A Cache of Maud Arrow Points and Other Artifacts from the Jim Clark site, Red River County, Texas

In the winter of 2010, I was contacted by Robert Perino, son of the late Greg Perino, a well-known archaeologist who had worked extensively since the late 1960s along the Red River in southwest Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, and northeast Texas in the Caddo archaeological area. According to Robert Perino, Greg Perino had found a cache of 30 Maud arrow points at the Jim Clark site in Red River County, Texas, in 1975, and recorded the discovery in a journal, along with a ground stone celt and a ceramic vessel. It is not known with certainty if this cache was associated with a Caddo burial eroding out of the site, but it seems likely that this is the case, as burials are common in Caddo sites along the river in various archaeological contexts, and that these artifacts were all that were either exposed, or remained, of a particular disturbed burial. The purpose of this article is to put these findings on record, in the hope that they provide a measure of useful information for those studying the native history of the Caddo peoples that lived along this section of the Red River before A.D. 1700. The discovery of the cache has not been previously reported in the Caddo archaeological literature, and the Jim Clark site itself has not been formally recorded. Its exact location was not noted by Greg Perino in his journal , but it is likely that it is along a Red River alluvial terrace or natural levee not far from the Bentsen-Clark site (41RR41) (or perhaps even part of it), as a portion of that Early and Late Caddo period cemetery and village site is on land owned by Jim Clark. Other prehistoric Caddo sites in the immediate vicinity of the Bentsen-Clark site that have been recorded include 41RR74 and 41RR75, although whether these sites have Caddo burials, or when they were occupied in the Caddo era, is not known. The Rowland Clark site (41RR77) is only a few miles upstream on the Red River.

A Cache of Maud Arrow Points and Other Artifacts from the Jim Clark site, Red River County, Texas

INTRODUCTION
In the winter of 2010, I was contacted by Robert Perino, son of the late Greg Perino, a well-known archaeologist who had worked extensively since the late 1960s along the Red River in southwest Arkansas (Perino 1967), southeastern Oklahoma (Perino 1976(Perino , 1981, and northeast Texas (Perino 1978(Perino , 1979(Perino , 1983(Perino , 1994(Perino , 1995 in the Caddo archaeological area. According to Robert Perino, Greg Perino had found a cache of 30 Maud arrow points at the Jim Clark site in Red River County, Texas, in 1975, and recorded the discovery in a journal, along with a ground stone celt and a ceramic vessel. It is not known with certainty if this cache was associated with a Caddo burial eroding out of the site, but it seems likely that this is the case, as burials are common in Caddo sites along the river in various archaeological contexts, and that these artifacts were all that were either exposed, or remained, of a particular disturbed burial. The purpose of this article is to put these findings on record, in the hope that they provide a measure of useful information for those studying the native history of the Caddo peoples that lived along this section of the Red River before A.D. 1700. The discovery of the cache has not been previously reported in the Caddo archaeological literature, and the Jim Clark site itself has not been formally recorded. Its exact location was not noted by Greg Perino in his journal, but it is likely that it is along a Red River alluvial terrace or natural levee not far from the Bentsen-Clark site (41RR41) (or perhaps even part of it), as a portion of that Early and Late Caddo period cemetery and village site is on land owned by Jim Clark (Banks and Winters 197S:viii). Other prehistoric Caddo sites in the immediate vicinity of the Bentsen-Clark site that have been recorded include 41RR74 and 41 RR75, although whether these sites have Caddo burials, or when they were occupied in the Caddo era, is not known. The Rowland Clark site ( 41 RR77) is only a few miles upstream on the Red River.

