The R. L. Jaggers Site (41FK3): An Early Caddo Period Settlement and Cemetery in the Sulphur River Basin, Franklin County, Texas

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K. (2015) "The R. L. Jaggers Site (41FK3): An Early Caddo Period Settlement and Cemetery in the Sulphur River Basin, Franklin County, Texas," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2015, Article 56. https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2015.1.56 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2015/iss1/56


INTRODUCTION
The R. L. Jaggers site is an Early Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1000-1200) settlement and cemetery in the Sulphur River basin Post Oak Savannah in East Texas (Figure 1). The University of Texas (UT) completed archaeological investigations at the site in 1930. The site has received no professional archaeological investigations since that time. Thurmond (1990:152, 155) has provided a short and cursory review of the funerary offerings recovered in the excavated burials at the site.

SITE SETTING
The site is on a low alluvial terrace on the north side of Ripley Creek, a tributary of White Oak Creek in the Sulphur River basin (Figure 2). Jackson (1930) noted that ceramic vessels had been reported to have been washed up or plowed up from the terrace in the past, including in 1928 from a ditch and eroded area just south of the small ancestral Caddo cemetery that was discovered in 1930 at the site. UT archaeologists investigated a ca. 42 x 50 ft. area of the terrace and in addition to discovering habitafeatures (Burials 1-4) ( Figure 3). Burial 1 was a cremation, consisting of a ca. 25 x 48 cm pile of charred human remains at ca. 99 cm bs. Associated funerary offerings included two ceramic vessels-both engraved Burials 2-4 at the R. L. Jaggers site were extended supine interments, but in each case the burials were oriented in different directions, with the head of the deceased either facing southwest (Burial 2), south (Burial 3), or west-northwest (Burial 4) (see Figure 3) (Jackson 1930:2-3). Burial 2, discovered at a depth vessel and two utility ware vessels), a celt, and one Gary dart point. Burial 4 was buried only at a depth of association is fortuitous, the recovery of Gary points in two of the Early Caddo period burials suggests that this dart point type was still in use after ca. A.D. 1000 by Caddo peoples in East Texas.

ARTIFACT ASSEMBLAGE
The artifact assemblage from the R. L. Jaggers site includes a diverse array of chipped stone tools (n=93), ground stone tools (n=13), and ceramic artifacts. The ceramic artifacts from the site include 13 vessels, 203 plain and decorated ceramic sherds, and one long-stemmed Red River pipe sherd.

Chipped Stone Tools
More than 76 percent of the chipped stone tools in the R. L. Jaggers collection are dart points (Table 1), followed by bifaces discarded during the projectile point manufacturing process (12 percent), and expediand earth-toned cherts ( Table 1). The remainder of the chipped stone tools (32 percent) are on lithic raw materials that were available in the Red River gravels, including various high-quality cherts and novaculite that likely originated in the Ouachita Mountains of southeast Oklahoma (Banks 1990).

Bifaces
Early and mid-stage 6 1 3 1 -11 The variety of dart points recovered in the UT investigations at the R. L. Jaggers site suggest the site was used during both the Late Archaic (ca. 5000-2500 years B.P.) and Woodland (ca. 2500-1250 years B.P.) periods (Perttula 2013: Figure 2), and one parallel-stemmed dart point with lateral stem grinding suggests some limited use of the site prior to about 8000 years B.P. The most intensive use of the site before the Early Caddo period occupation took place during the Woodland period, as Gary points, Gary point preforms, and Kent dart points-recognized Woodland period temporal diagnostics-comprise more than 71 percent of In the Late Archaic dart points, quartzite (40 percent) and Red River gravel cherts and jasper (40 percent) were the most common lithic raw materials used in point manufacture, along with novaculite (10 percent) gers assemblage are predominantly made from local quartzite (67 percent), with much lower percentages of Red River gravel cherts and jasper (21 percent), novaculite (6 percent), or local cherts (4 percent) and

Dart Points
The Gary points in the R. L. Jaggers assemblage have stem widths that range from 10.9-19.2 mm, with a mean stem width of 14.3 mm. One of the Gary points from the site, made from a locally chalky pinkish orange baked shale, apparently from local baked and fused rocks in the Wilcox Group (Brown 1976:192-The three arrow points in the R. L. Jaggers chipped stone tools are early Caddo styles: Alba and Catahoula (see Table 1). Red River gravel cherts and jasper represent 67 percent of the arrow points, with the remaining arrow point made from a local quartzite.
Other chipped stone tools include a bifacial adze and a unifacial gouge (see Table 1); they are made of local lithic raw materials. There is also a pyramidal core in the collection. It is on a coarsely-grained whitish-gray quartzite.

