Archaeological Investigations at the Bowles Creek Site (41CE475), Archaeological Investigations at the Bowles Creek Site (41CE475), Cherokee County, Texas, in Early 2017 Cherokee County, Texas, in Early 2017

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K.; Stingley, Kevin; and Walters, Mark (2017) "Archaeological Investigations at the Bowles Creek Site (41CE475), Cherokee County, Texas, in Early 2017," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2017, Article 62. https://doi.org/ 10.21112/.ita.2017.1.62 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2017/iss1/62


Timothy K. Perttula, Kevin Stingley, and Mark Walters
The Bowles Creek is a substantial Historic Caddo period Allen phase settlement on a natural rise in of 1 x 1 m units, and the remote sensing of a 2400 square meter area (McKinnon 2017; Perttula and work done at the site in January and February 2017.

Shovel Testing
part of the site, not far north of the current Bowles Creek channel (Figure 1).These shovel tests as 100 cm bs in ST 103 (Table 1).A feature, perhaps a hearth or pit oven, was encountered in ST 100   More than 93 percent of the recovered artifacts are plain and decorated sherds from ceramic vessels.Ceramic pipe sherds account for 0.8 percent of the assemblage in the two units.Two lithic tools were recovered (0.5 percent), along with a small amount of lithic debris (3.0 percent), animal bone (1.9 percent), and wood charcoal (0.5 percent (see Table 3).

Ceramic Vessel Sherds
The most recent archaeological investigations at the Bowles Creek site recovered 378 ceramic vessel sherds (73 percent) are from utility wares.Utility wares account for approximately 90 percent of the decorated sherds in this assemblage.

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About 90 percent of the sherds are from vessels tempered only with grog, while another 8.4 percent are from vessels tempered with grog as well as hematite or burned bone (see Table 4).The remaining 1.1 the only temper or used in combination with grog, are most common in the utility ware (9.5 percent) and mm thick.The vessel body walls have horizontal and opposed brushing marks, and these extend to within ca.3.5 cm of the base.area) in this vessel assemblage are listed in Table 5.The one appliqued body sherd (0.3 percent of the decorated sherd assemblage) is probably from the body of a La Rue Neck Banded jar (see Suhm and Jelks 1962:Plate 47b).More than 82 percent of the sherds have brushing marks on the rim and the vessel body; these are all from Bullard Brushed jars.The rims on these vessels have horizontal, vertical, and Another 13 sherds have brushing marks in combination with either appliqued (0.7 percent), incised incised lines cut through the brushing (Figure 2a).

Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology 74 (2017) 91
Two sherds are from Lindsey Grooved vessels, and two others are from Killough Pinched vessels include two incised sherds (0.7 percent of the decorated sherd assemblage) that may be from Maydelle Incised vessels and four rim and body sherds (1.3 percent) with either circular or tool punctations.
excised tick marks on the engraved lines.One sherd with a curvilinear engraved line with tick marks (see Engraved, var.Freeman or var.Fair sherd in the assemblage with diagonal and vertical engraved lines with excised tick marks and linear tick marks (see Figure 2d), while another Patton Engraved, spaced horizontal engraved lines, two of three that have excised tick marks (see Figure 2e).variety of Patton Engraved.Four sherds have rectilinear engraved elements (see Figure 2f), and are type have engraved or trailed rectilinear or curved lines; some sherds of the type have tick marks.One engraved variety of Ebarb Incised (Corbin 2007:15;Gregory and Avery 2007).A principal motif includes has a carinated bowl sherd from a Poynor Engraved, var.Hood vessel (see Figure 2j; see also Perttula trailed lines (see Figure 2k).below the lip and a series of four vertical incised lines on the lower part of the stem.This style of pipe and is 4.7 mm thick.

Chipped and Ground Stone Tools
and only 0.2 cm in thickness.
Sandstone; it has been ground smooth on two sides.The fragment is 2.5 cm in length, 1.3 cm in width, and 0.8 cm in thickness.

Lithic Debris
Lithic debris occurs in low densities in the Bowles Creek archaeological deposits.Only 13 pieces and the raw material was probably gathered in local stream gravels.Almost 8 percent of the lithic debris is on quartzite, another local lithic raw material.

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The remainder of the lithic debris are cherts (see Table 6).The light and dark gray cherts are not locally available in this part of the Neches River basin, and they may have come from cobbles or pebbles whose ultimate sources were in the Edwards Formation in Central Texas.Other artifacts present in the assemblage from the Bowles Creek site include sherds from several amounts of lithic debris, burned and unburned animal bone, and two pieces of wood charcoal.No European trade goods have been recovered from the Bowles Creek site during several phases of shovel testing and 1 x 1 m unit excavations.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Elbow pipes from the Bowles Creek site:

Table 1 . Shovel test descriptions.
___________________________________________________________________________A total of 48 artifacts from the ancestral Caddo component at the Bowles Creek site were recovered square meters.About 77 percent of the artifacts are plain and decorated sherds.The highest densities of 101.

Table 2 . Depth of artifacts in ST 100-103.
total of 366 artifacts were recovered in the two units excavated at the Bowles Creek site in January 2017 (Table3).The density of artifacts is a substantial 183.0 per square meter.The highest densities of a

Table 3 . Depth of artifacts in units BC-3 and BC-4.
2 *does not include seven body sherds from Vessel 1 section

Table 5 . Decorative methods and elements in the 2017 ceramic vessel sherd assemblage from the Bowles Creek site, cont.
*one with a white pigment rubbed in the engraved lines **one with engraved line on the vessel interior

Table 7 . Summary of the ceramic sherd assemblage from the various phases of investigations at the Bowles Creek site (41CE475), cont.
___________________________________________________________________________P/DR=plain/decorated sherd ratio; OWP=other wet paste sherds