The 14th century Caddo Leaning Rock site was initially discovered in the Fall of 2004. It was located during reconnaissance to search out a location for the survey portion of the Texas Archeologica! Society's Academy IO I held in Tyler in February 2005. This was not a formal survey with transect lines. nor one using regularly spaced shovel tests. but was rather more of a "windshield"' type survey, consisting of driving across pasture lands looking at gopher mounds and checking fore, evidence of archeological deposits on likely looking landforms. !n this area. landform and soil type seem to be the major determining factors in locating Caddo sites. The sandy soils in the scattered gopher mounds appeared almost white. especially in droughty conditions that prevailed at the time. causing an area with darker mounds of soil to catch my attention. Pocket gophers (G. breviceps) can play havoc with buried archeological deposits but can also be useful in bringing buried soils along with archeological materials to the surface from their underground tunnel system. While this dark area could have been the result of past historic land clearing and burning activities. a closer inspection revealed burned bone. mussel she!L and Caddo sherds mixed in the dark brown soils in the scattered gopher mounds. The next step was to record the site with the State of Texas, obtaining the trinomial 41SM325. It is common practice to also gin: sites informal names and after recording several hundred sites, selecting a name becomes a challenge. One large sandstone slab, pan of the R-horizon that is exposed around the margins of Leaning Rock. was unearthed during prior landclearing activities and pushed up against a lonely pine tree on the northern margins of the site: consequently the nom de plume "Leaning Rock."

The Tuinier Farm (41HP237), R. A. Watkins (41HP238), and Anglin (41HP240) sites are 16th to 17th century Caddo sites in the modern-day Post Oak Savannah of Northeast Texas. All three of the sites are located on Stouts Creek, in the eastern part of Hopkins County, Texas, a northward-flowing tributary to White Oak Creek in the Sulphur River basin; the modern channel of White Oak Creek lies ca. 15 km north of these sites. The Culpepper site (41HP1), a previously investigated mid-to late 17th century Caddo habitation and cemetery site, is about 2 km downstream. Small areas of tall-grass prairie lie to the north between the Stouts Creek sites and White Oak Creek, but the eastern extent of the larger White Oak and Sulphur prairies is approximately 15 km to the west and northwest. At the time of the Caddo occupation of the Stouts Creek sites, the climate was wetter and warmer than today, with significant mesic periods between A.D. 1477- 1524, A.D. 1539-1572, and A.D. 1603-1670. After A.D. 1670, the years from A.D. 1671 -1676 were relatively cool and dry. The more mesic periods had more equitable rainfall (adequate growing season rainfall) and this, combined with the warmer temperatures, led to an increased net productivity and carrying capacity of plants and animals in the Post Oak Savannah and Pineywoods that were settled by Titus phase populations. The Tuinier Farm site is the closest of the three sites to the headwaters of Stouts Creek. It is situated on a relatively flat and sandy upland ridge (460 feet amsl) about 1 km south of the Anglin site and just east of Stouts Creek. Anglin is on a sandy knoll (460 feet amsl) on an upland slope, also east of Stouts Creek. The third site, R. A. Watkins, is 1.2 km northwest of the Anglin site, also on an upland slope, but 200 m east of an intermittent tributary to Stouts Creek and 1 km from Stouts Creek.

The excavation of the Hardin A site (41GG69), a late 14th to early 15th century A.D. period Caddo site in Gregg County, Texas, yielded 495 faunal specimens. This sum includes all bone fragments, and pieces of antler and turtle shell. Total weight of the assemblage is 266.6 grams. Faunal material was recovered from 15 levels in a single 1 x 2 m unit comprised of a midden deposit and feature fill. The remainder of the article discuss the methods employed in the faunal analysis, results of taxonomic identification and quantification, and the distribution of these remains.

Limited archaeological investigations coupled with private landowner’s surface collections on Stone Chimney Creek in northwestern Cherokee County, Texas has resulted in the recording of nine new Caddo sites, several of which appear to have been occupied after ca. A.D. 1650 in the Allen phase. The landowner had collected artifacts on his farm and contacted the Texas Historical Commission (THC) about getting information about them, who in turn contacted the author, a member of the Texas Archeological Stewardship Network. The landowner was interested in learning more about the native inhabitants who had once called this portion of Stone Chimney Creek home. Stone Chimney Creek originates in northern Cherokee County and flows in a southerly direction before joining the Neches River under present day Lake Palestine. The study area is some 4.8 km north of the confluence of Stone Chimney Creek and the Neches River. Stone Chimney Creek, in the study area, is deeply entrenched with a narrow floodplain and steep valley walls. Therefore, in the study area, there are no good alluvial settings for archaeological sites. Rather, archaeological sites are located on upland slopes or on top of upland landforms paralleling Stone Chimney Creek. Some of the site settings are unusual, being at the head of dry drainages and gullies, as they are in the adjoining Flat Creek basin and long distances (in terms of easy access to water) from Stone Chimney Creek proper. The soils in the study area are of the Nacogdoches series, which are the principal red soils in the Redlands section of East Texas. The iron and red pigments in these soils permeate everything: skin, clothing, the outside of houses, even artifacts. Depending on the degree of slope, soil layers and fertility vary across the study area; the steeper slopes are heavily eroded. Parent material is greensand marl or glauconitic sandy clay and clay. Certain locations in the study area have been mined of soil for construction purposes. There is evidence of old farming activities, such as farming terraces, but currently large portions of the study area have been cleared and developed for pasture. This land clearing and mining provided good surface visibility at certain sites, resulting in some large surface collections from those areas. Shovel tests were conducted at six of the recorded sites and a 1 x 1 m test unit was placed in a midden deposit at 41CE426. This article characterizes the work to date on these Stone Chimney Creek sites, focusing mainly on five sites with the largest surface collections. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader character and cultural affiliation of these sites with respect to the recently defined Upper Neches River cluster of Historic Caddo sites.

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