70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. ItB 



both geographically and temporally, they would make up a closely 

 knit, integrated complex. All of which leads up to the main point-: 

 Only rarely, if ever, do such coincident patterns occur in the 

 Ca(^(Joan Area. It appears, rather, that each type (especially 

 ceramic and arrow point types) has its own peculiar distribution 

 in time and space, which seldom, if ever, coincides with the distri- 

 bution of another type. 



A good example to illustrate the factors discussed above is the" 

 situation at the Battle Site. This site was excavated in 1948 by 

 Lynn Howard, under the supervision of Alex Krieger, on a Viking 

 Fund grant. Excellent associations of Texarkana and Belcher Focus 

 ceramic types were found in house floors, the types of both complexes 

 being present in some quantity (Krieger, oral communication). This 

 is not at all surprising in view of the more or less intermediate 

 position of the Battle Site (in LaFayette County, Ark.) with refer- 

 ence to the Hatchel and Belcher Sites. In the present framework 

 of Caddoan Area archeology, the Battle Site would be measured 

 against the Texarkana and Belcher complexes as they have been 

 previously defined. But the thought occurs that had the Battle Site 

 been excavated prior to the Hatchel and Belcher Sites, we would 

 very likely have had a "Battle Focus" comprising a mixture of traits 

 now relegated to the Texarkana and Belcher Foci. This illustrates 

 the point that some focal definitions in the Caddoan Area are de- 

 pendent upon the fortuitous circumstance of which sites, in which 

 geographical and temporal positions, were excavated first. This 

 does not mean that the foci, as now envisioned, are not useful for 

 comparative, analytical, and interpretative purposes, but does indi- 

 cate that a focus should not be regarded as an integrated complex 

 of traits that occurs with little variation from site to site. The 

 McKem system is useful for ordering of data, but it must be kept 

 in mind by any person employing that system of classification that 

 a focus is an arbitrary classificatory unit that frequently is not 

 comparable to cultural groupings such as tribes. 



Distribution patterns of artifact types, design motifs, and other 

 culture traits in the Caddoan Area (and, I suspect, in other areas) 

 fit together in an extremely complex manner, with much overlapping 

 of related elements in both the spatial and temporal dimensions. 

 The writer believes that the distribution patterns of the various 

 elements must be defined and fitted together into an area-wide struc- 

 ture before an accurate, detailed reconstruction of the archeology of 

 the Caddoan Area can be attained. Many of the foci, as they are 

 now defined, are based on one excavated site; therefore their defini- 

 tive trait lists are derived largely from only one small segment that 

 happened to include various traits. Detailed knowledge of the inter- 



