Caddo Artifacts in Central Texas: A Proposed Trade Connection

Abstract

East Texas artifacts, including Caddo pottery, Bonham-Alba arrow points, and Gahagan knives dating to the Early Caddo Period (AD 1000-1300), have been recovered from central Texas archaeological sites in McLennan, Coryell, and Bell Counties. In People of the Prairie, a Possible Connection to the Davis Site Caddo (2006), Harry Shafer offers a potential explanation for this. The Caddo from the George C. Davis site, the most southwestern ceremonial mound site located on the edge of the Piney Woods in Cherokee County, established villages and campsites in central Texas to harvest prairie resources and to provide a defensive buffer to the vulnerable position of the Davis site (2006:1, 33). The only central Texas resource brought back to east Texas that Shafer discusses in this publication is Edwards Chert, a high-quality chert found in and along the margins of the Edwards Plateau. In this thesis, I propose that the Caddo of this period intensified trade connections with the Austin phase peoples of central Texas to gain access to materials such as venison, hides, and Edwards Chert.