Anthropology Department Preserving Caddoan Artifacts

By NOAH TEW/Editor-in-Chief

In a College of Arts and Sciences laboratory, student Johnathan Herndon draws attention to a delicate piece of earthen pottery – a decaying artifact of a native American tribe that lived in East Texas hundreds of years ago.

The tiny brown bowl rests on a pedestal as a red laser beam moves across its surface taking precise measurements. The information, which consists of thousands of data points, is fed into a computer.

When Herndon finishes, the bowl will exist – at least in digital form – for eternity.

Herndon and others in anthropology studies are part of a university project that is cataloging and preserving about 200 Caddoan pottery objects.

CADDOAN INDIANS

The artifacts will help researchers better understand the Caddo Indians, said Dr. Thomas Guderjan, professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of Social Sciences.

“The people who lived in East Texas before the Europeans were various members of the Caddo tribe,” said Guderjan, co-author of “The Indian Texans” and a contributor to “Caddo Archaeological Journal.” “There were two large very large groups and several smaller ones. There may have been as many as 100,000 people here before contact (with early European settlers).”

Over the centuries, their population declined and many were forced to move away. By the mid-1800s, most Caddo no longer lived in East Texas. Researchers have collected from Caddo excavation sites tools, pottery and decorative items made of clay, bone, wood and shells.

“The Caddo’s are particularly well known for the beautiful artistic and functional ceramic wares they made of many forms and functions,” according to information from Texas State Historical Association. “And the ceramics are considered some of the finest aboriginal pottery manufactured in North America.”

DOCUMENT AND PRESERVE

Dr. Cory Sills, assistant professor of geography, oversees the work in the Digital Imaging in Archeology Lab.

“The first thing we did when we received these packages of over 200 Caddoan pots is to catalog them,” she said.

They carefully documented the condition of each piece of pottery. Some of the pots were chipped and cracked. Others had pieces that were missing. Their task included creating an image of what each piece would have originally looked like.

“One way to preserve these pots for the future is to document them using 3D imaging,” Sills said. “This can be done using photos … where you take a series of pictures and stitch them together for a 3D Image. This can also be done using desktop imagers or the 3D imaging scanner that is behind me here. What they (scanners) do is they take a series of points on the pot to reproduce it.”

Herndon and other lab techs use a digital single lens reflex camera, sophisticated scanners and computer programs

The scanners include an Artec Space Spider, a portable scanner that looks similar to a handheld steamer and a 3D laser scanner called the NEXTEngine.

Hendon demonstrated how the NEXTEngine works.

With a Caddoan pot on the scanner’s pedestal, Herndon put the pedestal in motion causing it to very slowly rotate in 360 degree circle. He then focused a laser beam on the pot.

“It is getting all the information points with this laser,” he said.

Lab technicians use a computer program to piece the images and data points together “kind of like a puzzle,” explained Herndon. “So, when we are putting them together, we are looking for parts (of images) that match on each frame and then we … align them and fuse them together.”

The digitally preserved object can then be reproduced.

“What is really good about that is we can then go on and help preserve this object and other objects by reprinting them with a 3D printer or some other type of technology,” he said.

TELLING THEIR STORY

Creating 3D images of artifacts is important, Sills said.

“One, it helps to preserve object that over time just by their basic nature of being manmade will deteriorate.

“Second, it is a way to disseminate information for researchers who might not be able to travel to collections to study them,” she continued. “We definitely saw that during COVID but also for the Caddo themselves to be able to have access to these materials.

“Third, when it comes to preservation, one of the most important aspects is providing the public with information about ancient peoples and 3D imagery is a way to do that without giving them the actual pot.”

Sills hopes that the work being done in the lab will one day be made available to all people interested in Caddoan people.

“And really for me, it makes the past tangible,” she said. “It allows us to take objects that sometimes people don’t know anything about and be able to tell their story.”

If you would like to learn more about the Caddoan people Click HERE