Analysis of New Artifact Collections from Archaic to Ancestral Caddo Sites in the Saline Creek Basin in Northern Smith County, Texas

Repository Citation Perttula, Timothy K. and Thacker, Mark (2014) "Analysis of New Artifact Collections from Archaic to Ancestral Caddo Sites in the Saline Creek Basin in Northern Smith County, Texas," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2014 , Article 64. https://doi.org/ 10.21112/.ita.2014.1.64 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2014/iss1/64


INTRODUCTION
This article concerns the continued documentation of prehistoric and/or historic artifacts from four sites in the Saline Creek drainage basin in the Post Oak Savannah in northern Smith County, Texas (Diggs et al. 2006: Figures 1-3). Perttula and Walters (2012) discussed an earlier analysis of a set of collections from these same sites. Saline Creek is a north ard-o ing tributary to the Sabine iver. The sites are ca. 10 km south of the con uence of Saline Creek ith the Sabine iver ( Figure 1). Saline Creek enters into the Sabine iver about 6 km east (do nstream) of the con uence of another ma or tributary, ake Fork Creek, ith the river.

Sarah's Deer Stand (41SM440)
The Sarah s Deer Stand site is located on a sandy (Gallime ne sandy loam, 1-slopes, atherly 1993) upland ridge that slopes to the west towards Saline Creek, the current channel of which is 540 m to the west. When the site was recorded in 2010, it had small hardwoods, brush, and a weedy understory; surface visibility was 5 . t has been estimated to cover a 2500 m 2 area (0.62 acres). There is one area of the site that has crepe myrtle bushes and a charcoal-stained area; these both probably are associated with a mid-19 th to early 20 th century component (see below).
There are 2 5 ancestral Caddo sherds in the collections from the Sarah s Deer Stand site, 69 (25 ) of which have decorations. The plain to decorated sherd ratio is 2.99. The assemblage is from sherds that are primarily tempered only with grog ( 5 ), although some sherds also have bone (13. ) and hematite (1.1 ) inclusions. Detailed analysis of a small sample of the sherds (see Perttula and Walters 2012:Table 1) indicate that 21 of the sherds are from vessels red in a high oxygen or oxidi ing environment, and another 35.
are from vessels incompletely oxidi ed during ring. The remainder of the sherds (42.9 ) are from vessels red in a low oxygen or reducing environment; half of these sherds are from vessels that were also cooled in a reducing environment, and the other half were from vessels that were cooled in the open air, leaving a thin oxidized surface and core on either one or both vessel surfaces.
The sherds from the site are well-preserved, as is indicated by the fact that 5 of them have evidence of surface treatment (smoothing) on either one or both vessel surfaces (see Perttula and Walters 2012: Table  1). Vessels were medium to large in size, based on the mean body wall thickness of 8.05 + 0.95 mm (range 6.2-10.7 mm), many of them probably used for cooking and storage.
The 69 decorated sherds are predominantly from utility ware vessels (91.3 ), with only six ne ware sherds (8.7 of the decorated sherds) (Figure 2a-f). lmost 41 of the decorated sherds and 44 of the utility wares have brushed body decorations, either parallel or vertical (n=26) or overlapping (n=2) brushed marks. Two parallel brushed body sherds, possibly from ullard rushed ars (see Suhm and elks 1962:Plate 11) have tool punctations pushed through the brushing marks.
Twenty-three (33 ) of the decorated sherds have incised lines as the decorative method, with either parallel or straight line (n=14), opposed line (n=3), a horizontal line on a rim (see Figure 2b, n=1), crosshatched lines (n=3), and diagonal/diagonal opposed (n=2) incised elements. Five sherds (7.2 of the decorated sherds), including a rim, have rows of tool punctations either on the rim and/or the body of ars (see Figure 2f), and two other body sherds have ngernail punctations. One rim has diagonal opposed incised lines and a triangular zone lled with tool punctations (see Figure 2d), probably from a aydelle ncised ar. There is a bone-tempered body sherd with a straight appli ued ridge and an ad acent incised line. The remaining utility ware sherd has pinched rows; this may be from a illough Pinched ar (Suhm and elks 1962:Plate 46).
