Ceramic Vessel Sherds from the Kah-Hah-Ko-Wha Site (41CE354), an Allen Phase Component in Northwestern Cherokee County, Texas

The Kah-hah-ko-wha site (41CE354) is an Historic Caddo Allen phase (ca. A.D. 1650-1800) habitation site situated in an upland saddle landform in the Flat Creek valley in the upper Neches River basin of East Texas. Flat Creek flows west a few kilometers to its confluence with the Neches River, not far downstream of Lake Palestine. The site was found and investigated as part of survey and test excavation investigations for a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-permitted lake on Flat Creek in northwestem Cherokee County. During those 2006 investigations, a large assemblage of Allen phase Caddo ceramics were recovered from household areas in the North and Alley parts of the site, making it one of the very few upper Neches Historic Caddo Allen phase domestic sites ever studied. As such, a detailed analysis of the domestic ceramics found at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site provides a unique opportunity to document the ceramic practices and traditions of these Caddo peoples. Ceramic vessel sherds are abundant at the Kahhahko-wha site, with 474 decorated sherds and 94 plain sherds from at least 36 vessels (based on the number of recovered rim sherds). The density of ceramic vessel sherds is 16.9 per m2 in the North area excavation units (n=213) and 37.0 per m2 in the Alley area (n=314 ). The plain/decorated sherd ratio (P/DR) for the site as a whole is only 0.20, quite comparable with the Allen phase component at the Deshazo site (Story 1995; Fields 1995), where the P/DR is 0.29, and the 18th century Nabedache Azul and Nabedache Blanco sites in the Neches River basin, Houston County; the P/DR ranges from 0.3 1-0.32 at these sites. By area, the P/DR in the North area is 0.31, compared to 0.13 from the Alley area. The lower P/DR from the Alley area suggests this occupation may be slightly younger than the North area occupation, even though the calibrated radiocarbon dates from the site do not suggest this. Table 1 provides comparative sherd assemblage data from nearby Lake Palestine sites on the Neches River and the Lang Pasture site, about five miles southwest from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site. In this particular seriation, the Kah-hah-kowha site falls in Group 1 of the seriation, and is interpreted as the youngest or most recent known Caddo occupation of the Lake Palestine area sites. By the late 17th and 18th centuries other Caddo sites are known in the Neches and Angelina river basins where brushed sherds account for ca. 50-90% of all the decorated sherds, which is consistent with the fact that more than 82% of the sherds at the Kahhahko-wha site are brushed.


INTRODUCTION
The Kah-hah-ko-wha site ( 41 CE354) is an Historic Caddo Allen phase (ca. A.D. 1650-1800) habitation site situated in an upland saddle landform in the Flat Creek valley in the upper Neches River has in of East Texas. Flat Creek llows west a few kilometers to its confluence with the Neches River, not far downstream of Lake Palestine. The site was found and investigated as part of survey and test excavation investigations for a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-pennitted lake on Flat Creek in northwestem Cherokee County (Perttula and Nelson 2007).
During those 2006 investigations, a large assemblage of Allen phase Caddo ceramics were recovered from household areas in the North and Alley parts of the site (Pcrttula and Nelson 2007 : Figure 31 ), making it one of the very few upper Neches Historic Caddo Allen phase domestic sites ever studied (e.g., Cole 1975). As such, a detailed analysis of the domestic ceramics found at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site provides a unique opportunity to document the ceramic practices and traditions of these Caddo peoples.
Ceramic vessel sherds are abundant at the Kahhah-ko-wha site, with 474 decorated sherds and 94 plain sherds from at least 36 vessels (based on the number of recovered rim sherds). The density of ceramic vessel sherds is 16.9 per m 2 in the North area excavation units (n=213) and 37.0 per m 2 in the Alley area (n=314). The plain/decorated sherd ratio (P/DR) for the site as a whole is only 0.20, quite comparable with the Allen phase component at the Deshazo site (Story 1995;Fields 1995), where the P/DR is 0.29, and the Jgrh century Nahedache Azul and Nabedache Blanco sites in the Neches River basin, Houston County (Perttula and Nelson 2006:62); the P/DR ranges from 0.31-0.32 at these sites. By area, the P/DR in the North area is 0.31, compared to 0.13 from the Alley area.
