The Horton Site (41CP16) on Big Cypress Creek in the East Texas Pineywoods

The Horton site (41CP16) is primarily a Late Paleoindian (ca. 10,000 years B.P.) to ancestral Caddo site (ca. post-A.D. 800), although there is a small mid-19th-early 20th century component as well. This site is on an upland slope (320-350 ft. amsl) that once overlooked the Big Cypress Creek floodplain; the channel of the creek was ca. 100 m north from the site. The site is currently under the waters of Lake Bob Sandlin. Robert L. Turner, Jr. surface collected the site during the 1950s and 1960s, and the study of this substantial artifact assemblage is the subject of this article. Dick Ping Hsu recorded the Horton site in September 1968 during the survey for then proposed Titus County Reservoir. He noted that the site was on the top of a hill, at 350 ft. amsl, and was marked by flakes and pottery sherds. When the site was re-visited and re-recorded by Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1974 it was partially covered in pine and oak trees, as well as pecan and sweetgum. Part of the site also had an orchard and a cultivated field. Site size was estimated by SMU crews at 60 x 30 m, but Turner estimated the size of the site as approximately 1 acre. Other investigations besides Turner’s at the Horton site include previously mentioned surface collections by Hsu and Sullivan prior to the construction of Lake Bob Sandlin, and by a private collector (David Laden) (Thurmond 1990:52). These collections indicated that the Horton site had a Late Paleoindian component marked by San Patrice, Dalton, and Plainview points, lithic debris from local ferruginous, quartzite, and petrified wood, as well as a ca. post-A.D. 800 Caddo component with plain and decorated sherds (red- and brown-slipped, incised, punctated, and engraved). Thurmond suggests the Caddo component dates to the Middle Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1200-1450)