Three of the ne ware body sherds have curvilinear engraved lines, while a fourth, from a bottle, has an engraved circle within a circle surrounded by a curvilinear arc of ne engraved lines (see Perttula and Walters 2012: Figure 1a). The use of a curvilinear arc of engraved lines on this sherd is similar to other examples of Poynor Engraved, possibly including Poynor Engraved, var. Lang (Perttula 2011:Figure 6-64f-g), although this style is most commonly seen on carinated bowls rather than bottles. Other ne ware sherds have either parallel or opposed engraved lines, and there is a bottle neck sherd with a ne engraved line under the lip (see Figure 2c).
The chipped stone artifacts from the Sarah's Deer Stand site include 28 tools or tool fragments, 84 pieces of lithic debris, and four cores. The lithic artifacts indicate that the site was rst used by aboriginal peoples during the Late Archaic (ca. 5000-2500 years ago), as marked by several Yarbrough dart points and other expanding or straight stem forms (Figure 3), as well as a ferruginous sandstone gouge (Figure 4, right). ost  of the Late Archaic dart points are made from a local heat-treated uartzite, but one Edgewood point is on a white chert, and a parallel stemmed form is made from a dark gray chert (Figure 3e). Other tools that may be associated with this Late Archaic occupation include a uartzite gouge with a unifacial bit, a uartzite bifacial tool fragment, two dart point blade fragments, and a uartzite unifacial tool fragment. The mean stem width of the eight Gary points from the site (13.02 mm) suggests these are Gary, var. Camden points from a more intensive occupation during the latter part of the Woodland period (ca. A.D. 200-700). ore than 84 of the dart points are made from local coarse-grained or ne-grained uartzite, with others made from a non-local dark gray chert and a Ouachita ountains orange novaculite.
Three arrow points from the Sarah's Deer Stand site are pre-A.D. 1300 Alba forms (Figure 5a-c); two are made from uartzite, and one is made from a light gray chert. Another arrow point is a well-made Scallorn made from uartzite ( Figure 5d). Two other points are of unidenti ed types because they are broken across the stem (Figure 5e-f). There are also seven arrow point fragments from stemmed arrow points of undetermined type; 71 are made from local uartzite, one is made from a light grayish-brown chert, and another is made from a gray novaculite. The arrow point preform is also associated with the prehistoric Caddo component recognized in the ceramic sherds, and its presence does mean that arrow points were actually made on site during some period of Caddo use.
The lithic debris from the site is primarily from locally available raw materials, especially a coarsegrained uartzite that had to be heat-treated before it could be successfully reduced and knapped. evertheless, non-local lithic debris (probably from ed iver gravels or source areas in the Ouachita ountains, well north of the site) accounts for 27 of the lithic debris sample. Furthermore, 25 of the cores are on non-local raw material, and 7.7 of the chipped stone tools are on non-local lithic raw materials. n addition to the chipped stone artifacts, there are six ground stone tools in the site collection. These are a ferruginous sandstone metate and mano, used in the past for grinding maize and seeds, a bi-pitted stone of ferruginous sandstone, a uartzite mano, as well as two fragments of polished igneous rock from the Ouachita ountains, probably both celt fragments. Three uartzite re-cracked rocks suggest that a modicum of hot rock cooking of plant foods (especially roots) took place at the site during one of the occupations).
There is also an historic archaeological component at the site, although its extent and character are unknown. The earliest (ca. 1830s-1860s) part of the occupation, probably by the rst settler in this particular locale, is marked by a chert blade gun int (for a ri e or musket), a short-stemmed molded elbow  pipe ( Figure 6), and nine blue transfer-printed whiteware sherds with oral motifs from plates and cups (Figure 7a-g). The latter were made from ca. 1830s-1860 (Samford 2000).
The later historic use of the site dates after ca. 1890 to as perhaps as late as ca. 1920. There is a wide variety of artifacts associated with this latter occupation, including wire nails (n=3, produced after 1890), fruit ar zinc lid liner fragments (n=3), a porcelain doll leg, china and iron buttons (n=6)including overall buttons with OG L A D and E G EE A E marks (Figure 8a-c)and various plain ceramic sherds and milk glass (from cosmetics ars). These comprise: porcelain (n=2), ironstone (n=4), whiteware (n=76), and  stoneware (n=27). One whiteware rim has a oral embossed decoration on the rim, which is a late 19 th -early 20 th century decorative style, while a base sherd has a partial green crown back mark. The stoneware sherds are represented by Bristol glaze (n=7), salt glaze (n=7), and brown and dark brown lead glaze (n=13); these are stonewares typically found on East Texas farmsteads dating after the mid-19 th century to the early 20 th century (Figure 9a  There are ve pieces of a ua window glass in the collection. Their mean thickness (2.48 mm) suggests they are from panes manufactured in ca. 1921. Finally, there are 13 pieces of animal bone (including teeth) and three pieces of daub.