The lower P/DR from the Alley area suggests this occupation may be slightly younger than the North area occupation, even though the calibrated radiocarbon dates from the site do not suggest this (see Pcrttula and Nelson 2007: Table 1). Table 1 provides comparative sherd assemblage data from nearby Lake Palestine sites on the Neches River (see Anderson et al. 197 4) and the Lang Pasture site (41AN38. Kelley et al. 2006), about five miles southwest from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site.
In this particular seriation, the Kah -hah-kowha site ralls in Group 1 of the seriation, and is interpreted as the youngest or most recent known Caddo occupation of the Lake Palestine area sites. By the late 17th and I Sth centuries other Caddo sites are known in the Neches and Angelina river basins where brushed sherds account for ca. 50-90% of all the decorated shcrds, which is consistent with the fact that more than 82% of the sherds at the Kahhah-ko-wha site are bmshed.

DECORATED VESSEL SHERDS
The 474 decorated sherds from the test excavations at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site are grouped into 10 utility ware decorative classes and two tine ware decorative classes (Table 2). Utility ware sherds comprise 88.2% of all the decorated sherds and 62% of the decorated rim sherds. Utility wares generally are jars and simple howls used for the cooking and storage of foods, as well as food serving, have a coarse temper, and usually lack burnishing, polishing, or slipping on interior and exterior vessel surfaces. Such vessel sherds are decorated with bmshing and other wet paste decorative methods, including incising, punctations, appliqued, and neck handed elements, either by themselves or in combination with one or more of these decorative methods. Fine wares, on the other hand, consist principally of engraved and slipped vessel sherds from carinated bowls, bottles, and some simple bowls that were used for food serving and the holding of liquids. The tine ware vessels and vessel sherds more frequently are well-smoothed, burnished, or polished on the exterior surface, and have finer temper inclusions and thinner vessel walls than do the utility wares. The fine wares were made, fired, and used in different ways than the utility wares (see below). About 12% of the vessel sherds are from fine wares. including 38% of the decorated rim sherds ( Table 2). The dominance of brushed vessels (Bullard Brushed jars) in the Kah-hah-ko-wha vessel sherd assemblage is clear in the decorated sherd information presented in Table 2. Almost 74% of all the decorated sherds have brushing on either the rim and body of utility ware jars, and the abundance of both brushed rims and body sherds suggests that most of the vessel surface on utility ware jars was covered with brushing marks.
Brushing also occurs in association with pum:tated, appliqued, incised, and neck banded utility ware decorations (see Table 2). These decorative classes comprise another 9. I% of the decorated sherds from the site. The virtual absence of rim sherds among these decorative classes (the.re is one brushed-punctated rim) indicates that these particular combinations of decorative elements were confined to the vessel bodies of utility ware jars. In the case of the neck banded-brushed La Rue Neck Banded sherd, the neck banding is on the rim or neck of ajar and the brushing was applied vertically on the vessel body (see Suhm and Jelks 1962:Platc 47a. c-d). The incised (3.g£,k). punctated (0.6'7c:), and appliqued ( 1.1%) vessel sherds appear to have had similar decorative elements on both the rim and vessel bodie~. although they also occur in combination with brushing on jar bodies. These particular decoration classes represent only a very minor aspect of the decorated utility wares from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site. The one red-slipped sherd is from a bowl that has a hematite-rich clay slip only on its exterior vessel surface. The engraved fine wares have engraved decorations on the rim of carinated bowls and simple There are important differences in the kinds and relative abundance of the different vessel sherd decorative classes between the Alley and North areas (Table 3). The meaning (or meanings) of these differences is explored in the concluding part of this article. One of the main differences arc that the frequency of brushed sherds is almost 20% higher in the Alley area than it is in the North area. All sherds with brushing (including those with other decorative clements, such as brushed-punctated) comprise 86% of the Alley area sherds and 76.7% from the North area. Utility ware brushed vessels with combinations of brushing and other decorative clements are more common in the North area, however, particularly vessel body sherds with brushed-incised and brushed-punctated decorations. Brushcd-appliqued and brushed-punctated-incised body sherds are found only in the Alley area.
