New Radiocarbon Dates from Four East Texas Caddo Sites

The East Texas Radiocarbon Database is an important and relatively new database concerning one key aspect of the archaeological record of the Caddo peoples that lived in East Texas from as early as ca. A.D. 800/850. To date, there are a total of approximately 920 radiocarbon dates available from ancestral Caddo sites in the region in the East Texas Radiocarbon Database.


INTRODUCTION
The East Texas Radiocarbon Database is an important and relatively new database concerning one key aspect of the archaeological record of the Caddo peoples that lived in East Texas from as early as ca. A.D. 800/850 (cf. Selden and Perttula 2013). To date, there are a total of approximately 920 radiocarbon dates available from ancestral Caddo sites in the region in the East Texas Radiocarbon Database (Robert Z. Selden Jr., May 2015 personal communication).

Sites and New Radiocarbon Dates
The nine radiocarbon dates reported on in this article are from four archaeological sites: one in the upper Sabine River basin, two sites in the Angelina River basin at Lake Sam Rayburn, and the fourth site on Black Bayou in the Red River basin. None of the sites have had previously obtained radiocarbon dates. Available archaeological information indicates that all four sites were occupied after ca. A.D. 1400, during the late Caddo period, and one site may have been occupied after ca. A.D. 1680, in the Historic Caddo period.

Burks (41WD52)
The M. W. Burks site is a Late Caddo period Titus phase settlement and cemetery in the Little Dry Creek basin in the upper Sabine River drainage in the East Texas Pineywoods. Investigations of the site in 1978 slipped sherds in the midden deposits, "it seems likely that the Caddo occupation took place in the 15 th and 16 th centuries, perhaps ending in the early 1500s" (Perttula 2005:25). deposits, and samples of those organic remains recently were submitted for radiocarbon dating. The samples included charred maize cupules from Midden A (Unit 2, level 4, 30-40 cm bs) and charred hickory nutshells from Midden C (Unit 3, level 3, 20-30 cm bs and Unit 4, level 20-30 cm bs) ( Table 1). Although the calibrated radiocarbon dates from the Burks site are not in stratigraphic order in the shallow midden deposits, the results suggest two periods of use by Caddo peoples. The Midden C deposits have calibrated 2 sigma age ranges of A.D. 1407-1444, suggesting that this midden began to accumulate in the early years of the Titus phase (see Table 1). Perhaps a generation or more later, Midden A deposits were accumulated during a A.D. 1450-1525 Caddo occupation.

Walter Bell (41SB50)
The Walter Bell site is a small prehistoric Caddo farmstead or hamlet with two circular houses, a portion of a third house in the area of House 2, midden deposits, and six burials in the Angelina River basin at Lake Sam Rayburn (Jelks 1965:53-69). Four of the burials (Burials 1-3 and 6) were in close association (either 5 was in an open area, possibly a courtyard or work area between the two Caddo houses. Funerary offerings placed with the deceased included ceramic vessels, Perdiz arrow points, conch shell beads, deer ulna tools and at the site (i.e., clay elbow pipes, a high proportion of brushed utility ware sherds from Broaddus Brushed vessels, and lower proportions of Pineland Punctated-Incised vessel sherds), the Walter Bell site was apparently primarily occupied after ca. A.D. 1450-1500, in the Late Caddo period and the Late Angelina or Bell phase (see Middlebrook 1994Middlebrook , 1997Perttula et al. 2009:22;Perttula and Walters 2016).
The radiocarbon samples from the site include a portion of a deer ulna awl from habitation deposits (Lot 178) and organic residue scraped from preserved remnants on two ceramic vessels: Vessel 958 (Burial 3) and Vessel 1012 (from a non-burial feature) ( Table 2). Vessel 958 is an incised-punctated-brushed jar (Perttula and Walters 2016: Figure 4) and Vessel 1012 is a brushed-incised jar.  Table 2). The other two calibrated radiocarbon dates have a 2 sigma age range of A.D. 1475-1646, during the Late Caddo period Bell phase.

