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Article Title
Agency
Journal of Northeast Texas Archeology
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2008.1.27
Abstract
In 1999, the late Dr. James E. Corbin of Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, recorded 41NA223 in a proposed parking lot associated with offices for the City of Nacogdoches. The site is located on the southern edge of an upland ridge (290 ft. amsl) between Banita Creek and La Nana Creek, southward-flowing tributaries of the Angelina River, and the area around it has a number of commercial buildings.
During the course of development of the parking lot for the County Courthouse of Nacogdoches, Caddo ceramics, animal bones, and late 18th early 19th century European artifacts were found on the surface in disturbed contexts. Corbin initiated some limited archeological investigations in the parking lot area to determine what these artifacts represented functionally and culturally, as well as to assess the contextual integrity of any remaining archaeological deposits. Although no final conclusions were ever reached, Corbin concluded that 41NA223 represented a protohistoric or historic Caddo site and/or the site of the 1804 Guadalupe del Pilar mission church.
In the course of those investigations-primarily a short trench and minimal hand excavations along the trench where a single pit feature had been exposed-a small assemblage of Caddo ceramic sherds (111 sherds and 60 sherdlets) were recovered from 41NA223. These sherds are the subject of this article.
The purpose of this study of the 41NA223 ceramics is two-fold. First, I wish to thoroughly analyze the sherd collection in stylistic and technological terms to ascertain if the sherd collection is Historic Caddo in age, and if so, determine the general characteristics of this assemblage. And second, since "understanding the Caddo ceramics of Historic natives will be essential for workers in this area", particularly in unraveling the archaeological signatures of different Caddo groups that lived in the Angelina River basin, I hoped to make some head way in comparing the nature of this Historic Caddo assemblage with other recently described Caddo sherd collections from Nacogdoches County and the Neches/Angelina river basins.
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