Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America

6. The Last of WPA Archaeology in Oklahoma: The Clement and McDonald Sites

6 the last of wPA Archaeology in oklahoma the clement and mcdonald sites Amanda L. Regnier, Patrick C. Livingood, and ScottW. Hammerstedt by 1941, federally sponsored archaeology in oklahoma had been ongoing for nearly eight years. As part of economic relief intended to mitigate the economic collapse of the early 1930s under the weight of the dust bowl droughts and the great depression, sites had been identified and tested in 12 counties. beginning in 1933, the bulk of the archaeology had taken place at sites in the Arkansas river drainage system, culminating most notably in the cleanup of the regrettable looting and destruction of the craig mound at spiro.As federal funds continued to be poured into work relief programs, field crews moved to nearby mississippian mounds and villages and a series of late Archaic and woodland midden mounds along fourche maline creek. in may 1941, University of oklahoma archaeologist david baerreis started operations in mccurtain county in the southeast corner of oklahoma. for the next nine months,baerreis directed excavations at two prehistoric caddo sites along the glover river, the mound center at clement (34mc8–10) and what was presumed until recently to be the much smaller mcdonald site (34mc11/12).the excavations came to a halt in early 1942 when the United states entered world war ii and the great depression ended. federal funds were shifted to the war effort, and workers, including baerreis himself, were sent overseas (rogers 1978). Although they lasted only nine months and involved just two sites, the mccurtain county excavations were the first to address a crucial gap in oklahoma prehistory (table 6.1). the house patterns and artifacts recovered solved the puzzle of who lived in the region between the mississippian mound center at spiro and the similar sites of northeast texas, southwest Arkansas, and northwest louisiana. based on these excavations, for the chapter 6 / 111 first time baerreis was able to document the presence of prehistoric caddos living in this portion of southeast oklahoma between approximately a.d. 1000 and a.d. 1600. Prior to this foray into southeast oklahoma, the many caddo mound and village sites in the red river drainage system were known only to local residents. both sites studied by the works Progress Administration (wPA) are located along the glover river near its confluence with the easterly flowing portion of the little river. Physiographically, both sites are in the narrow Piedmont region that lies between the southern ouachita mountains and the western gulf coastal Plain. many published summaries of wPA work have looked at broad histories;we believe a focus on the nine months of work in this one county near the end of the wPA era is illustrative of the methods and goals wPA researchers like baerreis had developed through many years of experience with the program.in this case it also shows increasingly less attention to documentation by archaeologists rushing to complete work before the wPA program ended. these rushed notes proved challenging when the oklahoma Archeological survey reexamined the clement and mcdonald sites in 2008 and 2010, respectively. field methods of the oklahoma wPA before describing excavation at the sites and details of what was recovered by the wPA and our own recent investigations, we will take a moment to consider the standard methods developed by oklahomawPA archaeologists, which we have determined from examining unpublished field notes.After a potential site was located, a small crew dug a number of test units to further evaluate the site. At clement and mcdonald, testing efforts generated numerous artifacts.After the testing, the site was gridded arbitrarily into either table 6.1. Archaeological sites investigated using wPA funding in mccurtain county, oklahoma, 1941–1942 site site no. Dates of excavation Clement i 34mc8 June 2 to December 9, 1941 Clement ii 34mc9 July 25, 1941 Clement iii 34mc10 november 17 to 29, 1941 mcDonald i 34mc11 December 10, 1941, to march 4, 1942 mcDonald ii 34mc12 December 10, 1941, to march 4, 1942 Note: dates for excavations obtained from wPA notebooks on file at snomnh. 112 / regnier, livingood, and hammerstedt 5- or 10-foot squares, so artifacts from testing, which are typically labeled with descriptions such as “under the large peach tree,” essentially are unprovenienced . in some cases, this includes hundreds of sherds and pieces of lithic debitage. At mcdonald two areas were identified and excavated separately . A 5-foot grid was used to excavate the...