Handicap Deer Stand (41SM441)
This site is located on a sandy upland ridge that slopes towards Saline Creek, about 500 m to the west. The landform has Cuthbert ne sandy loam soils. The site itself had a few hardwood trees, brush, and weeds, and a ground surface visibility of 5 . The andicap Deer Stand site is estimated to cover 2400 m 2 (0.6 acres) in size.
The second collection of Caddo ceramic sherds from the site includes 28 plain rim, body, and base sherds and eight decorated rim and body sherds. With both collections, there is now a total of 83 sherds from Caddo ceramic wares at the Handicap Deer Stand site: 60 plain rim, body and base sherds and 23 decorated rim and body sherds. The plain to decorated sherd ratio is 2.61. The sherds are from vessels that are primarily grog-tempered, but 24 also have bonetempered added to the paste. At least one sherd is from a vessel made with a naturally sandy paste, based on a detailed analysis of a small sample of sherds from the site (Perttula and Walters 2012: Table 3). Firing vessels in a reducing environment was the preferred manner employed by the Caddo potters at the site. A ma ority of the vessels were smoothed on one or both surfaces as part of nishing the vessels and making them ready for use for food serving, cooking, and storage. Rim and body wall thickness of the sherds analyzed in detail indicate that the vessels were built to be durable, with thick rims (9.3 mm) and moderately thick body walls (6.97 + 1.48 mm, range=5.1-8.6 mm).
The small sample of decorated sherds from the Handicap Deer Stand site include both utility wares (n=19, 83 ) and ne wares (n=4, 17 ) (Figure 11a-d). The utility wares include parallel brushed body sherds (n=7, 37 of the decorated sherds) from cooking or storage ars, three sherds (16 ) with parallel incised lines, a rim sherd with horizontal incised lines and another with diagonal incised lines (Figure 11d), two body sherds with either opposed incised or cross-hatched incised lines (Figure 11b-c), and four body sherds with punctations: either rows of ngernail punctations (n=2) or tool punctations (n=1), or a body sherd with a single tool punctate. The last utility ware sherd has a straight incised line ad acent to a zone of tool punctations.
Three of the four ne ware sherds are from red-slipped vessels (see Figure 11a). The use of slipping as a decorative method rst become prominent on East Texas Caddo sites between ca. A.D. 1200-1450, in the iddle Caddo period, especially in the upper Neches, upper Sabine, and parts of the middle reaches of the Red River basin. The other ne ware sherd is a body sherd, probably from a carinated bowl, with a single straight engraved line on it.
The chipped stone tools from the site consist of several pro ectile points: one Woodland period Gary dart point, a gray chert dart point tip, and four arrow points. The Gary, var. Camden point fragment (see Schambach 1982), made from uartzite, has the narrow stem width (13.0 mm) of this de ned variety. This particular variety of Gary point was manufactured between ca. A.D. 200-700, during the latter part of the Woodland period. Three of the points are parallel-stemmed Alba points, both unifacially and bifacially worked. The unifacial Alba points are made from non-local gray chert, while the bifacially worked specimen is on a local uartzite. The fourth point is a contracting stem unifacial Perdiz, made on a gray chert. The two different arrow points suggest that the site was used by the Caddo on two different occasions, since they are not thought to be contemporaneous (see Turner and Hester 1999); the Alba points were apparently made and used between ca. A. D. 800-1200/1300, based on the dating of the Alto phase component at the George C. Davis site (Story 2000), while the Perdiz point may have rst been manufactured ca. A.D. 1200, but continued to be made and used well into the early 18 th century in East Texas (cf. Story 1995). Other chipped stone tools include two uartzite biface preform fragments, a uartzite biface fragment, and a gray chert unilateral ake tool. There is a large (77 x 51 mm in length and width, and 37 mm thick) cobble-sized core with ve ake removals; it is of a local tan chert, with a grayish-brown cortex. A second core has a single platform of ake removals; it is on a reddish-gray chert that is probably not from a local lithic raw material source. Two other cores are uartzite pebbles with single platform ake removals. There are 70 pieces of lithic debris in the collection, including akes from a local uartzite (71 ), a local red chert (3 ), uartz (1 ), and several kinds of non-local chert (24 ), namely gray, light gray, dark gray, dark grayish-black, and yellowish-gray brown chert. The likely source of these latter raw materials, as well as the uartz ake, is the Red River gravels and the Ouachita ountains of southeastern Oklahoma.
