[Illustration: Fig. 7. Incised Sherds. A-L, _Dunkin Incised_ (note
C, a large sherd with typical design; punctations with lines on E,
F, L: rectangular design on I). M, N, _Harrison Bayou Incised_. O-R,
Diagonally incised rim sherds, probably _Dunkin Incised_.]
_Pennington Punctated-Incised_ type is represented by 36 sherds (Fig. 8,
A-F). Most of these derive from open carinated bowls with excurvate rims
which are 4 to 7 cm. in height, but a few seem to be rims of recurved
jars. Eight are chocolate brown in color, others tan, gray and
brown-black. The paste is firm, hard in all but two sherds, with
smoothed but not polished surfaces. Two sherds are tempered with bone,
the others with clay-grit or sherd. Wall thickness is in the range of 5
to 9 mm., most specimens being 6 to 7 mm. The punctations are
consistently placed in fields which are outlined by single deeply
incised lines; the fields are in diagonal bands, diamonds or triangles.
The punctations and incised lines are bold and the 36 sherds include
punctations made with a pointed or round-tipped tool in 23 instances,
comma-shaped in four, square (Fig. 8, E) in five, and triangular in
four.
Eleven sherds show the hybrid _Pennington-Crockett_ design described in
the Davis report (Newell and Krieger, 1949: 101). Shapes and paste
characteristics are described above; two sherds are soft, chocolate
brown in color. One has an incurving rim and a suspension hole (Fig. 8,
I). The bordering incised line is curved (Fig. 8, G-I); otherwise these
sherds do not differ from the _Pennington_ type. Seven have rounded
punctations, two are comma-shaped, one rectangular, and one square.
Another group of 19 sherds shows _zone punctations_ which differ in
certain respects from the typical _Pennington_ described above and
possibly are nearer to _Rhinehart Punctated_ (Ford, 1951: 83-85). These
19 sherds (Fig. 8, J-O) have the same range of paste and coloration;
five are of the softer chocolate brown ware. Rim and body sherds are
represented and in only one instance (Fig. 8, O) is it certain that the
rim is from an open carinated bowl as are the _Pennington_ sherds. One
heavy sherd (Fig. 8, J) which is 12 mm. thick, suggests a globular
vessel which narrows at the neck and recurves to upright at the rim.
Another sherd includes the lower rim area which is decorated with zoned
punctations and incisions, and the adjoining upper body which is plain.
Characteristic of this group is the alternation of punctated and incised
fields, or the outlining of punctated zones by multiple incised lines.
The punctations are triangular in three instances, square in one,
comma-shaped in six, round or oval in five, small pits in three, and
crescentic in one.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Punctated Sherds. A-F, _Pennington
Punctated-Incised_. G-I, _Pennington-Crockett_ hybrid (I has
incurving rim, hole for suspension). J-O, _Pennington_ or _Rhinehart
Punctated_ (N has triangular punctations between horizontal lines in
Coles Creek tradition). P, Similar to _Dupree Incised_ but shape
suggests _Bossier_ sherd. Q, R, Random punctations.]
_Free punctations_ made with tools, without zoning or incising, are
present on one vessel (Fig. 4, I) and 19 sherds (Fig. 8, Q, R). Paste
and color are as described above; one is bone tempered, six are soft,
chocolate brown in color. Rim and body sherds are represented but shapes
of vessels are uncertain. The punctations are triangular in seven
instances, comma-shaped in three, square in five, round in three, and
crescentic in two. The vessel (V-105) is a semiglobular bowl with plain
body and scalloped, everted rim. The lower surface of the rim is covered
with free punctations. The relative increase in frequency of triangular
punctations in this group is significant, in view of the fact that the
_Rhinehart Punctated_ type in central Louisiana features triangular
punctations (Ford, 1951: 83), whereas they are infrequent in _Pennington
Punctated-Incised_ at the Davis Site (Newell and Krieger, 1949: 106-8).
The absence of ring punctations at Smithport is remarkable, in view of
their frequency at both the Davis Site and in central Louisiana.
A group of six sherds has minute _free_ or _zoned punctations_. The
sherds are thinner walled than average, 4 to 6 mm., and five of the six
have black surfaces and soft pastes. The sixth is buff colored, thin and
has a strongly excurvate, narrow rim. Another (Fig. 8, P) is from an
open carinated bowl and has notches along the carina. All of this group
may relate to the Bossier ceramics at this site, instead of Alto. They
bear some similarity to _Dupree Incised_ of Plaquemine ceramics in
central Louisiana (Quimby, 1951: 122-3).
_Weches Fingernail Impressed_ (Suhm and Jelks, 1962: 153, Pl. 77; Newell
and Krieger, 1949: 118-20, Fig. 46) is represented by 19 sherds of
characteristic design (Fig. 9, A-E). Nine of these include the lip area,
but all appear to be rim sherds. In three instances some of the
subjacent body wall is attached; on two of these the body is plain, on
the third (Fig. 9, E) the body has diagonal incised lines suggesting
_Dunkin_-like decoration. These three have globular bodies and outward
curving or slanting rims, 4 to 4.5 cm. high. Other vessels seem to be
cylindrical with vertical rims, and open carinated bowls are possible.
Five of the 19 sherds are chocolate brown in color with clay tempered
paste; the others range from tan and buff to dark gray and
reddish-brown. Wall thickness is in the range of 4 to 9 mm., the
majority 5-7 mm. Typically, the decoration (Fig. 9, A, B, D, E) is with
widely spaced horizontal incised lines with arcs or quarter circles
between; the arcs could have been cut with the fingernail and
occasionally are fingernail impressed, but in most the arc is too large,
1.8 to 4 cm. (my thumbnail is 1.6 cm. wide). Four of the sherds have the
arcs without intervening lines (Fig. 9, C).