Wylie Price (41SA94)
The Wylie Price site was on a low upland ridge about 1.6 km east of Attoyac Bayou at Lake Sam Rayburn and northern parts of the site. Burial 1 was an adult female with three ceramic vessels placed near the head and shoulders of the deceased. Also in the burial were 21 blue glass beads that had been placed around the neck of the adult female (Jelks 1965:81, 193). These glass beads are clear evidence that this burial at the the head facing to the northeast (Jelks 1965: Figure 36). Two complete vessels, one shell-tempered, and a large section of a third vessel had been placed near the left shoulder of the deceased, along with bird bone to well after ca. A.D. 1400, in the Bell or late Angelina phase.
The radiocarbon sample from the Wylie Price site consisted of charred organic residue scraped from the exterior surface of Vessel 170-1 from Burial 2 (Table 3). This vessel is a shell-tempered incised-punctated jar (Perttula and Walters 2016: Figure 9). The one calibrated radiocarbon date from the Wylie Price site (see Table 3) indicates that the Caddo occupation here also took place during the Late Caddo Bell phase. In fact, the radiocarbon-dated occupations at both the Walter Bell and Wylie Price sites are contemporaneous.
The four new radiocarbon dates from the Walter Bell and Wylie Price sites add to the corpus of radiocarbon dates from Caddo sites at Lake Sam Rayburn: one date from the Etoile site (41NA11), one date from the Sawmill site (41SA89), and one date from the Blount site (41SA123) (Perttula 1998:332, 334).

Goode Hunt (41CS23)
Two radiocarbon samples were submitted for dating from the Goode Hunt site, a late 17 th to early 18 th century (ca. 1680-1720) Nasoni Caddo site in Cass County, Texas, contemporaneous with the nearby Clements site (41CS25), in the northeastern part of the state (Perttula 2015;Perttula et al. 2010). It is situated on a knoll The Goode Hunt site is a large ancestral Caddo cemetery, and the radiocarbon samples discussed herein came from Burials I-5 and I-9 excavated in 1932 by the University of Texas (Jackson 1932). These burials Burial I-5 is a piece of deer teeth that had been placed inside Vessel 43, a Simms Engraved carinated bowl, while the Burial I-9 sample was charred organic residue scraped off the surface of Vessel 68, a Mockingbird Punctated jar (Perttula 2015) (Table 4). The initial use of the Caddo cemetery at the Goode Hunt site took place during the 16 th and early part of the 17 th century A.D., based on the calibrated age of the deer teeth placed inside a vessel in Burial I-5 (see Table 4). The charred organic residue on Vessel 68 in Burial I-9 may date at a 2 sigma calibration to the mid-17 th to mid-18 th century A.D., later than Burial I-5 in the cemetery, but likely dated before A.D. 1700.

Summary and Conclusions
A total of nine new radiocarbon dates have been obtained from four ancestral Caddo sites in East Texas, namely three dates from the Burks site (41WD52) in the upper Sabine River basin; three dates from the Walter Bell site (41SB50) and one date from the Wylie Price site (41SA94) in the Angelina River basin at Lake Sam Rayburn; and two dates from the Goode Hunt site (41CS23) in the Black Bayou basin. Dated organic materials include charred maize and charred hickory nutshells (n=3), deer ulna and teeth fragments (n=2), and charred organic residue preserved on the exterior surface of ceramic vessels (n=4).
The conventional radiocarbon ages of the radiocarbon samples from these four sites range from as early as 502 + 25 years B.P. ( (41SA94)) indicates that the Caddo occupation here also took place during the Late Caddo Bell phase (A.D. 1480-1643), and the radiocarbon-dated occupations at both the Walter Bell and Wylie Price sites are contemporaneous. Finally, the two calibrated radiocarbon dates from the Goode Hunt site (41CS23) pinpoint its initial use as a Caddo cemetery during the 16 th and early part of the 17 th century A.D. (A.D. 1490-1646, 2 sigma calibration). The charred organic residue on a vessel in another burial has at a 2 sigma calibrated age range of A.D. 1641-1746, but its most likely age range is before A.D. 1700.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the staff at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin for access to the collections from the Walter Bell, Wylie Price, and Goode Hunt sites. I also thank Dr. Ugo Zoppi of the DirectAMS Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Lab for processing the radiocarbon samples.