Test Excavations and Additional Surface Collections at the Peach Orchard Site (41CE477) on Bowles Creek in Cherokee County, Texas

Abstract

In March 2016, additional archaeological investigations were conducted at the Peach Orchard site (41CE477) in the Bowles Creek valley in Cherokee County, Texas. This is an area with numerous Historic Caddo Allen phase settlements, including the Peach Orchard site. Investigations at these sites have included pedestrian survey, systematic surface collections, intensive shovel testing, excavation of several 1 x 1 m units, and remote sensing. The ancestral Caddo sherd collection from the sites strongly suggest they are locations of post-A.D. 1680 Historic Caddo settlements, probably by the Neche or Nechas Caddo peoples. Patton Engraved sherds, the Allen phase fine ware ceramic type in the Neches River basin, are common in the site assemblages, and other aspects of the assemblage are consistent with Neche cluster sites. Perhaps these sites were settlements occupied by a Neche or Nechas Caddo group during the late 17th-early 18th century Spanish colonization of the middle reaches of the Neches River, yet inhabited before sustained French trading activities after ca. A.D. 1720, but when several missions were established in this general locale. In this article we first discuss the March 2016 archaeological investigations at the Peach Orchard site. This is followed by a consideration of the analysis of the recovered artifacts in the work, and a review of the character of the Peach Orchard ceramic assemblage found at the site in several rounds of work.