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The Deer Creek Site: An eighteenth-century fortified Wichita village on the American Southern Great Plains
Sarah Trabert, Stephen M. Perkins, Susan C. Vehik, Richard R. Drass and Sheila Bobalik Savage
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The Deer Creek site (34KA3), located next to the Arkansas River in the Southern Plains of the U.S., served as a crucial hub for exchange and interaction during the eighteenth century between ancestral Wichita peoples and French traders from Louisiana. Despite its significance as one of the few Indigenous trading villages in the region to have a historically reported fortification complex, previous owners denied researchers access to the site. In 2016, an agreement was reached with the current site managers and the Wichita and Affiliated tribes so that the professional excavations could be carried out. This monograph presents the findings of recent research conducted at the site, employing a combination of remote sensing and archaeological methods. Unlike the northern Plains where entire villages were fortified, southern Plains villages contained fortified refuges within their settlements. These fortifications and their associated features are examined in depth, along with DNA analysis of horse and dog remains, European guns and other trade goods, and analyses of ancestral Wichita material culture.
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Front Cover
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Title Page
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Copyright Page
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Of Related Interest
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Acknowledgements
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Contents
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List of Figures
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List of Tables
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1. Introduction
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1.1. The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes
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1.2. The Deer Creek and Bryson-Paddock Archaeological Sites
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1.3. Theorizing the Colonial Era
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1.4. Overview of Chapters
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2. Field Investigations of Deer Creek
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2.1. The 2016 Investigations
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2.2. 2017 Excavations
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3. Results from Artifact Analyses: Ceramics
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3.1. Ancestral Wichita Ceramics
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3.2. Deer Creek Ceramic Sherds
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3.3. Pipe and Figurine Fragments
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3.4. Discussion
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4. Results from Artifact Analyses: Chipped Stone
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4.1. Artifact Categories
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4.1.1. End Scrapers
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4.1.2. Other Unifacial Tools
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4.1.3. Bifacial Cores
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4.1.4. Bifaces
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4.1.5. Preforms
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4.1.6. Projectile Points
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4.1.7. Alternately Beveled Knives
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4.1.8. Lithic Debitage
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4.1.9. Heat-Treatment
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4.1.10. Chert Cortex
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4.2. Lithic Material Types
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4.2.1. Eastern Cherts
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4.2.2. Western Cherts
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4.3. Research Objectives
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4.4. Lithic Debitage
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4.4.1. Hypothesis One: Occupation and Abandonment of the Deer Creek Site
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4.4.2. Hypothesis Two: Decline in Stone Tool Manufacturing Skills
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4.4.3. Hypothesis Three: Florence-A Chert Flakes and a Decline in Heat-Treatment
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4.4.4. Hypothesis Four: Changes in Access to the Florence-A Chert Quarries
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4.4.5. Hypothesis Five: Florence-A Chert Sources
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4.4.6. Discussion
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4.5. Deer Creek Chipped Stone Tools
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4.5.1. Bifacial Stone Tools
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4.5.2. Unifacial Stone Tools
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4.6. Discussion of Chipped Stone Results
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5. Results from Artifact Analyses: Ground Stone
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5.1. Artifact Categories
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5.1.1. Metates or Grinding Basins
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5.1.2. Manos
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5.1.3. Anvil Stones
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5.1.4. Abraders or Sharpening Stones
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5.1.5. Shaft Abraders
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5.1.6. Polishing Stones
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5.1.7. Hammerstones
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5.2. Ground Stone Material Types
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5.3. Discussion
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6. Results from Artifact Analyses: Faunal Remains
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6.1. Introduction
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6.2. Faunal Analysis
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6.3. Preservation
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6.4. Butchering
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6.5. Bone Grease
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6.6. Faunal Inventory
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6.7. Seasonality
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6.8. Selective Processing
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6.9. Intra-Site Comparisons
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6.10. Bone and Shell Artifacts
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6.10.1. Scapula Hoes (H)
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6.10.2. Scapula Expedient Tools (ScExp)
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6.10.3. Miscellaneous Polished Scapulae (PSC)
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6.10.4. Knife Handle (KnH)
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6.10.5. Rib Tools (RbT)
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6.10.6. Hide Grainers (Gr)
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6.10.7. Flesher (Fls)
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6.10.8. Elk Antler Handle (Ant)
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6.10.9. Deer Antler Flakers (Fkr)
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6.10.10. Polished Deer Ulna (PU)
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6.10.11. Whistle (Wh)
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6.10.12. Bone Tubes or Beads (Tb)
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6.10.13. Polished Armadillo Plates (PAP)
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6.10.14. Split Bone Awls (SBA)
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6.10.15. Polished Bone Strip (PBS)
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6.10.16. Miscellaneous Polished Bone (MPB)
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6.10.17. Shell Disk Bead (SD)
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6.10.18. Miscellaneous Modified Shell (MS)
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6.11. Discussion of Faunal Remains
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7. Results from Artifact Analyses: Plant Remains
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7.1. Identified Charred Seeds, Rinds, and Nutshell from Deer Creek
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7.2. Cultivated Plants
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7.2.1. Corn (Zea mays)
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7.2.2. Beans (Phaseolous vulgaris)
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7.2.3. Similar to Squash (Cucurbita sp.)
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7.2.4. Tobacco (Nicotiana sp.)
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7.3. Native Wild Plants
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7.3.1. Sunflower (Helianthus sp.)
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7.3.2. Little Barley (Hordeum pusillum)
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7.3.3. Dropseed (Sporobolus sp.)
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7.3.4. Cheno-Ams, Goosefoot, and Pigweed (Chenopodium sp. and Amaranthus sp.)
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7.3.5. Bedstraw (Galium sp.)
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7.3.6. Grape (Vitis sp.)
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7.3.7. Knotweed/Smartweed (Polygonum sp.)
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7.3.8. Purslane (Portulaca sp.)
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7.3.9. Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana var. rigida)
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7.3.10. Hackberry Seeds (Celtis sp.)
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7.4. Other Seeds
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7.4.1. Black Walnut Nutshell (Juglans nigra)
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7.5. Wood
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7.6. Discussion of Plant Remains
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8. Results from Artifact Analyses: Materials of European Origin
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8.1. Artifact Categories
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8.1.1. Gunflints
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8.1.2. Brass and Copper
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8.1.3. Copper Tinklers
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8.1.4. Iron
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8.2. Other European Manufactured Material
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8.3. Discussion
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9. Results from Specialized Artifact Analyses
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9.1. Radiocarbon Dating
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9.2. Residue Analyses
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9.3. Genetics Analysis of Coprolite (by Cara Monroe)
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9.3.1. DNA Investigation and Methods: Mitochondrial DNA and Contamination Control
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9.3.2. DNA Extraction
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9.3.3. Post-extraction Molecular Analyses
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9.3.4. MtDNA Results for Deer Creek Coprolite
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9.3.5. MtDNA Canine Results
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9.3.6. MtDNA Human Haplotype Results
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9.3.7. Coprolite Summary
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9.4. Equid DNA and Isotopic Analyses
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9.5. Discussion
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10. Discussion and Conclusions
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10.1. Summary of Results
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10.2. Deer Creek’s Fortifications in the Context of the Southern Plains Borderlands
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Appendix A. The Impacts of Vegetation
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References Cited
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Back Cover
Citable Link
Published: 2024
Publisher: BAR Publishing
- 9781407361468 (ebook)
- 9781407361451 (paper)
BAR Number: S3176