Utility ware vessels decorated with incised elements (probably from Maydelle Incised jars) are more than twice as common in the North area as they are among the decorated sherds in the Alley area (see Table 3). Appliqued and punctated vessel sherds are restricted to the Alley area, even though they only account for 2.5% of the area's decorated sherds.
Fine ware engraved and red-slipped sherds are much more abundant in the North area ( 17.2%) than they arc in the Alley area (8.6%) (see Table 3), even though Patton Engraved and Poynor Engraved vessel sherds are present in both areas. Hume Engraved vessel sherds are found only in the Alley area.
In addition to the decorated sherds from the North and Alley areas, five decorated sherds have been recovered in limited investigations in the Southern area (see Perttula and Nelson 2007:Figure 30). These sherds include two parallel brushed body sherds, one parallel brushed-incised body sherd, another sherd with a row of tool punctations, and a bottle sherd with closely-spaced curvilinear engraved lines.

Fine Wares
The fine ware sherds include 56 sherds, 11 of which are rim sherds (Table 4). The one  Engraved sherds are the most abundant of the fine wares, comprising 37.7% of the engraved sherds from the Alley area and 60.6% of the North area engraved fine wares. The Hume Engraved sherrJs (16.7%) were only found in the Alley area, while 4.2-7.1% of the engraved sherds arc from Poynor Engraved vessels in the two areas. The latter sherds are from the later PP variety of Poynor Engraved defined by Kleinschmidt (1982: Figure 20 and Table 19).
The Patton Engraved sherds are dominated by those with either triangular or linear tick marks on horizontal (the most common element), diagonal, or curvilinear engraved lines on vessel rims (see Figure  ld-g). Triangular tick-marked examples are more common than linear ticks in both site areas, and are slightly more prevalent in the Alley area (75% of the tick marks on Patton Engraved sherds are triangular-shaped. compared to 67o/c-from the North area). One linear tick-marked Patton Engraved sherd from the North area has a white kaolin pigment in the engraved lines. AL Lhe Deshazo site, occupied a' late as ca. AD 1720, more than 93G~ of the Pattun Engraved sherds have the triangular tick-marked element (Fields 1995:187, 189).
Other Patton Engraved decorative elemenh include a small engraved circle (see Figure 2b) without tick marks on one body sherd (see Kleinschmidt 1982:Figure 20). The sherd is from the Alley area. Sherds with broad curvilinear engraved lines, likely part of a concentric eire le motif. arc also included in the Patton Engraved ceramic~ from the site; one of these sherds from the North area has a white kaolin clay pigment smeared in the engraved lines. Suhm and Jelks (1962:Plate 59d. h-i, k) and Fields ( 1995: Figure 64f-g) illustrate vessels and sherds with broad curvilinear lines on the body of bowls ami olla-like forms, and with horizontal engraved lines on the rim with triangu lar tick marks.
The sherds classified as Hume Engraved (see Figure 2a, c) are found only in the Alley area. They are rim and body sherds that have large hatched or excised triangles that are pendant from horizontal engraved lines (see Suhm and Jelks 1962 :Plate 42b-c). According to Kleimchmidt (1982: Table  Table 4. Decorative classes and elements identified in the fine ware sherds.  19), Hume Engraved vessels were made and used in the latter part of the Frankston phase and in the Allen phase, with the highest frequencies of Hume Engraved in Allen phase burials in the upper Neches River basin. The three Poynor Engraved sherds (PP variety) are bowl rims (see Figure 2d, f). The two rims from the North area have a white pigment in the engraved lines. These particular sherds have a single broad horizontal engraved line on the rim that is connected to a series of either opposed or curvilinear engraved lines that would have extended across the rim surface. The PP variety of Poynor Engraved is found most frequently in late Frankston (ca. mid-l61h to mid-J7 1 h century) and Allen phase contexts (Kleinschmidt 1982: Table 19).
