In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

This chapter examines the historic archaeological sites on Fort Polk. Much less attention has been paid to these resources than to prehistoric sites, partially because there are so few and partially because at the survey and testing level it is difficult to approach the kinds of research questions that might shed light on the historic occupation of the installation. Still, there have been valuable and valiant attempts to understand the historic occupation of Fort Polk and these are discussed herein. The chapter is organized into a summary of previous research efforts and their results followed by a detailed discussion of a historic context first included in the 1999 Historic Preservation Plan (HPP) but proposed here as a method of organizing future research. The historic context argues that what has been missing in previous research is an overall framework that will allow for a systematic approach in understanding historic sites at the installation. This framework attempts to integrate the history developed by Smith (1999) with the archaeological resources discovered and analyzed during survey and testing projects. The purpose of such a context is to allow Fort Polk a programmatic method for evaluating a diverse set of historic sites for National Register eligibility and, as such, it also serves as a research design for future efforts. Previous Investigations at Historic Sites on Fort Polk A detailed review of previous archaeological research conducted on Fort Polk was presented in Chapter 2. A number of historic sites found during this fieldwork were examined in some detail, and this research will be discussed in the pages that follow. Hundreds of historic sites have been found on the installation, of course, but none have been the subject of large-scale excavation, and only a comparative few were found with sufficient integrity to warrant intensive testing. The sites below represent the largest and most unusual assemblages examined to date. Investigations at Jetertown (16VN1070) A detailed program of archival research, mapping, controlled surface colChapter 8 A Historic Period Context for Fort Polk A Historic Period Context for Fort Polk 485 lection, oral history, and artifact analysis was conducted during the fourth and sixth survey projects by Earth Search, Inc., ES-4 and ES-6, at the Henry Jeter Homestead site, or Jetertown, a cluster of four households variously built and occupied from the mid–nineteenth century until the establishment of Fort Polk (16VN1070; Franks 1990d:84–106; Franks and Yakubik 1990a:47–95). Oral historical evidence, obtained from a 90-year-old former resident, proved invaluable to resolving the location, character, occupation history, and use of many of the buildings in the site area, which had been destroyed 50 years earlier and were otherwise largely known only through archaeological research and abbreviated tax, census, and other legal records. The extent of the information that was recovered, in fact, clearly demonstrates the importance of oral historical research with former residents of the installation area. Given the advanced age of many of these people, there is considerable urgency to this need. The artifact analyses included the documentation of the relative age of and functional and economic differences between the structures, as well as the use of space around them. Mean ceramic dating was employed, although it was found to have limited utility in resolving the actual age of the occupations and relative order in which they were established; the dates were tightly clustered and too early by 20 or more years (Franks and Yakubik 1990a:74–77). An innovative alternative dating analysis, involving the incidence of amethyst to clear window glass, yielded ratios that were progressively higher for the earlier structures, whose order of occupation had been previously determined from the oral history (Franks and Yakubik 1990a:74, 79). Another innovative analysis was directed to examining the incidence of various types of ironstone pottery in the vicinity of each former structure, and again results supported the use of this procedure as a relative dating tool locally (Franks and Yakubik 1990a:74–79). An analysis of the incidence of plain, embossed, decal decorated, and porcelain tableware was also undertaken in a largely successful attempt to rank the economic position of the occupants of each structure; ceramic prices were derived from period Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogs (Franks and Yakubik 1990a:80, 82). Different structure assemblages were also compared using a series of functional groupings of artifacts: ceramic tableware, utilitarian ceramics, glass tableware, glass jars and lid liners, other (bottle) glass, turpentine cups, architecture, and personal items. Again, the analysis provided insight...

Share