Figure 31). The effigy head is 25 x 24 x 9 mm in height, width, and thickness. The tab tail is split into two halves, but overall, the tab tail is 37 x 30 x 8 mm in length, width, and thickness.  There are two effigy head attachments at opposing sides of the bowl. Neither has a clear animal or bird shape, but protuberances on them suggest they are both facing inwards towards each other (Figure 33). The effigy heads range from 33-36 mm in height, 23-24 mm in width, and 7-9 mm in thickness.
PIGMENT: none TYPE: Unidentified fine ware The effigy head resembles a deer with two flaring ears and a long snout. The head has engraved circles for eyes and two engraved slits for the mouth (Figure 34). The tab tail is narrow and nearly horizontal in orientation, measuring 30 x 12 x 11 mm in length, width, and thickness.

Red River Basin Caddo Sites with Effigy Vessels
There are three widely-spaced ancestral Caddo sites in the Red River basin in East Texas that have ceramic effigy vessels (see Figure 1). A fourth site with a bird effigy vessel and a tail rider has been recovered from the Battle site (3LA1) in southwestern Arkansas (Moore 1912

T. M. Sanders Site (41LR2)
The Sanders site is an important ancestral Caddo mound center and village on the upper Red River, just east of the mouth of Bois d'Arc Creek. Although the Sanders site is not dated by radiocarbon analyses, the general consensus is that the main Caddo occupation took place around ca. A.D. 1100-1300 (see Bruseth 1998), contemporaneous with related sites downstream along the Red River near its confluence with the Kiamichi River, and other sites in the Sabine River basin. The Middle Caddo period component in non-mound contexts is extensive, indicating that there was a substantial population living at the Sanders site and that the site was not simply a mound center and cemetery for the burial of high status individuals in Mound No. 1 (East Mound). The ceramic assemblage that can be associated with this component, which is estimated (roughly) to date from ca. A.D. 1100-1300, includes both the utility wares Canton Incised and Monkstown Fingernail Impressed and the fine wares Sanders Engraved, Sanders Plain, and Maxey Noded Redware. There are also long-stemmed Red River clay pipes, and Alba, Bonham, and Hayes arrow points.
An extensive late 17th-early 18th century Caddo occupation of the Womack phase is also present at the Sanders site, but remains poorly known (Perttula et al. 2015). The material culture assemblage for this component includes plain and decorated elbow pipes along with plain and decorated shell-tempered pottery-including the utility wares Nash Neck Banded and Emory Punctated-Incised and the fine wares Avery Engraved, Hudson Engraved, and Simms Engraved, as well as Clement Redware-and sherds from grogand bone-tempered Womack Engraved vessels; Womack Engraved is the principal fine ware type.

Frank Norris Site (41RR2)
The Frank Norris site (41RR2) was recorded by A. M. Woolsey in 1939 as an ancestral Caddo mound center with three mounds on the Red River. Its location, if not washed away by the flood actions of the Red River, suggests that the Frank Norris site, not far to the southeast, may have been part of the much larger Sam Kaufman/Roitsch site (41RR16). This site is a mound center with a large village and numerous cemeteries that have been looted over the years.
The ceramic vessels from the Frank Norris Farm site are readily sorted into two groups based on decorative styles and the use of either grog, bone, or shell as temper during vessel manufacture. The grog-(n=8) and bone-tempered (n=1) vessels are from Early Caddo Albion phase (ca. A.D. 900-1100) burials (Perttula 2008: Table 1). According to Perttula (2008:322), during this period "a wide variety of finely made ceramics were made by the prehistoric Caddo peoples. Many of the ceramics were quite elaborately decorated." Well-known Albion phase sites in this part of the Red River valley include the Bentsen-Clark site (41RR41) (Banks and Winters 1975) and the Holdeman site (41RR11, Perino 1995). At the Frank Norris Farm site, the vessels from this burial component include the engraved effigy bowl described below, a fingernail punctated jar, a tool punctated jar, a Hickory Engraved beaker and a bottle, one Holly Fine Engraved carinated bowl, a Kiam Incised jar, a Sanders Plain bottle, a Spiro Engraved bottle, and a Spiro Engraved bowl (Perttula 2016). The effigy head resembles a beaver head with an engraved slit for the mouth (and the slit ends in a small diamond element), two appliqued nodes for eyes-with a single curvilinear line around the nodes-and an appliqued ridge crest at the top of the head (Figure 37). The tab tail on this vessel has been broken off.

Summary and Conclusions
Our focus in this study has been on ceramic effigy vessels from Caddo sites in East Texas that are in the collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). Ceramic effigy vessels are a very rare vessel form found on Caddo sites, as they comprise about 1 percent of the more than 3100 Caddo vessels currently in the TARL collections. Specifically, we have documented 35 ceramic effigy vessels in the TARL collections, and these effigy vessels have been found in 16 different sites in East Texas: nine sites in the Upper Neches River basin, four sites in the Big Cypress Creek basin, and three sites in the Red River basin.
Three different effigy bowl shapes have been identified in East Texas Caddo vessel assemblages. The differences primarily resolve around the character of the effigy head (both bird and abstract forms) as well as the nature of any other appendages, such as tab tails and tail riders. The effigy bowls themselves are simple in form, with rounded body wall contours. These regional and temporal differences in the manufacture and use of ceramic vessels strongly suggests that there was a very considerable diversity among Caddo groups in their cultural practices, beliefs, and world-views about what Caddo adults and children needed in life, and "needed in the other life" (Swanton 1942:205), and that there were cultural, social, and personal boundaries between Caddo groups not regularly crossed by networks of personal and group contacts. The Caddo groups that included ceramic effigy vessels as funerary offerings may have had a basic need for food-serving vessels for corn, atole, a corn gruel pounded into a flour and mixed with water or milk (Chapa and Foster 1997:149, fn 6), and tamales (see Swanton 1942:157-158;Chapa and Foster 1997:149). In 1690, Alonso de Leon noted the use of "pots and casserole dishes," filled with beans, corn, and pinole, made of powdered corn and sugar (Chapa and Foster 1997:150, fn 1). Other vessels, probably bowls and effigy bowls, were reported in historic times to have held incense, body paints/pigments, and corn meal offerings. Perhaps the concentration of ceramic effigy vessels in Upper Neches River basin Caddo sites reflects a unique legacy of feasting behavior, or other cultural activities and beliefs centered around the ritual consumption of food and other materials that was not shared among other Caddo peoples.