There are a few engraved bottle sherds in the fine wares (see Table 4 ). They account for 7.1-8.4% of the engraved fine ware vessel sherds in the North and Alley areas, and another bottle sherd was recovered from the Southern area. The North and Southern area bottles have multiple sets of curvilinear lines on the vessel body (see Figure 2e), while the Alley area bottle sherd has an engraved zone filled with hatched lines (see Figure lc). This particular bottle sherd may be from a Hume Engraved bottle (e.g., Suhm and Jelks 1962:Plate 42b, e;Kleinschmidt 1982: Figure 20).
The remainder of the engraved sherds mainly have unidentifiable decorative elements and motifs (see Table 4). They have simple sets of parallel or opposed engraved lines. A notable exception are the two lip-notched rims (see Figure

Utility Wares
The principal utility ware vessel sherds from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site have grass and frayed-stick brushing marks on them. The brushing typically covers both the rim and the vessel body, extending almost to the vessel base (Suhm and Je-lks 1962:21 and Plate 11). These brushed vessel shenls are from Bullard Brushed jars (see Suhm and Jelks 1962;Kleinschmidt 19S2).
The brushed rims have horizontal brushing marks (n=8), vertical brushing (n=2) brushing (n=2), and one rim with opposed brushing marks (Figures 3 and 4 ). The diagonal and vertically brushed rims are found only in the Alley area, and the one opposed brushed rim is from the North area (Table 5). Horizontally brushed rims are present in both site areas. The vessel bodies of the Bullard Brushed jars are usually vertically brushed (Suhm and Jelks 1962:21 ). It is likely that the many parallel brushed body sherds (Figure Sd; see also Figure 4d) of uncertain orientation in the vessel sherd assemblage (see Table 5) are actually vertically brushed parts of utility ware jars. Between 25.5-29.0% of the jar bodies of these brushed vessels have opposed (see Figure 3d) or overlapping brushing marks ( Figure Sa-c).
Less common decorative elements present on utility ware vessel sherds from the Kah-hah-kowha site are summarized in Table 6. The brushedpunctated sherds (Figure 6a. d, f) are likely also from Bullard Brushed jars, as they arc known to have rows of punctations below the lip and at the rim-body juncture (Suhm and Jelks 1962:Piate 2laf; Kleinschmidt 1982: Figure 21). The punctations are usually pushed through the brushing marks, however, and this is generally the case in the Kah-hah-ko-wha decorated sherd assemblage. This is a more common decorative element in the Bullard Brushed vessel sherds from the North area.
Brushed-appliqued sherds include those with brushing marks paralleling either appliqued fillets or appliqued ridges. This form of utility ware decoration is well represented at the Deshazo site (Fields 1995:Figures 60g-h and Figure 62a-c), where the appliqued elements (including nodes) have been placed on either the rim or the body.
All three of the brushed-punctated-incised body sherds (Figure 7e; see also Figure 6e) are from the Alley area, as are the brushed-appliqued, appliqued. punctated, and neck banded utility ware sherds . Although these decorated utility wares are not well represented at the site, the fact that they occur in only the Alley area is good evidence for the existence of different and changing utility ware stylistic traditions within the two Allen phase components at the site.
Incised rim and body sherds from Maydelle Incised vessels are particularly common in the North area, while brushed-incised body sherds are well represented in both areas. Elements represented in the incised shcrds include horizontal. diagonal.

Brushed-Punctated-Appliqued
Parallel brushcd-appliqued 3.7 Ridge-tool punctated row, body  Kleinschmidt 1982: Figure 21 ). Fields ( 1<.J95: 180 and Figure 66a-c) docs identify Karnack Brushed-Incised sherds from the Allen phase component at the Deshazo site, but those vessel sherds had parallel incised lines over roughened surfaces, not over well-defined brushing marks as at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site. Rim sherds are present only in the appliqued, punctated, and incised decorative classes (see Table  6). The other utility ware sherds listed in Table 6 represent the range of decorative elements to he found only on the vessel body of jars. The one neck banded and brushed body sherd is from a LaRue Neck Banded jar with verti<:al brushing on the vessel body. The rarity of neck banded pottery in Allen phase contexts is apparent from the fact that only seven of the 23,651 decorated sherds from the Deshazo site have neck banding (Fields 1995: Figure 75f-g). Appliqued sherds at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site (see Figure 7 a-c) represent 1.1% of all the de<:oratt>d sherds, which is slightly more than the relative proportions of appliy_ued sherds at Deshazo (0.4% ). Fillets and nodes can occur on both the rim or the body of utility ware jars.