The two ground stone tools from the Handicap Deer Stand site include a uartzite mano and a ferruginous sandstone pitted stone. The mano has smoothing on one side from its use in grinding actions on a metate or grinding slab, and there is a slight circular depression on one face, suggesting it may also have been used as a pitted stone. The pitted stone has a single centrally-placed pit, but is otherwise unmodi ed.
Finally, there are a few pieces of unidenti ed animal bone in the collection from the site.

Alligator Pond (41SM442)
The Alligator Pond site is situated on two sandy upland ridge slopes that extend west to Saline Creek. The area is part of a recent pine plantation, some portions of which have been cleared for brush control; the small pine trees, brush, and weeds limit the surface visibility to 10 , except in the cleared areas. The landowner also constructed a residence on the southern part of the site in 2012, which led to the collection of a large number of prehistoric artifacts during the construction work. Sediments on the landform are Attoyac ne sandy loam. The site's extent is estimated at 6000 m 2 (1.5 acres). The principal artifact in the Alligator Pond site collection is sherds from aboriginal plain ware, utility ware, and ne ware ceramic vessels: 2440 sherds in all. The sherds include 30 plain rims (Figure 12a-f), 1951 plain body sherds, and 104 base sherds, as well as 353 decorated sherds; these consist of 31 rim sherds (26 from utility ware vessels and ve from ne wares) and 322 body sherds. The proportion of rims in the assemblage is 49 plain ware, 43 utility ware, and 8 ne wares; these proportions indicate that not only are all three wares present in the ceramic sample, but that sherds from plain ware and utility ware vessels appear to comprise the vast bulk of the assemblage. The plain to decorated sherd ratio is a high 5.89, further re ecting the importance of the plain wares in the Alligator Pond assemblage. The sherds are from prehistoric Caddo vessels that are principally tempered with grog (92.9 ). Approximately 6.9 of the sheds are bone-tempered, along with 0.2 that have crushed hematite pieces that were employed as temper inclusions. Thirteen plain rim and body sherds are not tempered and have a naturally sandy paste; they are likely Woodland period sherds belonging to the type-variety Goose Creek Plain, var. uns ec ed (Aten and Bollich 2011). This kind of reduced red sandy paste pottery was made between ca. 500 B.C. and A.D. 700, during the Woodland period in this part of East Texas, although it is more common in the Angelina River basin.
Based on the detailed analysis of a small sample of sherds from the Alligator Pond site, the sherds are from vessels that were red in several different ways. Foremost, some 64 of the sherds are from vessels red in a low oxygen or reducing environment, 24 were incompletely oxidized during ring, and 12 were red in a high oxygen environment (see Perttula and Walters 2012: Table 4). Only a few sherds have been smoothed on either interior and/or exterior surfaces. The vessels at the site were coil-made, starting from a at disk base, and they have relatively thick body walls: a mean thickness of 7.44 + 0.96 mm, with a range of 5.4-9.6 mm. Vessels of different sizes and volume were obviously in use at the Alligator Pond site during its Caddo occupation.
