74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 179 



sion of mortuary oflferings in the graves. Fronto-occipital head 

 deformation was practiced by binding the heads of children. Arti- 

 fact types, especially ceramics, indicate temporal and cultural aline- 

 ment of the Knight's Bluff Village with the Fulton Aspect, more 

 specifically the Texarkana Focus. Gibson Aspect traits are present, 

 probably as survivals, suggesting a relatively early position for the 

 component with respect to the Texarkana Focus. 



The Sherwin Site seems to represent a small village of people 

 closely related to the Knight's Bluff Village. Economy, burial 

 customs, and type of cranial deformation were quite similar at the 

 two villages. Trends in ceramic development and a relative scarcity 

 of Gibson Aspect traits suggest that the Sherwin occupation dates 

 slightly later than Knight's Bluff. 



The Snipes Site represents an extension of Baytown Period peoples 

 from the Lower Mississippi Valley into northeastern Texas.* Econ- 

 omy was probably similar to that of the Texarkana Focus, but head 

 deformation was not practiced and burial customs differed from Fulton 

 Aspect customs in that burials were inconsistent with regard to 

 orientation and body position. Closest ties seem to be with the 

 Troyville Period (or period E-D) of the Lower Mississippi Valley 

 to the east. Relationship of this particular component to Caddoan 

 peoples is uncertain, but there is evidence from other sites that mar- 

 ginal Baytown Period occupation of the Caddoan Area — as repre- 

 sented by Snipes and other related sites — was partly contemporaneous 

 with the Fulton Aspect. 



Differences in quantitative representation of pottery types at 

 Knight's Bluff, Sherwin, and the Hatchel Site (type site of the 

 Texarkana Focus) emphasize a general observation that a focus (as 

 that classificatory unit has been applied in the Caddoan Area) is 

 not necessarily a closely integrated complex of traits found with little 

 or no variation from site to site. Actually a focus might be thought of 

 as having very flexible limits that allow considerable variation in 

 trait inventories at the different components of the focus. This varia- 

 tion is dependent not only on cultural selectivity and diffusion, but 

 also on the geographical and temporal position of the site, and can 

 be best interpreted, the present writer believes, in terms of typological 

 distribution patterns. 



♦Author's note. In this discussion I have referred several times to occupation of the 

 Caddoan Area by peoples of Lower Mississippi afflUation. I do not mean to Imply that 

 there was necessarily an actual migration of people Involved. Lower Mississippi traits 

 unquestionably occur in significant quantity in a Caddoan Area ; whether this is a result 

 of migration or of diffusion is unknown at present. 