Plain Wares
The plain ware vessel sherds include seven rims and 87 body and base sherds. Proportionally, plain ware vessel sherds are more abundant in the North area than the Alley area, as they comprise 24% of all the sherds in the former area and only 11.7% in the latter area. Six of the seven plain rims, apparently from medium-sized bowls, are also from the North area ( Figure 9).

ORIFICE IDIAMETERS AND RIM FORMS
Of the 36 rims in the collection from the site, vessel orifice diameter (OD) could be measured on only nine of them: three plain ware bowl rims, three utility ware jar rims, and three fine ware rim sherds. In the plain wares, the OD ranges from 15-17 em, compared to 16-19 em in the utility wares; one utility ware rim had an OD greater than 19 em. These  Table 7). Most of the vessels have a direct or standing rim (e.g., Brown 1996: Figure 2-12), but everted rim jars are also well represented in the utility wares. Inverted rim bowls and carinated bowls are only present in the plain wares and fine wares, one plain ware vessel from the Alley area and two carinated bowls in the North area.
Vessel lips tend to be rounded among all three wares, although flat lips are particularly well represented in the plain wares (43% of the rims) (see Table 7). Exterior folded lips occur only in the utility wares; furthermore, this distinctive lip treatment is present only among the Alley area utility wares.

WARE COMPARISONS OF TEMPER, FIRING CONDITIONS, SURFACE TREATMENT, AND WALL THICKNESS
Certain technological attributes of the ceramic vessel sherds from the North and Alley areas at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site can be compared to determine if there are differences in how the vessels were made, fired, and used across the site. The ceramic attribute daca reviewed below is based on detailed decorated (n=l68 sherds) and plain sherd (n=59) analyses (Perttula and Nelson 2007:Appendix 5).
Johnson ( 1992: 18) provides a succinct summary of the reconstn1cted manufacturing process of Caddo vessels that is certainly applicable to the ceramic vessels and vessel sherds recovered from the Kahhah-ko-wha site: Caddo pottery ... represents an ancient tradition of vessel making that pretty much had all the bugs worked out of it. Even vessels that show poor artisanship exhibit good "engineering": During the rough stages of work. potters thinned vessels on the inside by scraping them with gourd pieces or other sizeable but thin objects, and then evened up the surfaces by rubbing them. apparently with a stone. Finally. they smoothed the vessels with bundles of grass, pieces of hide. or wet brushes that were not too coarse. In their shaping of vessels, Caddo potters certainly did not mess ahout with the flat end of sticks ... or with hunches of sharp twigs. Furthermore. the rims of most Caddo vessels (except for sharp-rimmed bottles) were made thick enough to stand up under ladle banging, and I have seen no evidence of sloppily repaired greenware cracks or greenware rim peeling. In fact, Caddo potters habitually made an effort to eradicate coil joins and tool marks except inside some narrow-mouthed jars and bottles ... All these thinning and smoothing techniques are advanced and quite satisfactory. The Allen phase vessel sherds from the Kahhah-ko-wha site are from vessels that are tempered almost exclusively with grog (fired clay and/or crushed sherds). Between 97.1% and 98.4% of the sampled sherds from the North and Alley areas, respectively, have grog temper inclusions ( Table  8). The few sherds that do not have a grog temper either have crushed and burned bone (1.6% of the sherds from the Alley area) or have no temper and a sandy paste (2.9% of the sherds from the North area). Other temper inclusions found in the paste of the vessel sherds are hematite and charred organic remains (i.e., visible pieces of charcoal), but these occur exclusively in association with grog temper.
