Documenting Caddo Ceramic Sherd and Lithic Collections from Documenting Caddo Ceramic Sherd and Lithic Collections from Prehistoric Sites at Lake Bob Sandlin Prehistoric Sites at Lake Bob Sandlin

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K.; Walters, Mark; and Nelson, Bo (2010) "Documenting Caddo Ceramic Sherd and Lithic Collections from Prehistoric Sites at Lake Bob Sandlin," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2010, Article 26. https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2010.1.26 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2010/iss1/26


INTRODUCTION
Following on the heels of a previous archaeological effort where we documented collections of ceramic and lithic artifacts from a wide variety of prehistoric archaeological sites along the shoreline at Lake Bob Sandlin (Nelson and Perttula 2003a), this article puts on record the range of prehistoric ceramic and lithic artifacts in collections we recently documented from four sites at the lake in Camp and Titus counties, Texas.One of the four sites has been previously reported in the Caddo archaeological literature, but the other three have not.

New Island (41CP22)
The New Island site has been described by Thurmond (1990:53) as having Late Archaic (ca.3000-500 B.C.) and Late Caddo (ca.A.D. 1400-1680) components.The Late Caddo component is apparently associated with at least eight burialshaped looter pits.
The collection from the New Island site has 81 sherds, 68 of which are plain (Table 1).Utility wares (n=10) include sherds from punctated, incised-punctated, incised, and brushed vessels, while the fi ne wares are composed of three engraved sherds.The occurrence of brushed vessels as well as one body sherd with a carelessly engraved circular element (Figure 1a; see also Thurmond 1990:Figure 6d) suggests that this ceramic sherd assemblage dates to the earlier part of the Late Caddo period, although a larger sample of decorated sherds should be collected from this site to be more defi nitive about its temporal and cultural affi liations.
The lithic artifacts from the New Island site include chipped stone tools (n=2), lithic debris (n=62), and one quartzite core.The chipped stone tools are a Gary dart point and a quartzite biface tip.The Gary point in the documented collection hints at some use of the New Island site during the Woodland period (ca.500 B.C. to A.D. 800), when this style of contracting stemmed dart point was in common use by Woodland hunters.