Avery Engraved Vessel
The vessel from the cache at the Jim Clark site is an Avery Engraved compound bowl with four rim peaks ( Figure 1 ). Under each rim peak are prominent strap handles; there is wear visible in the holes from the strap handles. suggesting that the vessel may have been suspended at one time. The vessel, about 15 em in height, appears to be shell-tempered, based on the appearance of the paste where the core of the vessel is exposed, along with the distinctive pitting and erosion of the exterior vessel surface, often seen on Red River shell-tempered vessels. The color of the vessel's interior and ex terior surfaces indicate Lhat it was fired and cooled in a low oxygen or reducing environment, producing a vessel with a dark grayishbrown color on hoth vessel surfaces and in its core.
The decoration of the upper panel of the compound bowl consists of three widely and evenly-spaced horizontal engraved lines. Interspersed between the lowermost two horizontal lines are a number of small but independent rectilinear to curvilinear elements (perhaps eight in number) that encircle the panel. These elements are each bisected by a single short horizontal engraved line (see Figure I).

Arrow points
There are 30 arrow points in the Jim Clark site cache ( Figure 2). All arc triangular in form, with relatively straight-sided blades, and a generally concave, sometimes deeply so, base. The points were made from several different raw materials-all likely available in Red River gravels that contain raw materials whose ultimate source is the Ouachita Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma (Banks 1990;Banks and Winters 1975), including a black Big Fork chert (n=5, 16.7%), white , gray, and heat-treated novaculite (n=6, 20%), and various other gray, grayish-brown, brownish-red, and light gray cherts. Based on scrutiny of the arrow point photographs, one or two of the arrow points may be made of a local quartzite (

Celt
The one celt in a collection appear.s to have been made of a greenish-gray diorite or sili~:eous shale that has been pecked and/or polished over its entire surface (Figure 3).11 has a tapered poll end and a well- sic] chronology along Red River and northeast Texas," but they also comment that there are few radiocarbon dates available from sites in these phases that can be directly associated with MauJ points. However, there are two dated burial features (Burials 15 and 17) at the Sam Kaufman/Roitsch site with radiocarbon dates and numerous arrow point funerary offerings (n=70). The calibrated radiocarbon dates from these features, at l sigma, range from AD 1412-1513. It is notable that the predominant arrow point is a variety of Scallorn (perhaps Scallorn sattler, see Brown [ 1996:442 and Figure 2-6lq-s j), accounting for almost R3% of the points in these two features (Skinner et al. 1969:81), and there are also two narrow parallel-stemmed arrow points. Only 14% of the arrow points in Burials 15 and 17 are triangular in form and have concave bases, like a classic Maud arrow point in this part or Northeast Texas, but they are all side-notched (Skinner et al. 1969: Figure 27a-b, d). There are noun-notched Maud points in these two burial features.
The absence of un-notched Maud points in these two burial features at the Sam Kaufman/Roitsch site, and the above-mentioned calibrated radiocarbon dates that range from AD 1412-1513 for these two features, suggest un-notched Maud forms did not become common in McCurtain phase contexts until after ca. A.D. 1510 or thereabouts. Furthermore, the absence of Scallom sattler arrow points in the cache, but the predominance of un-notched Maud arrow points, is the best available circumstantial evidence that the Jim Clark site cache of arrow points, Avery Engraved vessel, anJ celt, dates after ca. A.D. 1500. Tn 1975, Greg Perino recovered a cache of 30 arrow points (mostly of the Maud type), a ground stone celt, and an Avery Engraved compound bowl at the Jim Clark site on the Red River in Red River County, Texas; the site has never been formally recorded with the state of Texas. Although the exact lm:ation of the cache is unknown, the fact that it is presumed to have been found on property owned by Jim Clark allows me to at least venture that the Jim Clark site is near the Bentscn-Clark site ( 41 RR41 ), since this site occurs partially on his land. The cache may have been associated with the remnants of a prehistoric Caddo burial. The kinds of arrow points and ceramic vessel found in the cache suggests that it dates from after ca. A.D. 1500, and thus it may be associated with the late McCurtain phase (ca. A.D. 1500-1700) settlement of this part of the Red River basin.