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Nail Impressed and Punctated Sherds. A-E,
_Weches Fingernail Impressed_. F, _Weches_ Variant with tool
punctations. G, H, _Sinner Linear Punctated_. I-K, M-P, _Wilkinson
Punctated_. L, Ridge pinched, similar to _Killough Pinched_. Q,
_Wilkinson Punctated_ body, _Kiam Incised_ rim. R, S, U, Narrow
bands with round or oval punctations. T, Single row of semilunar
punctations.]
Four sherds are identical with this group except that the spaces between
the horizontal lines have triangular instead of semilunar punctations
(Fig. 9, F). Seven other sherds have round or oval punctations in single
rows between incised lines (Fig. 9, R, S, U). I have not included these
with type _Pennington Punctated-Incised_, as Krieger did with some
reservation (Newell and Krieger, 1949: 106). Neither have I assigned
them to _Coles Creek Incised_, _Hardy Incised_ or _Rhinehart Punctated_,
as Ford did, also probably with some reservation (Ford, 1951: Pls. 16,
L; 17, 20, H), but have preferred to describe them separately as
interesting examples of regional variations and typing difficulties in
eastern Texas, and northern and central Louisiana.
One sherd (Fig. 9, T) has a single row of semilunar punctations and
otherwise plain surface. It is thick, clay-grit tempered, and buff
colored.
_Wilkinson Fingernail Punctated_ type is represented by one vessel and
153 sherds. This was described as a minor type in central Louisiana
(Ford and Willey, 1940: 50; Ford, 1951: 88-89) to include clay tempered
vessels with fingernail punctations scattered over the vessel surface,
arranged in irregular rows, or pinched in vertical rows. In that area it
is rarely combined with incising and usually covers the entire vessel.
Ford (1951: 88) thought it occurred at the latter part of the Coles
Creek period and reached maximum popularity in the succeeding Plaquemine
Period or later, but it was missing in Plaquemine context at Bayou Goula
(Quimby, 1957) and Medora (Quimby, 1951) sites. In the Davis Site report
(Newell and Krieger, 1949) it was not established as a type, as Krieger
considered fingernail punctations to be a body treatment present in
several types (_Kiam_, _Weches_, _Dunkin_, and _Duren Neck Banded_); he
reported 20,000 body sherds with fingernail roughening from a total of
96,000 sherds. The difference in attitude toward this type on the part
of these investigators is understandable when we consider the
differences in frequency and use of the decoration method in the two
areas, also that Ford and his co-workers used all sherds in typing,
whereas Krieger translated sherds to vessels and used rim decoration as
the determinant.
In northwestern Louisiana I have found _Wilkinson Punctated_ a useful
type in _sherd collection_ studies because of its great frequency in
Alto wares, its rarity in Coles Creek, and the rapid shift from nail
roughening to ridging and brushing as body treatments concurrent with
the development of Bossier, Belcher, and other later Caddoan ceramics.
_Wilkinson Punctated_ is therefore a good indicator of early (Alto)
Caddoan occupation at a given site. At Smithport Landing there were 153
sherds (Fig. 9, I-K, M-P) and one burial vessel, a pinched toy jar (Fig.
4, Q), of this type. The vessel is 6 cm. high, 5 cm. wide, made of thick
clay-tempered paste, roughly finished and decorated with three
horizontal rows of nail pinching. The sherds include only four rims
(Fig. 9, I, O, P), showing how rarely this decoration, in northern
Louisiana, covers the vessel. Most of the other sherds are recognizably
body sherds, and in eight instances (as in Fig. 9, Q) the body-rim
juncture is present. The latter sherds have _Kiam Incised_ decoration on
the rim and appear to have come from a modified globular body shape with
directly or mildly everted rim. Nine of the 153 sherds are bone
tempered, the remainder are clay-grit or ground sherd, rather granular
and coarse. The walls are thick in many instances, the range 4 to 10 mm.
with the majority 7 to 8 mm. Many of the sherds are large (Fig. 9, I, J)
indicating large, heavy jar forms. Surface colors range from tan and
buff to dark grays and a few reddish-browns, with more tendency to
darker colors than in other types. The majority have irregular
fingernail gouges (Fig. 9, I, J), but some are pinched (Fig. 9, K, M, N)
and others impressed more delicately and regularly (Fig. 9, O-Q).
Eight sherds have distinctly pinched-up ridges (Fig. 9, L) which are
circular or curvilinear in six instances, vertical in two. The burial
vessel (Fig. 4, Q) may belong with this group, although it has been
tentatively classed as _Wilkinson Punctated_. The group with pinched
ridges bears considerable resemblance to the type _Killough Pinched_
(Suhm and Jelks, 1962: 91, Pl. 46) of Frankston and Titus foci, but, in
the absence of other types characteristic of these assemblages, will not
be so assigned.
_Sinner Linear Punctated_ is a type which so far has been confined to
Bossier and Haley foci (Suhm and Jelks, 1962: 143; Webb, 1948: 114) and
the four sherds of this type from the Smithport Landing, although
similar in paste, thickness and color to the Alto sherds, are probably
referable to the subsequent (presumably) Bossier period at this site.
Two are rim sherds; one of these (Fig. 9, G) has parallel, vertical
linear punctating; another (Fig. 9, H) and a body sherd have horizontal
lines; the fourth is uncertain. All have linear nail punctating and the
more typical linear tool punctating is absent.