Edward B. Jelks

“ Stone chips and a few artifacts in the floodplain beneath the house floor indicate that the spot had been lightly occupied prior to the construction of the house.
That House No. 3 burned is evident from the charred poles and bits of heavily burned, wattle-impressed, clay daub lying on and above the house floor. Shortly after the burning, a mound of sandy soil, undoubtedly derived from the adjacent surface of the floodplain, was heaped over the house ruins.
Burial of the house remains beneath a mound implies that the house had a special significance, possibly of a ceremonial nature. ”

“ CERAMICS
In addition to the two vessels from the burial at Mound A, ceramic specimens comprise a total of 562 sherds. The paste of these sherds is characteristically sherd tempered, occasionally with the addition of small quantities of sand and/or bone particles. There is no shell tempering. Study of the sherds indicates that bottles, jars with outcurved rims, carinated bowls, and possibly other forms are represented. Exterior surface treatment includes brushing, smoothing, polishing, and red filming; smoothing and red filming also occur as interior surface treatments. ”

“ Except for the clay in the hearth and in the house floor, the entire mound was constructed of sandy soil like that of the surrounding floodplain, whence it undoubtedly was derived. The depressions on the northwest and southeast sides of the mound are probably the borrow sources for the sandy soil. The clay could have easily been obtained from exposures in the cut banks at the edge of the creek channel. ”

“ For vertical reference, the base stake at Mound A was assigned an arbitrary elevation of 100.0 feet, and all vertical measurements for the entire site were keyed to that stake. For horizontal control a separate grid of 5-foot squares was established for each mound and the area adjacent to it. While the use of a separate grid for each mound had some disadvantages, this method was adopted for two main reasons: (1) so that a key stake with co-ordinates in whole numbers could be located at the center of each mound, and (2) to avoid the use of unwieldy 4-digit numbers for co-ordinates. ”

“ But even when an earth lodge was built directly on a flat surface rather than in a pit, the mound left behind when the lodge collapsed has a concavity in the center instead of being convex as were the mounds at the Harroun Site. It is significant that Mound D was prominent and convex in shape even though the house it covered had been built in a pit. Certainly it is 57 difficult to visualize an earth lodge—whether built in a pit or not—collapsing in such a manner as to produce a smoothly convex mound like those at the Harroun Site. ”

“ Burned poles and burned clay daub with wattle impressions showed that House No. 4 had been destroyed by fire.
DISCUSSION
Investigation of Mound D revealed that the following sequence of events had taken place. A round, Caddoan type of house (House No. 4) with an extended entranceway on the west side was built in a shallow, excavated pit on the south bank of Cypress Creek. Architecturally the house was quite similar to those at Mounds B and C. Sand was probably banked against the outside wall of the house to a height of somewhat more than a foot. ”

“ This low, approximately circular mound was located on the floodplain of Cypress Creek, about 125 feet south of the stream channel, at the south end of the lake (Fig. 1) . A shallow depression about eight feet across lay just southwest of the mound, and a similar but smaller depression was recorded at the northeast edge of the mound. These features probably are borrow sources. An intrusive pothole, located near the center of the mound, was three to four feet in diameter at the surface, but fortunately it proved to be quite shallow and damage to the mound was slight. ”

“ A second sherd (Fig. 13, I) with characteristically Lower Mississippi design is also from Zone IIb of the floodplain. This sherd came from the neck area of a jar and has portions of a decorated rim and a plain body. The decoration consists of two sets of parallel lines crossing each other at an angle so as to form a series of diamond-shaped elements. Inside each diamond is a triangular punctation made with the corner of an angular instrument. There is an abrupt decrease in wall thickness at the bottom of the rim so that a typically Lower Mississippian “overhanging line” effect is produced. ”

“ Brushed Pottery
Of the 141 brushed sherds, 13 are rimsherds and 128 are from body areas. The brushing is always on the exterior surface, the interior surfaces being poorly to fairly well smoothed. Wall thickness ranges from 5 to 9 mm. Lips are rounded and slightly everted.
Clay lumps of varying sizes—evidently ground up sherds are visible in the paste of most sherds, and 39 of the 141 brushed sherds also contain bone tempering. There are particles of sand in all the sherds, a few having so much that their surfaces have a distinctly sandy feel when rubbed between the fingers. ”

“ The sharp definition of the hearth surface and the homogeneity of the mound fill above and below the hearth indicate that no appreciable time elapsed between the extinguishing of the fire and the addition of the upper part of the mound fill: otherwise the surface of the hearth should have shown evidence of weathering and the two different stages of mound construction should have been visible in the profiles as separate zones. ”

“ It is believed by the writers that more realistic results can be obtained if the artifacts from a specific site are compared and grouped on a basis of their own characteristics, and not on a basis of preconceived forms, styles, and types recognized at other sites.
[2] The anomalous presence of two Lower Mississippi sherds and five Gibson Aspect sherds at the Harroun Site must be considered intrusive, although a reasonable hypothesis to explain their occurrence in a site of Fulton Aspect date does not, it must be confessed, come readily to mind. ”

“ As pointed out by Davis (1958: 67) there is a possibility that mortuary offerings of pottery, arrow points, and other objects may represent selected items and do not necessarily provide a complete catalog of traits actually used by the Titus Focus people. Trait lists compiled from burial data include the arrow point type Talco and the pottery types Ripley Engraved and Harleton Appliquéd as focus diagnostics. Other types listed as Titus Focus traits are shared with other foci. ”