The variability in temper-paste use in the Kahhah-ko-wha site ceramics is much lower than that  attempt on the part of the Caddo potters to slow the oxidation process of the ceramic vessels during firing. This would have created darker-colored vessels in the reducing environment (or lighter tan, orange, and brown colors in oxidizing environments), while allowing them to be fired longer, and producing a harder ceramic vessel (Rice 1987:354: Teltser 1993. Since grog has expansion coefficients comparable to the coefficients of the clay paste-especially with the finely crushed grog pieces as seen in the fine wares-this would have further contributed to the ability of fired vessels to withstand heat-related stresses, as well as increasing their flexural strength (Rice 1987:362). Between 12.5-14.6% of the sherds from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site have a sandy paste (see Table  8). This suggests the frequent use of a sandy clay for vessel manufacture. The highest proportions of sandy paste sherds are in the plain wares (20.3%). with lesser amounts among the utility wares ( 11.3%) and the fine wares (8.0% ). The plain wares-along with the utility wares from the North and Alley areas-also have the highest proportions of crushed hematite and bone-tempered sherds in the assemblage (see Table 8). It is probable that the Caddo potters recognized that sandy clays held up better to heat-related stresses and helped with vessel porosity and thermal conductivity, which would have had practical value given the repeated use of utility ware vessels for the cooking of foods and the serving of foods and liquids in simple bowls (see Rice 1987Rice , 1996. The relatively high amount of quartz sand in the paste of certain utility ware and plain ware vessels may be related to decisions made by Caddo potters to be able to better control the making and firing of harder and more durable vessels. The use of hematite as a temper may have served the same purpose as feldspars, which are often found together in the paste of Caddo vessels. The occurrence of fine grains of these minerals in the paste would have enhanced a vessel's ability to melt and fuse the paste constituents during firing, resulting in a dense, hard body, and a reduced vessel porosity (Rice 1987:96).
There are differences in the use of tempers between the fine wares, utility wares, and plain wares. with the highest proportional use of grog in the fine wares (see Table 8). and the lowest among the plain ware vessels. The use of crushed pieces of hematite as temper is more common in the utility and plain wares, especially the utility wares in the 1\orth area, and only 4% of the fine wares from both the North and Alley areas have hematite tempering. Bone tempering occurs in low frequencies in all three ware categories. Coarse sandy paste sherds in the Alley area arc found only in the utility wares and plain wares, hut is equally prevalent in all three wares in the Notih area. The two sherds with preserved organic remains in the paste are only in the utility wares and plain wares, one shcrd each from both site areas (see Table 8). The sherds from these particular vessels indicate that a certain small proportion of vessels were not fired at high temperatures and/or not fired for a long duration. Accordingly, the organic materials naturally present in the worked clay did not have a chance to be completely burned off during firing.
In addition to these differences in temper between the different wares, there arc also subtle differences in temper-paste composition between the ceramic vessel sherds in the Alley area and vessel sherds in the North area (see Table 8). These are summarized below: • Vessels tempered only with grog temper are 11-17% more common among the utility ware and fine wares in the Alley area, while plain wares are much more likely (23 % more likely) to be grog-tempered in the North area; • Vessel sherds with hematite temper inclusions are more abundant in the North area. especially among the utility wares: Bone-tempered vessel ~herds are twice as common in the Alley area than in the North area. even though the absolute frequency of bone tempering is low in both areas: Plain wares with sandy paste sherds are a good hit more plentiful (32%) in the Alley area than they are in the North area (20.6%), and the overall use of sandy paste sherds is more common in the Alley area.
The Caddo potters at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site fired their vessels in a number of different ways. Most of the fine wares and plain wares were fired in a reducing or low oxygen environment-probably smothered in a bed of coals from a wood fire-as 60-80% of the fine wares and 60-79% of the plain wares were fired this way ( Table 9). Most of them were subsequently cooled in a high oxygen environment, probably meaning that the fire-hardened vessel was removed from the fire to cool. A significant number Table 9. Firing conditions of the ceramic sherds. of the vessel sherds, however, were allowed to cool in the fire, where they kept their dark surface colors, aud this is especially the case in the North area among the fine wares, plain wares, and utility wares. More of the utility ware vessels were fired in a high oxygen e nvironment than is the case for the fine wares or plain wares (see Table 9). More than 70% of the utility ware sherds from the Alley area and 45% of the North area vessel sherds were from vessels fired in this manner. A number of these utility ware vessel shcrds arc from vessels that were incompletely oxidized during firing, occurring at rates two to four times higher than in the fine wares.
