CLARENCE H. WEBB Reprint from Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society , Vol. 34, 1963....

This is a belated description of the Smithport Landing Site, one of several known Alto Focus components in northwestern Louisiana. This large village site, on the western margin of the Red River flood plain, covers portions of several low hills which front on a former lake. Nineteen pottery vessels, all but two identifiable as Alto Focus types, were found with fourteen burials. Included are Hickory Fine Engraved , Davis Incised , Kiam Incised , Wilkinson Punctated , and Smithport Plain (virtuall

The Smithport Landing Site was initially explored by Monroe Dodd, Jr., and the author between 1934 and 1940. [1] It was the first site at which we found burials and whole pottery; it was also the first site in Louisiana which was identified as an Alto Focus component (Webb, 1948) and was recognized as such in the Davis Site report (Newell and Krieger, 1949: 195, 197, Fig. 62). In describing the Bossier Focus, Smithport Landing was one of 15 sites used for comparison and discussion of the relativ

The Smithport Landing Site is in the eastern edge of De Soto Parish, about eight miles east of Mansfield, the Parish seat ( Fig. 1 ). It is a relatively large village site situated on eroded and dissected hills which project in an expanded tongue of land fronting on Old Smithport or Clear Lake (Bayou Pierre Lake). The former lake bed is now dry in the summer, swampy during the rainy season. Buffalo Bayou courses through this low area to join the outflow of present Smithport Lake about one mile n

During the 18th and 19th centuries this land was spoken of as “the coast,” inferring a large body of water into which the tongue of land projected. Like so many other lakes formed where streams run into the river valley out of the hills, it is probable that old natural river levees formed a bar or dam which produced the lake; some, however, are of the opinion that the famous log jam in Red River was instrumental in production of these lakes. At any rate, much of the traffic on the river above Al

In May, 1935, Monroe Dodd, Jr., found a small intact vessel ( Fig. 4 , O) in hog rootings on the crest of Hill 2, which had been left uncultivated and put into pasturage that year. Excavations exposed within a radius of two to three feet a cluster of nine pottery vessels ( Fig. 3 , Nos. V-94-102), three of which were intact and four largely so. Included are vessels shown in Figure 4 , B, C, F, K, N, O, and R. Vessels which are not illustrated are two broken bottles (probably hit by the plow), on

There are available for study of pottery from this site 19 whole vessels from the burials, of which 10 are decorated and nine plain; 1533 sherds from surface collections and the several test pits, of which 875 are decorated and 658 plain. Among the sherds there is a group of 37 which have paste and decoration characteristics of late wares, historic or protohistoric, which will be described in a separate section. Consequently there are 19 whole vessels and 1496 sherds which relate to the earlier

Table 1 shows the assignment of burial vessel and sherd types to various ceramic complexes, based on the descriptions of Ford (1951), Ford and Willey (1940), and Quimby (1951) for central Louisiana; Newell and Krieger (1949), and Suhm, Krieger, and Jelks (1954) for east Texas Alto; and the author’s publications (1948; 1959) and collections from northern and central Louisiana. It becomes apparent that neat typing and alignment of sherd collections from this site, true of many other sites in north

The 61 larger projectile points which are classified as dart points are, with few exceptions, comparatively small and rough. Most are made of quartzite, cherts, and petrified wood found locally. Thirty-five are of tan chert, four of petrified wood, two of red chert, six of white or light gray quartzite, and others of varying shades of brown, or mottled materials. Gary points ( Fig. 11 , N-P) total 14; with most made of tan chert, two of petrified wood, and one of white quartzite. The range in le

Generally, the tools from this site are made from native tan chert cores and flakes, or from petrified wood, and are rough to the point of being almost nondescript. Imagination is often required to attempt assignment to types. A massive axe-shaped object of petrified wood is worked to a near-blade form at the expanded end ( Fig. 12 , K), but appears to have been used as a maul. The groove is natural. It is 15 cm. long, 9 cm. wide, and 4.5 cm. in thickness. Two smaller objects of petrified wood (

Few objects of polished stone were found. One large celt ( Fig. 12 , I) is from the surface. It is symmetrically ovate, 17.5 cm. long, 7.5 cm. wide, and 3.8 cm. thick. It shows pecking marks on the faces, but is well ground at the bit and along the edges. A triangular hard sandstone pebble, 7.5 × 7 × 3.3 cm., has round pits, 3 cm. in diameter, on each face, ( Fig. 12 , E). There are smooth depressions on two edges. A large pitted mortar stone is of ferruginous sandstone, 22 × 16 cm. One face has

A segment of bone, 2.6 cm. long, was found on the surface. The ends are cut squarely across and there is a small (natural?) perforation. It is probably a bead of bird bone ( Fig. 12 , C), is hard, very white, and the surface is polished. No other artifacts of bone or shell were found, but the test pits in dark soil exposed numerous animal bones as well as mussel and snail shells. No identifications were secured....

The Smithport Landing Site is one of a number of village and mound sites along the Red River valley and its tributaries in northwestern Louisiana ( Fig. 1 ) at which varying amounts of Alto Focus pottery, whole vessels or sherds, have been found. The mound sites shown are within the river flood plain, with exception of Thigpen Mound and Village Site, which are on a terrace immediately overlooking the valley; Gahagan, Curtis, Mounds Plantation, and Belcher mounds are on old river channels near th

D’Antoni, Blaise C. 1961a. Bayou Pierre, Land of Yesteryear, Chapter 2. Newsletter, North Louisiana Historical Assn., April, pp. 9-14. 1961b. Bayou Pierre, Land of Yesteryear, Chapter 3. Newsletter, North Louisiana Historical Assn., July, pp. 7-12. 1962. Bayou Pierre, Land of Yesteryear, Chapter 5. Newsletter, North Louisiana Historical Assn., May, pp. 13-15. Ford, James A. 1951. Greenhouse: A Troyville-Coles Creek Period Site in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Anthropological Papers of the America