The Smithport Landing Site: An Alto Focus Component in De Soto Parish, Louisiana
CLARENCE H. WEBB
Reprint from Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, Vol. 34, 1963.
ABSTRACT
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 (virtually identical with Bowles Creek Plain) types.
Surface materials comprise 1553 sherds, 61 dart and 55 arrow points, and a modest number of chipped and polished stone tools or ornaments. The stone tool assemblage seems to be basically late Archaic with the addition of small arrow points.
Although the sherds as well as whole vessels are predominantly derived from Alto Focus ceramics, a small percentage of Coles Creek, a somewhat larger representation of Bossier Focus, and a few late Caddoan pottery types are identified. Similarities and differences between the ceramics of this site, the Davis (Alto) Site in eastern Texas, and the central Louisiana sequence of pottery, are pointed out. Possible relationships between Coles Creek, Alto, Bossier, and Plaquemine ceramics are developed. It is postulated that Caddoan (Alto) and Coles Creek peoples or influences entered northwestern Louisiana almost simultaneously, and that Bossier Focus developed out of the amalgamation of these two previous cultures. A few very late Caddoan sherds indicate a late occupation at Smithport Landing, possibly during historic times.
INTRODUCTION
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 relative incidence of Bossier Focus pottery types, and of several pottery complexes. First suggested in my 1948 paper, and elaborated in a more recent study (Webb, 1961) of 20 sites in northwestern Louisiana, is the thesis that the Bossier Focus developed out of a simultaneous spread of Alto and Coles Creek peoples or influences across this area in post-Marksville times. Smithport Landing was one of the key sites in this study, because of the admixture of Alto and Coles Creek pottery types and the presence of a minor Bossier Focus manifestation.