There are significant differences in how utility ware, plain ware, and fine ware vessels were fired at the site, further differentiating these basic vessel classes. The comparison of sherd firing conditions suggests thaL the tine ware and plain ware vessel sherds were better made and better fired (at least in terms of regulating the firing temperature), and probably fired longer in a low oxygen environment, than the utility ware sherds. The Caddo potters exerted more control over the end product of tine ware and plain ware vessel manufacture than they did with the utility wares, primarily to produce a harder ceramic. The more heterogeneous firing conditions of the utility wares-particularly the many incompletely oxidized vessel sherds-is likely the result of the multi-purpose nature of these vessel forms, as they were used as cooking pots and storage containers. As long as the porosity of the utility wares was not excessive, they did not need to be fired for as long a time as the harder fine wares to be quite serviceable and without being subject to diminished strength from cumulative thermal fatigue as well as cracks and fractures.
Many of the vessel sherds from the Kah-hahko-wha site retain evidence or the smoothing or burnishing of interior and/or exterior surfaces (Table  1 0). These surface treatments were done to thin and even out the vessel surfaces, strengthen them by melding coil joins, and even to create a surface appearance that enhanced the vessel decoration.
Among the utility ware sherds from both areas of the site, most of them (between 65-71%) have been smoothed on the interior surface, while less than 10% have been smoothed or burnished on exterior surfaces. This smoothing was most likely consistently done to lower Lhe permeability and increase the heating effectiveness of particular vessels (cf. Rice 1996:148), that being the utility ware vessels used for cooking.
The decorated fine ware sherds are more frequently smoothed on the exterior surface Lhan the utility wares (20-40% compared to less than 2%) as well as more commonly burnished on either interior (20-40.0%) or exterior ( 46.7-60.0%) vessel surfaces. None of the utility ware vessels are burnished on The comparable smoothing and burnishing of interior and exterior vessel surfaces of the fine wares (not including the bottles, which have a roughened interior vessel body) indicates that the fine wares were not used for cooking purposes, but probably to serve and hold foods and liquids. The smoothed and burnished (60-67% of all the fine ware sherds) surfaces of such vessels would have been advantageous in the repeated use of such serving vessels. The exterior smoothing and burnishing, beyond its purpose in melding coil joins, was probably designed to have stylistic and display purposes, creating a flat and lustrous surface well-suited to highlight the engraved and/or slipped exterior surfaces of the fine ware vessels.
The plain ware sherds are more like the fine wares than the utility wares with respect to vessel wall surface treatments (see Table 1  burnished vessel surfaces are much more common in the plain wares (both interior and exterior surfaces) than they are in the utility wares. This surface treatment information suggests that most of the plain wares were used more like fine wares than utility wares, being well-smoothed and burnished, and probably were made to also be used in the serving of foods and liquids. The decorated utility ware vessel sherds from both areas at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site have thicker rim and body walls than do the fine ware vessel sherds as well as the plain ware vessel sherds (Table  11 ). This is to be expected because the utility ware vessels were made to stand up to repeated heating and cooling-and the thicker walls would help lessen heat-related stresses and wall cracking-as well as to have qualities that contributed to better vessel porosity and thermal conductivity during cooking use. The thicker rims on the utility ware vessels (30-40% thicker than the fine ware vessel rims) would have been well-suited to repeated handling and lifting, and in their resistance to breakage and fracturing from serving and stirring utensils.
