Titus Phase Ceramics from the Pine Tree Farm Site (41WD51) in the Lake Fork Creek Basin, Wood County, Texas

Abstract

The Pine Tree Farm site, an ancestral Caddo site occupied during the Titus phase (ca. A.D. 1430- 1680), was recorded by Bob D. Skiles in June 1977, on the basis of investigations conducted there by Skiles and James E. Bruseth, then a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, as well as work done by Skiles in 1970. The site is on a flat upland landform (400 ft. amsl) ca. 300 m northeast of Myrtle Springs Branch, a tributary to Dry Creek in the Lake Fork Creek drainage in the East Texas Pineywoods. The Goldsmith site (41WD208) is ca. 0.4 km to the east on Dry Creek, and several kilometers below the dam at Lake Quitman. The Dry Creek drainage basin, as well as the Caney Creek arm of Lake Fork Reservoir, have clusters of Late Caddo period Titus phase sites. The main known feature at the site was a large trash midden or midden mound that was ca. 20 x 22 m in size and approximately 35 cm in thickness. The midden deposits contained many Caddo ceramic vessel sherds, animal bones, mussel shell, charcoal and other charred plant remains (hickory nut shells), and ash deposits. Most of the trash midden was excavated in 1970, but there were intact midden deposits along the western and southern part of the trash midden, and in June 1977, several small units were excavated by Skiles and Bruseth in those areas. The ancestral Caddo ceramics discussed herein come from Units 2-4 in the southern part of the trash midden, but are not all of the sherds that were recovered in that work.