“ The juncture of the body and the rim usually formed a distinct angle. There is the possibility that some vessels with brushed bodies had plain 41 or incised rims, or, conversely, that some with brushed rims had plain or incised bodies. The horizontally brushed rims, some with punctations, are quite similar to the rims of type Pease Brushed-Incised, and it is quite likely that some of the brushed sherds came from Pease vessels. ”

“ An old soil surface, unmistakably defined by a dark humic zone, underlay the entire mound at an average elevation of 99 feet, or approximately the same elevation as the modern surface of the floodplain. ”

“ The skeletal material from Burial No. 1, Site 41UR10, Upshur County, Texas, consists of one skeleton in a state of poor preservation. Not only are the bones highly fragmented but not one, including the skull, has escaped the destructive teeth of rodents. ”

“ The predominance of stone chips and crude stone artifacts suggests Archaic affiliation, but Fulton Aspect sherds also occurred well down in the floodplain and no pure Archaic zones were found.
The internal structure of each of the four mounds was determined in some detail. Beneath Mound A, the smallest one, was an extended burial of an adolescent male. Offerings associated with the burial were a Perdiz arrow point, a small carinated bowl, and a bottle with an expanding neck. Both vessels are of the Ripley Engraved type. ”

“ The peripheral ring of post molds (Fig. 8) averaged a little less than 14 feet in diameter (or almost four feet less than that of the underlying House No. 1) and lay entirely inside the exterior wall of House No. 1. The two rings were not quite concentric, however, the center point of House No. 2 being slightly to the west of the center point of House No. 1. The post molds of House No. 2 were from 0.45 to 0.85 feet in diameter, and they extended from 1.6 to 2.0 feet below the level of the related house floor. ”

“ A small, conical, ceramic object (Fig. 14, R) was unearthed at Mound B. It appears to be the tip of an appendage that has broken off an effigy vessel or a pipe bowl. It is oval in cross section, and the distal end contracts to a blunt point. The buff-colored paste is fine grained and compact; the surface is poorly smoothed. This object measures 18 mm. long and its maximum diameter at the proximal end is 8 mm.
STONE ARTIFACTS
The 46 lithic artifacts include dart points, arrow points, bifacial blades, worked nodules, pitted stones, and other objects. ”

“ The small quantity of sherds did not permit reconstruction of any vessels nor of any complete design elements: consequently correlations between techniques of decorating, design elements, vessel shapes and surface treatment were impossible as a rule, and a comprehensive typological analysis of the ceramics could not be made. ”

“ Titus Focus peoples whose artifacts used in every day life differed in some respects from those usually placed in graves. If the Harroun Site served primarily for ceremonial 60 purposes as has been suggested, this might also help explain some of the observed trait differences between it and the Titus Focus cemeteries previously reported. ”

“ The 25 incised sherds not assignable to any specific type comprise five rimsherds and 20 body sherds. Fifteen of the body sherds bear thin lines sliced into the plastic clay with a sharp instrument; the other 10 were incised with a blunt-tipped implement which gouged out, rather than sliced, the lines. Two sherds (Fig. 14, G) have a horizontal row of closely spaced punctations in the neck area. ”

“ In addition, the area surrounding the mounds was tested sufficiently to show that there was no general area of occupation near the mounds. The excavation of the Harroun Site was supervised by the senior author. The junior author served as an assistant archeologist during both the 1957 and 1958 seasons.
The artifacts recovered indicate affiliation with the Fulton Aspect of the Caddoan Area (Suhm et al., 1954: 151-161) . ”

“ Bear and panther, which were formerly common, have long since disappeared from the area, but a large population of deer, raccoon, opossum, fox, rabbit, beaver, and other small mammals survives to the present day. ”

“ The sandstone and hematite employed for the other stone artifacts were most likely collected from local sources also.
Dart Points
Of the 19 dart points recovered, 15 have contracting stems, 3 have expanding stems, and one has a rectangular stem. Eight of the contracting stem series (Fig. 15, A-D) fall within the shape range of the Gary type (Newell and Krieger, 1949: 164-166 and Fig. 57; Suhm et al., 1954: 430 and Pl. 94) , but are smaller (3 to 4 cm. long) than most Gary points reported from other sites. ”

“ It promised to produce valuable archeological data, and since it was scheduled to be completely submerged by Ferrell’s Bridge Reservoir in the summer of 1959, immediate steps were taken to provide for salvage excavations prior to its inundation. ”

“ Each apparently had a centrally located hearth and one, or possibly both, had an extended entranceway on the west side. Two interior roof support molds were related to the earlier house, but none were found for the later one. ”

“ K-M, sherds of type Ripley Engraved; N-P, sherds of type Taylor Engraved; Q, perforated disc made from sherd; R, fragment of appendage from pipe or effigy vessel.
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Fig. 15. Projectile points. A-D, Gary dart points; E, Ellis dart point; F, Wells dart point; G, rectangular stem dart point; H, Trinity (?) dart point; I, Palmillas dart point; J-M, Unidentified contracting stem dart points; N, San Patrice dart point; O-R, Perdiz arrow points (specimen O was associated with Burial No. 1) ; S and T, expanding stem arrow points.
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Fig. 16. Stone artifacts. A-D, worked nodules ”