The Sanders Site: A Spiroan Entrepot in Texas?

Archaeological Survey of Southwest Block and Selected Roads and Firebreaks at Camp Maxey, Lamar County, Texas

“…Common kinds of grave goods include arrowpoint quivers, large chipped bifaces, celts, long-stemmed clay pipes, and Spiro Engraved, Holly Fine Engraved, Crockett Curvilinear Incised, Kima Incised, Pennington Punctated Incised, East Incised, and other decorated and plain vessels (Bruseth 1998:57 and Krieger (1946). Sanders phase components are distributed in the Middle Red, Kiamichi, and Upper Sabine River basins of southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas (see Bruseth et al 1995: Figure 3). In the Middle Red River valley, components at key sites include the A. C. Mackin (41LR36), Fasken (41RR14), Roitsch (41RR16; previously known as the Sam Kaufman site), Dan Holdeman (41RR11), T. M. Sanders (41LR2), and Harling (41FN1) sites (Mallouf 1976;Bruseth 1998).…”

A Cultural and Entomological Review of the Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera (Raf.) Schneid.) (Moraceae) and the Origin and Early Spread of “Hedge Apple” Folklore

“…Osage Orange wood was highly prized for use as bows and clubs by Native Americans (see Austin [2004] for a detailed description of the tribes and trading practices) and may have been monopolized by a single tribe (Spiroan trader hypothesis; Schambach 2000), or not (Bruseth et al 1995). Three expeditions sent by Thomas Jefferson -pedition into Arkansas, the Lewis and Clark 1804 expedition up the Mississippi, and the Freeman and Curtis 1806 expedition up the Red River (Barnett andBurton 1997, McKelvey 1955).…”

Continuing the Discussion of the Spiroans and Their Entrepots: A Reply to Brooks's Critique of My New Paradigm/or the Archeology of the Arkansas Valley

“…And, to proceed to the third major point on which Brooks has challenged my new paradigm, I maintain that these populations had thoroughly different cultures as well, although both conformed generally to the Southeastern pattern. But Brooks and other defenders of the old paradigm ( see Bruseth, Wilson and Perttula 1995) do not see this. The main reason they do not seems to be that they have yet to realize the extent to which Krieger (1946) mistakenly obscured the profound cultural differences between the Arkansas Valley and the Red River Valley in northeast Texas and southeast Oklahoma by misinterpreting the Sanders site as the type site for a still hypothetical "Sanders focus" 14 that supposedly developed in the Red River Valley early in the Mississippi period.…”

“…In reality, the red slipped, so-called "Sanders focus" 17 types Sanders Plain, Sanders Engraved and Maxey Noded Redware are rarely found in the Red River Valley, except at the Sanders site 18 . Occurrences of bona fide specimens of these types at southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas sites other than Sanders are too infrequent and the types themselves are too erratically represented to support the concept of a Sanders focus (Krieger 1946), or phase (see Bruseth, Wilson and Perttula 1995).…”

“…My reinterpretation of the Spiro site as a base for long-distance traders is heavily, although not entirely, dependent on my argument that the sites of not one, but two strategically located Spiroan entrepots can be identified from the existing literature: the Nagle site and the Sanders site. Brooks does not discuss Sanders in his paper, claiming (1996:22) that "the issue of Sanders and its importance as a trade center has been dealt with by Bruseth, Wilson and Perttula (1995)°. But if by "dealt with" he means effectively challenged in any respect, or even refuted, either of which would support his argument, he is wrong.…”