The Taylor Site (41RK36) and 41RK31 on Martin Creek in Rusk The Taylor Site (41RK36) and 41RK31 on Martin Creek in Rusk

In the early 1970s, the Texas Archeological Survey at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin completed archaeological investigations in advance of the construction of Martin Lake by Texas Utilities Services, Inc. on Martin Creek in the Sabine River basin (Figure 1). Martin Creek is a northward-flowing tributary of the Sabine River. These investigations included an archaeological survey with limited test excavations (McDonald 1972), and then more extensive excavations at five ancestral Caddo sites (Clark and Ivey 1974), most particularly the Musgano site (41RK19) (Figure 2) (Clark and Ivey 1974; Perttula 2014), a Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400) settlement.


Introduction
In the early 1970s, the Texas Archeological Survey at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin completed archaeological investigations in advance of the construction of Martin Lake by Texas Utilities Services, Inc. on Martin Creek in the Sabine River basin (Figure 1). Martin Creek is a northward-flowing tributary of the Sabine River. These investigations included an archaeological survey with limited test excavations (McDonald 1972), and then more extensive excavations at five ancestral Caddo sites (Clark and Ivey 1974), most particularly the Musgano site (41RK19) (Figure 2) (Clark and Ivey 1974;Perttula 2014), a Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1400) settlement.

Figure 1. Location of the sites in East Texas.
Two of the other sites that were investigated by UT at Martin Lake are the Taylor site (41RK36) and 41RK31. This article is based on a review of records at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin as well as the results of a reanalysis of the recovered artifacts from limited test excavations at both sites.

Taylor Site (41RK36)
The Taylor site is on a low alluvial terrace on the east side of the Martin Creek valley, bisected by Trammel's Trace, which began as the Caddo Trace. Investigations in the early 1970s, prior to construction of Martin Lake, recovered ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel sherds in association with Dutch, French, and English-made gunflints (Clark and Ivey 1974:67, 69 and Figure 13e), a lead ball, and two glass beads (IIa12 and IIa61 in Kidd and Kidd [1970]). The site, along with the nearby Millsey Williamson site (41RK3, see Figure 2), is apparently part of a late 18 th century Nadaco dispersed village or community along Martin Creek (Clark and Ivey 1974:69).
In 1972, two 1 x 1 m test pits (TP) were excavated at the Taylor site by McDonald (1972:16), both units on the west side of Trammel's Trace (Figure 3). One of these test pits encountered a 10-cm thick zone of possible midden sediments and ash. Renewed investigations in 1974 identified a single post hole feature in Unit N214/E100 (Clark and Ivey 1974:64).

Ceramic Vessel Sherds
The ceramic vessel sherds from the Taylor site include plain ware, utility ware, and fine ware (Table 1).

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The sherds from the site are tempered with grog, bone, and hematite, or combinations of the different tempers (Table 2).