Of the 353 decorated sherds, 70.8 are from utility ware vessels (Table 1). The utility wares are dominated by sherds from vessels with incised decorations (33.6 of all the decorated sherds); the incised designs are almost exclusively from parallel and straight line/horizontal and vertical to simple geometric designs, including curvilinear, cross-hatched, diagonal, and opposed elements (Figure 13a-g). Vessels with tool and ngernail punctations-primarily including horizontal rows of punctations-comprise 19.9 of the decorated sherds from the site (Figure 14a-g). Other decorative methods less well represented in the Alligator Pond utility ware sherds are brushed, brushed-incised, and brushed-punctated (10.6 ) decorative methods (Figure 15a-c), as well as sherds with incised-punctated (4.1 ) (Figure 16a-c), appli ued (1.7 ), lip notched (0.3 ), and pinched (0.3 ) decorative elements (see Table 1). The relatively low percentage of brushed sherds in the decorated sherd assemblage suggests that the Caddo occupation here took place before those occupations at the other Saline Creek Caddo sites (see below), perhaps several hundred years before.  The ne ware sherds include both engraved (n=53) and red-slipped (n=50) body sherds (see Table 1). About 8 of the engraved sherds are from bottles (see Table 1). One of the bottle sherds has curvilinear and circular elements with excised pendant triangles ( Figure 17f); these elements have been highlighted by having a hematite-rich red clay pigment rubbed in the lines. The engraved sherds have a wide variety of elements, including: straight line elements, parallel lines, diagonal lines, and cross-hatched lines, as well as hatched and excised triangles, hatched zones, pendant triangles, excised triangles, and cross-hatched columns (Figure 17a-e, g-i). One exterior-thickened rim sherd has diagonal and curvilinear engraved lines (Figure 17a). Sometimes combinations of these elements occur on the same vessel, particularly on bottles (see Perttula   the decorated sherds, see Table 1) in the ne wares at the Alligator Pond site is also notable (Figure 18a-d), especially given regional trends in the use and discard of red-slipped vessels in a number of parts of East Texas in iddle Caddo period contexts.
There are 900 chipped stone artifacts in the Alligator Pond site assemblage. This includes 84 chipped stone tools (mainly dart points n=24 , arrow points n=24 , and ake tools n=21 ), 775 pieces of lithic debris from tool manufacture and maintenance activities, and 41 cores (core fragments, single platform cores, multiple platform cores, and tested cobbles/pebbles); only 4.9 of the cores are on non-local lithic raw materials (a grayish-brown chert and a yellow novaculite), with most of them on local uartzite. The cores are primarily on local pebble-sized stream gravels with smoothed cortical surfaces.
Almost 35 of the chipped stone tools are made on non-local cherts, many of them ake tools (expedient tools with use wear/retouch on one or more ake edges, graver, and scraper fragments), which is a considerable amount; more than 90 of the ake tools are on non-local lithic raw materials. This proportion of non-local lithic raw material use in the tools is matched by the fact that about 37 of the lithic debris from the site is from the manufacture and/or resharpening of tools made from non-local cherts (i.e., white, whitish-red, gray, grayish-white, dark brown, light gray, dark grayish-brown, grayish-brown, grayish-red, and brownish-gray cherts) as well as gray, white, and yellow novaculite (n=11, 1.4 ) and uartz (n=3, 0.4 ). The most common non-local chert in the lithic debris is a gray chert (about 35 of the non-local lithic raw materials); some pieces have a limestone-covered cortex, which suggests it originated in Central Texas source areas. The novaculite and uartz originate in Ouachita ountains source areas, well to the north of the site. About 52 of the lithic debris is on local uartzite, both ne-and coarse-grained; much of it is also heat-treated to improve its knappability. The remainder of the local lithic debris includes petri ed wood (4 ), ferruginous sandstone (0.3 ), and earth-toned cherts (i.e., red, brown, yellow, and tan colors, 7 ).
The chipped stone arrow points from the Alligator Pond include six fragments, four oval-shaped preforms (evidence of on-site arrow point manufacture activities), one Bassett (Figure 19g  The Yarbrough and Williams points at the Alligator Pond site are dart point types that characterize the Late Archaic in East Texas, as is the one orrill point (see Figure 20b, g-), and it is estimated that they date between ca. 5000-3000 years old. These points, and probably several of the other chipped stone tools, represent the earliest occupation on the landform, except for one Johnson point (dating ca. 6000 B.P.) made from a gray novaculite and a side-notched point made from local uartzite (see Figure 20f). Only about 16 of the dart points in the collection are made from non-local lithic raw materials (chert or novaculite).