South of Milligan (41CP490)
The South of Milligan site is near the Milligan Point site (41CP276).That site has extensive mid-19 th century Anglo-American farmstead archaeological deposits, as well as evidence of occasional use in the Late Archaic and Early Paleoindian periods (Nelson and Perttula 2003a:26-34).The South of Milligan site, however, was primarily occupied during Late Caddo Titus phase times (ca.A.D. 1430-1680), as evidenced by a substantial sample of Titus phase decorated utility ware and fi ne ware sherds.
A total of 520 ceramic sherds are in the documented collection from the South of Milligan site, including 314 plain sherds and 206 decorated sherds (Table 2).The plain to decorated sherd ratio (P/DR) is only 1.52, compared to P/DR ratios that range between 3.24 and 3.75 for the Early Caddo ceramic assemblages from the Cedar Island (41TX891) and TXU Park (41TT892) sites (see below).Based on the proportion of rim sherds among the different wares, utility ware vessels are most common in the ceramic assemblage (51%), followed by fi ne wares (32%) and plain wares (16%).Among the decorated sherds, including both rim and body sherds, almost 83% of the decorated sherds in the assemblage are from utility wares.The fi ne wares-both engraved and red-slipped vessels-comprise the remainder of the decorated sherds (Table 2).
The utility ware sherds from the South of Milligan site are from brushed jars, as 66% of the rim and body sherds have brushing, either as the sole decoration or in combination with incised, incised-appliqued, punctated, and appliqued decorations (see Table 2).These sherds are from Bullard Brushed as well as Pease Brushed-Incised jars, and either the vessel was brushed on both the rim and the  body (as with Bullard Brushed), or else horizontal brushing was applied to the rim and vertical brushing was applied to the body in panels demarcated by vertical appliqued fi llets or appliqued ridges (as with Pease Brushed-Incised).Vessels with simple vertical appliqued fi llets or ridges on the body are probably from either misnamed McKinney Plain vessels (Suhm and Jelks 1962:97)-which are not plain-or from La Rue Neck Banded jars (Suhm and Jelks 1962:93).Tool punctated rims may be from Mockingbird Punctated jars, a recently recognized Titus phase utility ware with horizontal rows of tool punctations on the rim of the vessel; vessel bodies (based on whole vessels) tend to be plain or have simple vertical appliqued ridges/fi llets as decoration.Incised jars of the Maydelle Incised type have opposed (see Figure 1b) as well as cross-hatched incised lines on the rim.The fi ne wares from the South of Milligan site are apparently primarily from Ripley Engraved carinated bowls, based both on the recognizable elements of engraved scrolls characteristic of the type (see Thurmond 1990:Figure 6) along with other decorative elements that occur in the scroll fi ll zones or as supplemental elements to the larger motif (see Figure 1c and Table 2).These would include such elements as the hatched corners of engraved triangles (see Figure 1d), central scroll lines, triangular tick marks on scroll lines (see Figure 1e), or small triangular cross-hatched fi ll elements.One body sherd from a Wilder Engraved bottle has a widened or "swelled" curvilinear excised area on the arm of a scroll (cf.Suhm and Jelks 1962:155).
Other engraved sherds have hatched curvilinear zones (see Figure 1f) or have horizontal engraved lines on the rim (see Table 2).These latter sherds are probably from the upper panel of Ripley Engraved compound bowls, jars, or ollas, as these typically have 2-3 widely-spaced horizontal engraved lines on the upper panel or rim, and a scroll-related motif on the lower panel or vessel body (see Turner 1978:Figure 24a-e).Also included in the fi ne wares from the South of Milligan site is a trailed sherd, possibly from a Keno Trailed vessel, and two plain red-slipped body sherds.Red-slipped sherds are a consistent feature of a number of Titus phase ceramic assemblages in the general Lake Bob Sandlin area (e.g., Nelson and Perttula 2003b;Perttula 2005).
Prehistoric lithic artifacts in the collections from the South of Milligan site include 49 pieces of lithic debris and chunks (42 quartzite and seven petrifi ed wood), as well as three quartzite cores, and a quartzite biface fragment.Projectile points from the site include three Late Caddo points-a quartzite Maud arrow point, a quartzite Bassett arrow point, and a Perdiz quartzite arrow point-three Woodland period style quartzite Gary points (var.Camden [n=1] and var.LeFlore [n=2]), one quartzite Yarbrough dart point, a Middle to Late Archaic style with a fl at but expanding stem dart point base made from a non-local grayish-white chert, and a quartzite dart point tip.These tools suggest more intensive use of the South of Milligan site for hunting during the Woodland and Late Caddo periods.

Cedar Island (41TT891)
The Cedar Island site lies between two other known sites along the Lake Bob Sandlin shoreline: New Hope (41FK107) and Collins Pt. (41TT757).The New Hope site was occupied during Late Paleoindian (ca.10,500-10,000 years B.P.), Late Archaic, and Woodland period times, but the principal settlement was during the Early Caddo period (Nelson and Perttula 2003a:43-44).The Collins Pt. site has a Middle Caddo settlement (Nelson and Perttula 2003a:50).
There are 250 ceramic sherds in the documented Cedar Island collection, including 191 plain sherds and 59 decorated sherds (Table 3).The plain to decorated sherd ratio is 3.24.Approximately 70% of the decorated sherds (but only 43% of the decorated rim sherds) are from utility wares, with the remainder (including 57% of the decorated rim sherds) coming from engraved and red-slipped fi ne ware vessels.
The predominance of punctated decorations in the utility wares (61%), along with incised-punctated (9.8%) and incised (29%) vessels-combined with the absence of any brushed, brushed-punctated, or appliqued vessels-indicate that the prehistoric Caddo occupation at the Cedar Island site dates before ca.A.D. 1200.After that date, brushed utility wares are ubiquitous on Caddo sites along this stretch of the Big Cypress Creek basin.The Early Caddo occupation at the Cedar Island site is further substantiated by the identifi cation of two Holly Fine Engraved body sherds in the collection (see Table 3), including one with an excised triangle element (cf.Suhm and Jelks 1962:Plates 39 and 40).
In addition to the ceramic vessel sherds, the Cedar Island site collection has a clay coil fragment (evidence of on-site vessel manufacture) and a single piece of daub.Lithic artifacts in the Cedar Island documented collection include a quartzite Late Archaic dart point with a long parallel stem and a fl at base, a quartzite biface tool fragment, 40 pieces of lithic debris, one core, and two pieces of fi re-cracked rock.