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The 61 decorated sherds in the Taylor site assemblage are from both utility ware and fine ware vessels (Table 3). Approximately 90 percent of the decorated sheds are from utility wares, probably all from jars, and the remainder are from fine vessel vessels, including one bottle sherd and several bowl or carinated bowl sherds.  Sherds with brushing marks comprise 52 percent of the decorated sherd assemblage, and this includes sherds from vessels that only have brushing as well as sherds with brushed-incised, brushedincised-punctated, and brushed-punctated decorative elements (see Table 3). With two exceptions, these sherds are from Bullard Brushed jars. The other two brushed-incised sherds are from Spradley Brushed-Incised vessels that have parallel brushed-incised marks and lines and overlying opposed or overlying straight incised lines. This utility ware is found primarily on Historic Caddo Allen phase sites in the Neches-Angelina river basins in East Texas. It consists of parallel brushing elements with overlapping straight incised lines that are opposed or perpendicular to the brushing (Marceaux 2011:140 and Figure 5.2).
Ten of the 11 incised sherds in the assemblage are likely from Maydelle Incised vessels. These have diagonal opposed (Figure 4a) or parallel incised lines. The other body sherd has curvilinear incised lines (Figure 4b), and this sherd may be from an 18 th century Emory Punctated-Incised vessel. According to Story et al. (1967:137), when incised lines are present on such vessels, the lines "usually consist of straight to slightly curved lines extending from below the rim to the base or to about the middle of the body." The incised-punctated sherd may be from either of the two utility ware types.
Sherds with punctated decorative elements represent 18 percent of the decorated sherd assemblage, and 20 percent of the utility wares at the Taylor site. These sherds have rows of tool punctations (see Table 3), and may also be from Emory Punctated-Incised vessels. Such vessels tend to have punctations "arranged into one to four rows around the vessel, usually just below the lip" (Story et al. 1967:137), and punctations may also be combined with either incised lines or brushing marks.
The few engraved fine ware sherds include one rim with a horizontal engraved line beneath the lip, a body sherd with parallel engraved lines, a body sherd with a single straight engraved line, and two other engraved body sherds (see Table 3). One of these is from a Taylor Engraved bottle (see Figure 4c) with curvilinear and diagonal opposed engraved lines (see Suhm and Jelks 1962:149), and the other may be from a King Engraved sherd with a cross-hatched engraved zone. King Engraved is an Allen phase fine ware found principally in ceramic assemblages in the Angelina River basin. Decorative elements include cross-hatched engraved zones, either in panels, in panel dividers, or in large bands oriented in several directions on the rim (Marceaux 2011:154;Perttula and Selden 2014: Figure 40).
The last of the fine ware sherds in the Taylor site assemblage is a red-slipped body sherd, likely from a bowl or carinated bowl. The sherd has a hematite-rich red slip on both interior and exterior surfaces (see Table 3).
The one glass bead in the Taylor site collection is classified as a IIa13 bead following Kidd and Kidd (1970). This is a very small, round, opaque, and white bead. Other European artifacts in the assemblage include four spall gunflints or gunflint fragments ( Figure 5). These are on non-local gray, dark gray, very dark gray, and a light gray chert, and range from 19-20 mm in length, 14-18 mm in width, and 4-9 mm in thickness.  Other recovered artifacts from the site include eight pieces of lithic debris, all of non-local light gray, dark gray, and gray chert, 27 pieces of burned clay, and 18 pieces of animal bone. About 78 percent of the animal bone has been burned.

41RK31
This Historic Nadaco Caddo site is on a knoll in the Martin Creek floodplain (see McDonald 1972). Ancestral Caddo burials with glass beads have been reported from the site (TARL site records; McDonald 1972:15). Three 5 x 5 ft. test units were excavated at 41RK31 in 1972, but no evidence of an Historic Nadaco Caddo settlement was found at that time.
The recovered archaeological materials from 41RK31 are not temporally diagnostic, except for one square cut nail (manufactured between 1820-1891) and six pieces of clear bottle glass. The remainder of the assemblage includes wood charcoal (n=16), burned clay (n=1), unburned animal bone (n=6), and chipped stone tools (n=1) and lithic debris (n=51). The tool is a thick petrified wood biface, 51 x 23 x 14 mm in length, width, and thickness, that has smoothed stream-rolled cortex on both faces.

Summary and Conclusions
The Taylor site (41RK36) and 41RK31 were among a number of archaeological sites investigated in the early 1970s by the Texas Archeological Survey at Martin Lake on Martin Creek in East Texas (McDonald 1972;Clark and Ivey 1974). The investigations consisted of pedestrian survey and limited hand excavations at both sites, and several machine-excavated trenches at the Taylor site.
The work at the Taylor site indicates that it has an Historic Caddo component likely of the Kinsloe phase marked with glass beads and European gunflints as well as an assemblage of ceramic vessel sherds from plain ware, utility ware, and fine ware vessels tempered with grog, bone, and hematite. The ceramic vessel sherds are from Bullard Brushed, Emory Punctated-Incised, Maydelle Incised, and Spradley Brushed-Incised jars and King Engraved and Taylor Engraved bowls or carinated bowls, and more than 50 percent of the decorated sherds from the site have brushed marks on rim and vessel body.
41RK31 was reported to have had ancestral Caddo burial features with glass beads as funerary offerings. No such evidence of an 18 th century Caddo component was recovered in the very limited investigations conducted at the site in the early 1970s. Rather, the work there recovered primarily lithic debris of an unknown age, along with a petrified wood biface, and later 19 th century bottle glass sherds and a square cut nail.