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Article Title
Agency
Caddo Archeology Journal
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2005.1.13
Abstract
Clarence Webb (1948) christened Bossier more than a half century ago. Its namesake was the northwestern Louisiana parish where several Bossier sites were located, but it could just as easily been named after Webster, Claiborne, Harrison, Columbia, or other political subdivisions in northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, or eastern Texas where its distinctive pottery was found. This is Caddo country, linguistically and ethnically. Bossier is the issue of Caddoan cultural tradition, a culmination of agents, practices, and histories that transpired in the Red River valley and adjoining Pineywoods hills between ca. A.D. 1300 and 1500.
Bossier is best known for its pottery. Pottery hoists the load for this examination, but other factors such as presence or absence of mounds and relative geographic location help me contextualize Bossier pottery and contemplate Bossier materiality as the product of human minds and hands. I organize pottery data, new and old, by a simple arithmetic measure, an average index of similarity. I don't see how more robust statistical comparisons could do any better when data come from potsherds picked up from bare spots on the ground but not from underneath the pine straw. Powerful statistics don't create powerful data. They don't create data at all.
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