TXU Park (41TT892)
The TXU Park site, based on the documented ceramic sherds to be discussed shortly, apparently has a substantial and virtually single component pre-A.D. 1200 Early Caddo archaeological deposit.A total of 542 ceramic sherds are in the collections from the site, including plain rim, body, and base sherds (n=428, 79%), utility ware rim and body sherds (n=63, 11.6%), and fi ne ware rim and body sherds (n=51, 9.6%) (Table 4).With respect to the proportion of rims in the assemblage, plain ware vessels are common (39.5% of the rims), as are fi ne ware (32.6%) and utility ware (28%) vessels in roughly equal measure.
The P/DR ratio at the TXU Park site is 3.75, not much different than that from the Early Caddo ceramic assemblage from the Cedar Island site (P/DR=3.24),but substantially different from the P/DR of 1.52 for the Late Caddo Titus phase ceramic assemblage at the South of Milligan site.Clearly, the earlier Caddo ceramic assemblages from prehistoric Caddo sites in the Lake Bob Sandlin area of the Big Cypress Creek basin have much higher proportion of plain wares among the entire ceramic sherd assemblages, as well as a propensity to decorate vessels more often on only the rim, rather than on both the rim and the body.The latter became much more common after ca.A.D. 1200 with the advent of the use of brushing decoration on exterior vessel surfaces.
Among the engraved fi ne wares from the TXU Park site, the principal ceramic type is Holly Fine Engraved, with six rim sherds and fi ve body sherds (Figure 2a-f, h) among the small sample of fi ne wares.One thick cambered rim (see Suhm and Jelks 1962:77) has a very wide lip with an excised triangle atop the lip (Figure 2a).The majority of these are carinated bowls that have fi nely engraved sets of opposed diagonal or opposed curvilinear engraved lines divided by triangular excised areas; one bottle sherd (Figure 2f) has a set of fi ne parallel engraved lines adjacent to a small hatched triangle element.A body sherd has sets of both fi nely engraved vertical and opposed diagonal engraved lines (Figure 2h), although there is no apparent associated excised triangle.Another probable Holly Fine Engraved rim at the site has opposed sets of fi nely engraved diagonal lines, but again no apparent associated excised triangle element (Figure 2g).
The other engraved type at the TXU Park site that can be confi dently identifi ed in the ceramic assemblage is Hickory Engraved (n=7), which are The other two sites, New Island and South of Milligan, primarily have Late Caddo Titus phase occupations.Late Caddo sites are predominant at Lake Bob Sandlin (Perttula and Nelson 2003:Table 1 and Figure 9) among all the prehistoric Caddo sites.These sites occur in several clusters that appear to represent parts of contemporaneous small communities or villages established along Big Cypress Creek and Brushy Creek, and in upland/valley margin settings.The Titus phase ceramics from the two sites are dominated by Ripley Engraved fi ne wares and brushed, appliqued, punctated, and incised utility ware jars from types such as Bullard Brushed, Pease Brushed-Incised, McKinney Plain, Mockingbird Punctated, and Maydelle Incised.Brushed wares are a particularly noticeable feature of the Titus phase utility wares in this part of the Big Cypress Creek basin.At the South of Milligan site, there are quartzite Maud, Perdiz, and Bassett style arrow points that were made and used during the Titus phase occupation there.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Selected decorative elements on sherds from the New Island and South of Milligan sites: a, carelessly engraved circle; b, opposed incised lines; c, Ripley Engraved scroll motif; d, Ripley Engraved, probable continuous scroll motif; e, Ripley Engraved scroll motif with triangular tick marks; f, hatched curvilinear zone.Provenience: a, New Island site (41CP22); b-f, South of Milligan site (41CP490).

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Selected decorative elements/motifs on sherds from the TXU Park site: a, Holly Fine Engraved, engraved element on cambered rim; b-f, h, Holly Fine Engraved rim and body sherds; g, diagonal opposed fi ne engraved lines, probably Holly Fine Engraved; i, semi-circular engraved lines; j-l, incised-punctated rim sherds.