new acquisition PROTECTING CADDOAN MOUNDS

Protecting Caddoan Mounds

Researchers will be able to study this habitation site.

The Conservancy’s newest Texas preserve, the Jamestown site, is a large Caddoan habitation and ceremonial center located about 30 miles north of Tyler. The land has been in Orval Johnston’s family since shortly after the Civil War. He remembered finding “lots of Indian pots and arrowheads” around the property and along the nearby creek bank when he was a boy. Johnston and his wife, Elsie, are selling the site to the Conservancy in order to protect it.

Sam Whiteside, an avocational archaeologist from Tyler, first recorded the seven-mound site in 1959. E. Mott Davis, W. A. Davis, and Lathel Duffield of the University of Texas visited the site with Whiteside shortly after he discovered it.

Today Farm Road 1253 bisects the site, and the four mounds located west of this road have been plowed down or destroyed. As for the intact mounds, Mound A is roughly 120 feet in diameter and 12 feet high; Mound B is about 60 feet in diameter and 3 feet high; Mound C is about 45 feet in diameter and 16 inches high.

Whiteside excavated a trench with the assistance of his nephew, Mark Walters, who recently donated the Redwine site, another Caddoan habitation with tremendous research potential, to the Conservancy. Within the trench they found a large trash pit, many ceramic sherds, and a chert drill. Whiteside thinks that the mounds west of the road were probably house mounds with clay floors.

The mounds were arranged in a more or less circular pattern. The largest mound was located at the southwestern side of the circle. The area between the mounds does not appear to contain significant amounts of cultural ma-

Jamestown

Mound A, the largest of Jamestown’s intact mounds, is seen in the background of this photograph. Archaeologists hope that deposits within this mound will provide information about life in a Caddo village.

terial and is thought to be a plaza. Midden deposits were found on the northeast, south, and west sides of the site beyond the mounds.

Archaeologists James Bruseth and Bob Skiles completed a small excavation next to the large pothole on top of the mound in the 1970s. Different fill zones were exposed, the profiles were photographed, and a few ceramic sherds were recovered.

Firm dates for the site have not been established. According to archaeologist Dee Ann Story, a former director of the Texas Archeological Reserarch Laboratory, the range of cultural material suggests that the site was occupied between A.D.1000 and 1400. Story says she is delighted that the Conservancy is acquiring the Jamestown site. “Mound sites are disappearing so fast and not a lot of careful research has been done on the habitation sites. Jamestown is a good site to bank for the future.” —Amy Espinoza-Ar

Conservancy Plan of Action

SITE: Jamestown CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Early to Middle Caddoan Period A.D. 1000–1400 STATUS: The site is threatened by agricultural and residential development. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy is purchasing 18.64 acres for $46,000. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn:Jamestown Project,5301 Central Ave. NE,Suite 902,Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.