Notes on the Hudnall-Pirtle Site (41RK4) in the Buddy Calvin Jones Collection at the Gregg County Historical Museum

The Hudnall-Pirtle site (41RK4) is an important Early Caddo (ca. A.D. 900-1200) period multiple mound center and large village situated on an alluvial terrace of the Sabine River in East Texas. Although best known through the archaeological investigations conducted by the Texas Historical Commission (on behalf of the Archaeological Conservancy) at the site in 1989 and 1990, Buddy Calvin Jones, then of Longview, completed his own investigations at the site in the 1950s and early 1960s, although he never published any of the archaeological findings from his work, and is has not been clear from the available records and anecdotal information where he conducted his excavations. At the 1963 Caddo Conference, Jones described the Hudnall-Pirtle site (which he called the Bivins Farm site) as follows: there is one big mound site (Bivins farm) located in the Sabine bottomlands of northeast Rusk County. It is composed of five mounds arranged around a plaza; they consist of two large rectangular temple mounds and three large circular mounds. I would guess this site to be primarily of Alto origin although tests in the village area revealed Alto and Coles Creek sherds. Since the Hudnall-Pirtle site is now known to actually have eight mounds, it would be useful to presentday Caddo archaeologists to know which mounds Jones was referring to in his description, and how their layout and placement compared to current maps of the site. It would also be helpful if information was available on where Buddy Jones conducted excavations at Hudnall-Pirtle, and what he may have found in that work. Until just a few months ago, all that was known or conjectured about the Buddy Calvin Jones excavations at the Hudnall-Pirtle site consisted of information gleaned in conversations with his mother, who mentioned trench excavations in Mound C, thought to be a burial mound, and other trenches excavated in village areas and at least one mound in 1958 and 1959. Fortunately, however, Buddy Calvin Jones maps and profiles from his work at the Hudnall-Pirtle site have been recently donated to the Gregg County Historical Museum (GCHM), although it is not known if all the notes, maps, and profiles compiled by Jones are now in the GCHM collections. This article discusses the Buddy Calvin Jones notes on his 1956-1961 work at the Hudnall-Pirtle site.


INTRODUCTION
The Hudnall-Pirtle site ( 41 RK4) is an important Early Caddo (ca. A.D. 900-1200) period multiple mound center and large village situated on an alluvial terrace of the Sabine River in East Texas (Bruseth and Perllula 2006). Although best known through the archaeological investigations conducted by the Texas Historical Commission (on behalf of the Archaeological Conservancy) at the site in 1989 and 1990, Buddy Calvin Jones, then of Longview, completed his own investigations at the site in the 1950s and early 1960s (Bruseth and Perttula 2006:59;Pcrttula 2009), although he never published any of the archaeological findings from his work, and is has not been clear from the available records and anecdotal information (Bruseth and Perttula 2006:59;Perttula 2009:37-40) where he conducted his excavations.
At the 1963 Caddo Conference, Jones described the Hudnall-Pirtle site (which he called the Divins Farm site) as follows: then~ is one big mound site (Bivins farm) located in the Sabine bottomlands of northeast Rusk County. It is composed of five mounds arranged around a plaza; they consist of two large rectangular temple mounds and three large circular mounds. I would guess this site to be primarily of Alto origin although tests in the village an::a revealed Alto and Coles Creek shenls (Davis et al. 1971: I 01 ).
Since the Hudnall-Pirtle site is now known to actually have eight mounds (Bruseth and Perttula 2006: Figure 2), it would be useful to present-Jay Caddo archaeologists to know which mounds Jones was referring to in his description. and how their layout and placement compared to current maps of the site. It would also be helpful if information was available on where Buddy Jones conducted excavations at Hudnall-Pirtle, and what he may have found in that work.
Until just a few months ago, all that was known or conjectured about the Buddy Calvin Jones excavations at the Hudnall-Pirtle site consisted of information gleaned in conversations with his mother, who mentioned trench excavations in Mound C, thought to be a burial mound (Bruscth and Perttula 2006:59), and other trenches excavated in village areas and at least one mound in 1958and 1959(Perttula 2009.  Northwest Area in Bruseth and Perttula (2006). Excavations here by Bruscth and Perttula (2006:68) determined that this was a natural alluvial rise, not a deliberate mound construction. Jones also identified a refuse area-presumably a product of prehistoric Caddo habitation deposits-to the immediate west of Mound C . This may be the location of his Trench on the natural ground surface, and the house had a 1 .5 inch thick (3.8 em) prepared yellow clay floor. Prepared clay floors are rare features in prehistoric and early historic Caddo structures in East Texas, whether in strm:tures on or under mounds or on nonmound sites (Schultz 2010:328-329), suggesting the structure under the mound was likely inhabited by a member of the Caddo socio-political elite. The house was burned-as marked by charred logs and burned day-then buried by the first mound fill stage, a 1.8 ft. thick (0.56 m) deposit. A second house was built upon this first mound fill stage. It was also burned, and then covered with the second mound fill stage, a 2.2 ft. (0.67 m) sterile sand (see Figure 3). The second house floor was wmprised of a mixture of ash and burned clay extending across much of the trench profile. Finally, Jones suggested that there may have been a third house fluor, marked hy ash deposits, near the very top of the mound. lf accurate, this particular burned house deposit was not capped before mound construction was terminated.
Mounds D and E as sketched by Jones (see Figure l) suggest that they represent conjoined mounds that served as platforms for structures. Based on a comparison with the Belcher Mound site ( l6CD 13) (Webb 1959), as well as other such mounds in the Caddo area, it is likely that throughout much of the history of the Hudnall-Pirtle site, strm:tures may have stood simultaneously on the two conjoined mounds. After a period of use, structures on each of the two mounds were likely ritually hurned and immediately covered hy a layer of earth/mound fill.
The last excavations recorded by Jones at the Hudnall-Pirtle site were two trenches dug in 1957 in a large rise in the northwestern part of the site, which Jones thought may have also been a mound (see Figure 1). What Jones uncovered here is unknown, although the ceramic sherds from his "North Mound, Area I" excavations (Perttula 2009:38-39) may have come from these two trenches. The sherds inducted Crockett Curvilinear Incised and Dunkin Incised vessels, as well as sherds from a Williams Plain vessel.

CONCLUSIONS
lt is rortunate that some, hut hopefully not all, notes, maps. and profiles from the late l950s-carly 1960s excavations by Buddy Calvin Jones at the Hudnall-Pirtle site have recently been donated to the Gregg County Historical Museum, where they arc accessible for research studies. These notes provide specific information on the size, placement, and probable function of five of the eight mounds at this Early Caddo period site (see Figure I); the location of a large refuse area nul previously mentioned in the Hudnall-Pirtle archaeological literature: and thr timing and extent of excavations by Jones in Mounds C and E as well as in a large natural rise northwest of the main mound group. The profile information from the Mound E excavations was particularly useful, in the ahsence of any other specific infonnation (sec Bruseth and Pcrttula 2006), in that the prolile clearly indicates that the mound was built over a burned house (and also suggesting a similar function for Mound D) that had a prepared clay floor. This house was apparently that of an impottant Caddo personage that Jived there, and it was ritually abandoned and burned. Mounu E served as a platform for a second ritually abandoned and humed house. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank Patti Haskins, Advisory Board member at the Gregg County Historical Museum, for bringing these notes on the Hudnall-Pirtle site to my attention, and allowing me to discuss them in this article. Lance Trask prepared the figures in this article, based on copies of the original maps and profiles drawn by Buddy Jones.