The North area utility ware vessel shenls are significantly thicker than the Alley area utility wares (see Table ll). lt is not clear why there is this considerable difference in wall thickness between these two Caddo occupations, but it is another piece in the growing appreciation of the existence of diverse intra-site activities at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site. These thickness differences may be related to the manufacture of larger (and hence thicker-walled) utility ware jars for cooking and storage tasks in the North area when compared to those in use in the Alley area, as well as to basic differences in the use and use-life of these durable vessels. This could include greater storage needs in one area when compared to another and more sustained household cooking requirements-leading to a reliance on larger vessels-and even to differences in the kinds and amounts or clays that were available for vessel manufacture. Fine ware vessel sherds arc well-fired, with hard and durable vessel walls that are quite thin among the broken vessels in both the North and Alley areas (see Table 11 ). Rim and body wall thickness are equivalent, since there was less need to have a thicker and sturdy rim as well as thick body walls that could handle prolonged use (as there would be in the utility wares) because the line ware vessels were designed as serving ware and to hold liquids, not for use in daily cooking activities. Plain ware vessels from both areas also have relatively thin rim and body walls (see Table II), little different from the fine wares, but thick bases that would have lent stability to the plain ware bowls while they were in use.

SUMMARY OF THE CERAMIC VESSEL SHERD ASSEMBLAGE
The Caddo ceramic assemblage from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site appears to represent a single Allen phase component with stylistic affiliations to ca. A .D. 1650-1720 Caddo sites in the upper Neches and Angelina River basins. It represents a &.69 7.30 7.0 11.26 9.03 6.22 7.1 11.24 non-mortuary Allen phase component, and as such, provides a unique view of the character of the ceramic assemblage in an early historic upper Neches River Caddo domestic context. The assemblage is dominated by medium-sized vessels with brushed decorations on utility ware vessel sherds, as well as a few incised, brushedincised, and brushed-punctated jars, engraved fine wares (carinated bowls and bottles, a few of which have a white pigment worked into the design), the heavy use of grog-tempered ceramic pastes, and the common reduced or low oxygen firing of both utility, plain, and fine wares. There are clear differences in both the North and Alley areas in temper and paste attributes, firing conditions, surface treatment, and vessel wall thickness-as well as the kinds of decorations placed on vessel rims and body surfaces of the fine wares, utility wares, and plain wares. These differences can be readily traced to diverse technological, functional, stylistic, and idiosyncratic decisions and strategies (cf. Johnson 1992: 16-18) made by Caddo potters from different family or kin groups (e.g., LaVere 1998:92) on how to shape, fire, finish, and decorate ceramic vessels that were used in domestic tasks here. Similar kinds of vessels were also used for ritual and ceremonial activities at community cemeteries and certain family cemeteries.
There are stylistic and technological differences in the ceramic vessel sherds between the North area and the Alley area. These differences may simply represent functional and intra-site differences between two households in a contemporaneous Allen phase community, hinting that some of the Caddo social elite might have been living in one area of the site. Another possibility is that the North and Alley areas were not occupied at the same time by Allen phase families, but the few available radiocarbon dates obtained from the Kah-hah-ko-wha site do not support this contention. If this were shown to be the case following more extensive radiocarbon dating efforts at the site, it does not seem likely that much time separates the occupations in the two areas because the same principal ceramic types (i.e., Patton Engraved, Poynor Engraved, and Bullard Brushed) are present in both areas. lf temporal factors are the primary reason that accounts for the suhtle differences in the manufacture, firing, and decoration of ceramic vessels used in both areas, then the Kah-hah-ko-wha ceramic assemblage provides solid evidence for generational changes in Caddo vessel craftsmanship.
Archaeological and ethnographic information on the accumulation of pottery sherds (especially utility ware shcrds or cooking-pot sherds) in domestic contexts suggest that 4000-8000 grams of cooking pot shcrds would be accumulated through breakage and use per year on a residential site occupied by Native American farmers (see Varien 1999: Table 4.2). We estimate that there are approximately 10,000 grams (1110-1180 sherds, weighing on average 8-9 grams each) of sherds in the North and Alley area principal ceramic concentrations.
Approximately 90% of the sherds (9.000 grams) are from utility ware sherds, based on the proportion of utility ware to fine ware sherds in the overall site ceramic assemblage. This suggests that the utility ware sherds at the Kah-hah-ko-wha site could have been accumulated in toto in only about l-2 years of occupation by Caddo families living in the North and Alley areas. Since Caddo wood structures would probably only have Lasted at most 20 or so years before they began to deteriorate (see Good 1982:69). this ceramic accumulation evidence further suggests that the Kah-hah-ko-wha site was occupied for only a very short time by Caddo peoples and then rather quickly abandoned.