Documentation of Caddo Vessels in the Robert L. Turner Collection at Stephen F. Austin State University

Abstract

Perttula and colleagues documented more than 300 ceramic vessels in the Robert L. Turner, Jr. collection from ancestral Caddo burial sites in East Texas, primarily from the Big Cypress Creek basin, but also including vessels from sites in the middle Sabine, lower Sulphur River, and Neches/Angelina River basins. When the Turner collection was donated to Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) in 2012, it was noted that some of the vessels in the collection had not been documented by Perttula and colleagues. In the spring of 2014 we had an opportunity to remedy the situation, and with the permission of George Avery of the Anthropology and Archaeology Laboratory at SFASU, we have documented an additional 38 vessels in the Turner collection. These vessels are from the G. W. Rumsey (41CP3), Tuck Carpenter (41CP5), Harold Williams (41CP10), B. J. Horton (41CP20), and Alex Justiss (41TT13) sites in the Big Cypress Creek basin.