The ake tools (n=21) at the Alligator Pond site include both expedient tools with edge retouching and evidence of use (see Figure 21a-c) as well as scraping tools (see Figure 21d-e) and a grayish-brown chert graver; these tools were made almost exclusively with non-local chert raw materials. The expedient tools have retouch/use wear on one edge (n=10, 100 non-local gray, grayish-brown, and dark gray chert) or two edges (n=6, 83 non-local gray, grayish-brown. and grayish-white chert and 17 uartzite). The side scraper fragments (see Figure 21d-e) are on non-local light gray and grayish-brown cherts. There is a ferruginous sandstone metate with a 15 mm deep concave depression on one side in its center, this being the active grinding and pounding area. The metate is 175 mm in length, 170 mm in width, and 50 mm thick. Four grinding slabs, made from local ferruginous sandstone, are in the collection (Figure 22). There are also ve coarse-grained ferruginous sandstone pitted stones with circular depressions on one or both sides (Figure 23). Another ferruginous sandstone cobble has battered pits on both cobble surfaces. Also in the collection is a fragment of a possible ferruginous sandstone axe fragment. The nal ground stone tool is the poll end of a Caddo tradition uartzitic sandstone celt fragment; this material originates in the Ouachita ountains of southeastern Oklahoma, but is also present in gravels in the middle reaches of the Red River valley, well north of Saline Creek in East Texas.    Twelve pieces of re-cracked rock (FCR) from the hot rock cooking of plant foods in ovens and pits are in the Alligator Pond site collections. Eleven of the FCR are uartzite, and the other is hematite, both local stone raw materials.
There is an early 19 th century historic component at the Alligator Pond site. This is marked by one honey-colored blade gun int (Figure 24d), probably a French gun int, two English blade gun ints ( Figure  24e-f), several ceramic sherds, and two small glass seed beads. The ceramic sherds include two re ned earthenware rim and body sherds, possibly pearlware, that have hand-painted oral decorations ( Figure  24a-b), and an alkaline-glazed stoneware crock sherd (Figure 24c). The seed beads are translucent light and dark a ua-colored.
Finally, there are six animal bones (one burned) in the collection from the site. Figure 24. 19 th century artifacts from the Alligator Pond site: a-b, hand-painted re ned earthenware sherds; c, stone ware sherd; d-f, blade gun ints.

Thacker Farm House (41SM444)
The Thacker Farm House site is located on a gravelly upland landform about 1.1 km east of Saline Creek. Soils are a Redsprings very gravelly sandy loam (2-5 slopes). The site area, estimated at 2500 m 2 (0.62 acres), is in a cleared orchard, but orchard plantings and weeds limit the surface visibility to 10 .
A total of 219 Caddo ceramic vessel sherds are in the collections from the Thacker Farm House, including 161 plain sherds (two rims, 150 body sherds, and nine base sherds) and 58 decorated sherds. The plain to decorated sherd ratio is a moderate 2.77.
The sherds are from grog-tempered vessels, with some vessels also having bone (5 ) and crushed hematite temper inclusions. The detailed analysis of a sample of the sherds suggests that most of the sherds are from unsmoothed vessels that were red in a reducing environment, while 20 are from vessels that were incompletely oxidized during ring. Vessel walls of these vessels were relatively thick (mean thickness of 8.3 + 0.9 mm), likely because vessels at the site were large in size, and some may have served as durable storage vessels with extra-thick body walls.
The brushed and brushed-incised body sherds have parallel brushing marks (see Figure 25b-d), likely from ars with vertical brushing, but the orientation of the brushing cannot be determined with con dence. All 15 incised body sherds have straight to parallel incised lines, but again the orientation of the incised decorations is not known. The one incised rim has diagonal opposed lines (see Figure 25a). One body sherd has parallel brushing, with tool punctates pushed through the brushing; this is a common vessel decoration on utility wares in both iddle and Late Caddo times in East Texas. Two body sherds have rows of tool punctations. Another body sherd has parallel incised lines ad acent to a straight appli ued ridge; the latter was likely used to divide a vessel body into uadrants lled with different decorations; in this case, the uadrants probably were lled with vertical incised lines. Finally one incised-punctated rim sherd from a aydelle ncised vessel has opposed diagonal incised lines that create triangular zones: these zones are lled with tool punctates.
One ne ware rim sherd from a carinated bowl has two horizontal engraved lines on the rim panel. One of the body sherds has closely-spaced parallel engraved lines, another has diagonal engraved lines, and one other has a straight engraved line. The last two engraved body/lower rim sherds (see Perttula and Walters 2012: Figure 1e) have a hatched bracket or divider element, likely sherds from a Poynor Engraved, var. Hood vessel (see Perttula 2011: Figure 6-64e).
