Article Title

Caddo Ceramic Vessels from the E. B. Minter (41HP2) and Roger Attaway (41HP15) Sites in Hopkins County, Texas

Authors

Timothy K. Perttula, Heritage Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityFollow
Mark Walters, Heritage Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityFollow

Agency

Journal of Northeast Texas Archeology

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21112/.ita.2016.1.75

Abstract

A number of ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels are in the collections at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin from the E. B. Minter (41HP2, n=4 vessels) and Roger Attaway (41HP15, n=5 vessels) in Hopkins County, Texas. We recently had the opportunity to fully document these vessels as part of our long-term efforts to characterize ancestral East Texas Caddo vessel forms, temper usage, and stylistic/decorative elements.

The University of Texas conducted excavations at the E. B. Minter site, in the upper White Oak Creek and Sulphur River basin, in May 1931. A 60 x 35 ft. area was excavated on a sandy knoll at that time based on a report that ceramic vessels and ceramic pipes had been found there in years past, but no features were found. A second area by a county road exposed Burial 1 at a depth of ca. 77 cm bs; Jackson noted that ceramic vessels had been found in this area months earlier by road grading work along the road. Burial 1 was laid out in an east-west orientation.

The Roger Attaway Farm site (41HP15) was located in the Spring of 1929 when heavy rains exposed a Caddo burial with five ceramic vessels and two arrow points. This site was 2 miles northwest of Black Oak, in the upper Caney Creek valley in the upper Sabine River basin. Mr. Attaway collected the exposed funerary objects, and then gave them to a Mr. George E. Cowan. Cowan sold four of the vessels to the University of Texas shortly thereafter.

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