Ground Stone Tools
There are several kinds of ground stone tools in the R. L. Jaggers site collection, including a ferruginous sandstone grinding slab and basin as well as a ferruginous sandstone mortar/grinding basin, a ferruginous sandstone bi-pitted stone, and two quartzite manos and bi-pitted stones; these tools have grinding on both cobble surfaces. There are also two quartzite polished pebbles (25-34 mm in diameter) and a small pebble (20 mm in diameter) of the local chalky pinkish-orange baked shale. The interior surface of a single thin slab of hematite has horizontal and diagonal scratches and scored marks from its use as a source of pigment ( Figure 5). The stone is 85 x 57 x 9.5 mm in length, width, and thickness.

Ceramic Vessels
There are 13 Early Caddo period vessels from the excavations at the R. L. Jaggers site. This includes graved lines on the neck and a tool punctated body; the punctations are on a raised four-sided area on the bottle body and the rest of the bottle body is plain (Thurmond 1990: Table 30). It is 23.5 cm in height, with   mum body diameter of 15.2 cm. The rim is decorated with opposed concentric semi-circles and spirals (with associated excised triangles) divided by sets of two vertical engraved lines (Figure 7a-b). The innermost of the repeated set of semi-circles is excised. The third vessel in Burial 2 is a Spiro Engraved bottle with a short tapered neck (Figure 9a). It stands circles (Figure 9a-b).

Ceramic Sherds
There are only 160 plain and 43 decorated sherds in the R. L. Jaggers collection ( Table 2). Most of the sherds appear to be part of the Early Caddo period occupation at the site, but a few decorated sherds (see below) are indicative of a post-A.D. 1430 Late Caddo period, Titus phase occupation at the site as well.  About 89 percent of the sherds from the site are from vessels tempered with grog or crushed sherds; the ware (21 percent) sherds have a higher proportion of bone temper use than do the plain wares (9 percent). The overall proportions of grog temper and bone temper use in vessel manufacture at the R. L. Jaggers site is consistent with Caddo sherd assemblages across East Texas (Perttula 2015).
The utility ware sherds are from vessels with wet paste decorative elements, including appliqued, appliqued-punctated, brushed, incised, incised-punctated, and punctated elements ( Table 3). The appliqued, appliqued-punctated, and brushed sherds are likely from Late Caddo, Titus phase, utility ware vessels, including Harleton Appliqued, McKinney Plain, and Bullard Brushed. The remainder of the utility wares represent the Early Caddo period occupation at the site. The one incised rim is from a Dunkin Incised jar (Figure 13g).  (concentric semi-circles and opposed diagonal and curvilinear lines, as well as excised semi-circles and triangular zones) and excised grog-tempered Spiro Engraved bottle sherd (see Figure 13a). Another bottle sherd has opposed diagonal and curvilinear engraved lines (see Figure 13e), and a grog-tempered carinated bowl sherd has a horizontal engraved line and sets of opposed vertical engraved lines (see Figure 13c).

var. McKinney-Enis Smith (Fields et al.
bottle sherd with a sun circle motif (see Figure 13b) with concentric circles and hatched pendant triangles and a Wilder Engraved bottle sherd with a central circle element and spirals (see Figure 13d).

Ceramic Pipe Sherd
There is a single ceramic pipe stem from a Red River style long-stemmed pipe (see Hoffman 1967).
cooled in the open air. The exterior pipe stem surface has been well smoothed, and has a diameter of 10.0 mm as well as a 3.8 mm stem hole diameter. This pipe stem is likely from the Early Caddo period Miller's Crossing variety of the Red River pipe (see Hoffman 1967:9).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The R. L. Jaggers site is a multiple component archaeological site located along Ripley Creek in the Sulphur River basin in the East Texas Post Oak Savannah. It was investigated by the University of Texas (UT) in 1930, but has not been investigated since by professional archaeologists.
but there were more substantial occupations during the Late Archaic and (especially) the Woodland periods, if the proportion of Gary and Kent dart points is any indication. The chipped stone tools from the site are dominated by dart points.
The principal occupation at the R. L. Jaggers site occurred during the Early Caddo period, between ca. A.D. 1000-1200. The occupation included some habitation debris-primarily sherds from plain ware, utility East Texas, so they provide unique information on the character of mortuary practices from habitation sites. Three of the burials were extended supine interments and the other was a cremation. Funerary offerings with the burials included nine vessels, two celts, four Gary dart points, and a cache of 10 pieces of lithic ing Spiro Engraved (n=4 vessels), Hickory Engraved (n=2), and an engraved-punctated bottle-four utility ware jars-including Davis Incised (n=2 vessels), Kiam Incised (n=1 vessel), and one incised-punctated vessel-and two plain vessels: a carinated bowl and a jar.
Hopefully the archaeological deposits at the R. L. Jaggers site are still preserved. If they are, it would be worthwhile to investigate the site again, concentrating on delimiting the habitation deposits and any structural features, and obtaining organic remains from feature contexts that can be used to obtain a series of radiocarbon dates from the site. The calibrated results of those dates can be employed to establish a more ACKNOWLEDGMENTS versity of Texas at Austin for facilitating access to the records and collections from the R. L. Jaggers site. Thanks also to Bo Nelson for taking the vessel photographs, and to Lance Trask for preparing the remainder