The lithic assemblage from the site is sparse, including only two dart points, a gray chert bifacial tool fragment, and 15 pieces of lithic debris. The rst dart point is a Late Archaic Yarbrough point made from a locally available uartzite, while the second is a heat-treated uartzite Kent point of likely Woodland period age. Both local ( uartzite, petri ed wood, brownish-red chert, and brown chert) and non-local (gray chert, dark brown chert, light gray chert, banded grayish-brown chert, and white chert) lithic raw materials were knapped at the site, although this was done sparingly; about 40 of the lithic debris has stream-rolled cortical remnants, indicating that the raw material was gathered from local stream gravels.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the character of the lithic and ceramic artifacts that have been collected from the four Saline Creek sites seems to indicate that this part of the valley was rst settled by aboriginal peoples about 6000 years ago, as indicated by the Johnson point and an unidenti ed side notched from the Alligator Pond site (41S 442), but the most intensive occupation started at the beginning of the Late Archaic period, about 5000 years ago. This period is marked by the recovery of Williams and Yarbrough dart parts at three of the sites, a orrill point at one of the sites, Trinity, Bulverde, Ellis, or Edgewood points at two sites, as well as a range of chipped (i.e., bifacial, unifacial, and gouges) and ground stone tools (Table 2). Likewise, during the latter part of the Woodland period, all four of the four Saline Creek sites were occupied-as evidenced by the documentation of Gary, var. Camden dart points at three sites, along with Godley and Kent dart points (see Table 2)-by Woodland peoples ancestral to the Caddo peoples that lived in East Texas after ca. A.D. 800/850. The Alligator Pond site (41S 442) also had 13 sherds from Goose Creek Plain, var. uns ec ed sandy paste Woodland period vessels. The occurrence of this kind of ceramic sherds at the site, which are often taken as one indicator of the development of a more sedentary lifeway, suggests that the occupation during this time at the Alligator Pond site may have been more than a hunting and food processing camp, but a camp where the Woodland peoples may have stayed for a longer period of time during a seasonal occupation. Pro ectile point to ground stone tool ratios from the four sites suggest that hunting was a ma or pursuit at each of the sites, although plant foods were processed at them as well using ground stone manos, metates, and pitted stones. A notable characteristic of the lithic assemblages from the Saline Creek sites is the use of non-local chert artifacts in the chipped stone tools, the polished celts, and the chipped stone lithic debris (see Table  2). At the Thacker Farm House site, the percentage of non-local chert artifacts is 44 , while the other three have comparable, but lower, percentages of non-local cherts in their assemblages (23.8-36 ). While it is uncertain ust how many of the chipped stone artifacts from the sites can be associated with the prehistoric Caddo occupations, the fact that the Thacker Farm House site is apparently the latest occupied site among the four Saline Creek sites, it does open up the tantalizing possibility that the later Caddo peoples that settled in the basin had a better and broader access to non-local sources of non-local cherts (either by direct procurement or through trade and exchange). The other Caddo peoples that settled into the basin did have a ready access to non-local chert raw materials, but they also had to depend on local raw materials such as coarse-and ne-grained uartzite, petri ed wood, and ferruginous sandstone.
The ma or settlement of the Saline Creek valley was by the ancestors of modern Caddo people. During the Caddo occupation of the Saline Creek sites, including a relatively intensive and early occupation at the Alligator Pond, arrow point preforms, arrow point fragments, and several identi able arrow point styles suggest the sites were rst occupied before ca. A.D. 1000 and continued to be occupied episodically and on a generational basis until sometime after ca. A.D. 1300. Given what we know about the ceramics from these four sites, the Alligator Pond site was likely occupied the earliest during the Caddo era, while the other three-Sarah's Deer Stand (41S 440), Handicap Deer Stand (41S 441), and Thacker Farm House (41S 444)-may have been occupied at least one or two centuries later, but between them, more or less contemporaneously.
Through several means of ceramic comparisons (Table 3), the four Saline Creek sites can be readily sorted into two groups: Group , the Alligator Pond site, with a very high plain to decorated sherd ratio (P/ DR), little brushed pottery (at least in comparison to the other three sites), considerable wet paste utility ware ceramic sherds, and a relatively low use of bone as a temper; and Group , the other three sites. The Group sites have moderate P/DR values (2.61-2.99), considerable percentages of brushed decorated sherds among all the decorated sherds (37.0-55.2 ), lower fre uencies (34.5-52.2 ) of wet paste utility wares, and the use of bone temper was moderate at two of the three Group sites, but very low at the other. percent brushed among all decorated sherds from the site; percent wet paste (i.e., incised, punctated, appliued, incised-punctated, etc.) among all decorated sherds from the site + does not include 13 Woodland period sandy paste sherds (i.e., Goose Creek Plain, var. uns ec ed) P/DR values from numerous Caddo sites in East Texas appear to hold considerable promise as an independent means of establishing the age of Caddo ceramic-bearing components (provided samples of plain and decorated sherds are larger than about 200-300 sherds per site, which three of the four sites on Saline Creek meet. Thus, the P/DR comparisons for these assemblages still prove useful in helping to sort early from later Caddo occupations. When P/DR ratios from a number of different ceramic assemblages from the various ceramic traditions/regions in East Texas are linked with absolute ages as established by radiocarbon dating from those assemblages (see Selden and Perttula 2013), it is expected that further re nements in how P/DR ratios change through time in East Texas Caddo sites will be established. At the moment, looking at Early Caddo to Historic Caddo ceramic assemblages in the region through time, the trend is that ceramic assemblages have lower proportions of undecorated sherds through time and thus a lower P/DR ratio (Perttula 2008:9, 315-317). Analyzed pre-A.D. 1200 sites in East Texas have plain/decorated sherd ratios that appear to range from 2.97 to greater than 4.80; the Alligator Pond site P/DR of 5.80 would seem to t this pre-A.D. 1200 P/DR range (see Table 9). iddle Caddo sites (ca. A.D. 1200-1450) have ratios that range between 1.30-2.65; the other Saline Creek sites generally fall in the iddle Caddo period based on their P/ DR (see Table 3), but not on the basis of the proportion of brushed sherds in their assemblages. n known Late Caddo sites in the Neches, Angelina, and Sabine river basins, by contrast, the P/DR ranges from only 1.30-0.47, much different than the Saline Creek Caddo sites. Finally, post-A.D. 1680 Caddo occupations in the Neches-Angelina river basin have P/DR ratios that range from 0.20-0.30. Further chronological con rmation of the ages of the four Caddo components is re ected in the percentages of brushed pottery in each assemblage (see Table 3). At the earlier Alligator Pond site, only 10.1 of the decorated sherds are brushed, compared to between 37.0-55.2 in the three other Saline Creek sites. t has been shown repeatedly in Caddo ceramic studies in East Texas that the proportion of brushed sherds in decorated sherd assemblages steadily increases through time, beginning around ca. A.D. 1200. By the early 15 th century A.D., in particular, Caddo potters in the upper Neches River basin and parts of the upper Sabine River basin began to manufacture considerable numbers of ars with brushed vessel bodies and rims (Perttula 2011). Given the relatively high proportion of brushed sherds in three of the Saline Creek sites, their ceramic assemblage P/DR values, and the occurrence of several Poynor Engraved sherds at the Sarah's Deer Stand (41S 440) and Thacker Farm House (41S 444) sites, it seems likely that they were occupied beginning about the latter part of the 14 th century through the mid-15 th century A.D., and were probably abandoned after that time. The low percentage of brushed sherds, in concert with the high P/DR values, at the Alligator Pond site are primarily consistent with a pre-A.D. 1200 Caddo occupation, or at least an occupation that may have ended by around that time. The high proportions of red-slipped sherds is especially notable among the ne wares from this site.
The pre-1860 occupations at the Sarah's Deer Stand and Alligator Pond sites are also notable; certain historic artifacts (i.e., glass beads, a honey-colored French gun int, and possible hand-painted pearlware rim and body sherds) at the Alligator Pond site hint at an early use of this part of the Saline Creek valley by ca. 1830. t is probable that these artifacts are associated with an early Anglo-American settlement of the region, but if there is a pre-1830 occupation preserved at the Alligator Pond site, it may mark a brie y occupied habitation site by a Native American group such as the Caddo, whose traditional homelands these were, or the Cherokee, who had immigrated to the area by 1820 (Everett 1990). Since known Native American sites dating to the early 19 th century are very rare in East Texas, one focus of further investigations at the Alligator Pond site would be to more fully ascertain the age, cultural af liation, and context of the 19th century components at the site.