The McDonald Site: An Analysis of WPA Excavations at a Caddo Site in the Glover River Drainage, McCurtain County, Oklahoma

Between December 1941 and March 1942, the final federally-sponsored WPA excavations in Oklahoma were conducted at the McDonald site, located along the Glover River. Because federal funds for analysis dried up as the country entered into World War II, the recovered artifacts were never fully analyzed. Between 2008-2009, I analyzed the non-mortuary artifacts, which are curated at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (SNOMNH) in Norman, and conducted an analysis of recovered stone and ceramic artifacts. Using previously unknown information from a recently unearthed final WPA Quarterly report, in this article I describe excavations and present the results of my analysis. I also incorporate Elsbeth Dowd’s previous analysis of the whole vessels recovered from burials into my study and compare the McDonald site material to the assemblages from two downstream mound sites, Clement and A.W. Davis

Report: Abstracts from the 2018 Caddo Conference in Idabel, Oklahoma

The 2018 Caddo Conference was held March 8-10, 2018 at the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, Oklahoma. Fifty attendees registered for the conference. The conference began with a reception at the museum on Thursday evening. On Friday, the program included eight papers and presentations covering archaeological work in Texas and Oklahoma and a longer presentation on the rebuilding of the Caddo house at Caddo Mounds State Park in Texas. A poster session was also held on Friday afternoon. Conference attendees were given a tour of the collections housed at the museum, which include a large collection of Caddo vessels and objects from all over the world. Friday ended with dances by the Metro Oklahoma City (OKC) Caddo Culture Club, beginning with the Turkey Dance and a delicious barbecue dinner held at the museum. On Saturday, the eight presentations covered sites in Arkansas and Oklahoma, Spiro iconography, and included a presentation on the Spiro exhibit forthcoming at the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Just before breaking for lunch on Saturday, Caddo Culture Club and Metro OKC Caddo Culture Club members led a song using the large drum on exhibit in the museum

Mound R1 and the problem of the minor mound at Moundville

This project reports recent excavations of Mound R1 at Moundville. Of the 32 mounds at Moundville, fifteen are flat-topped monuments which help define the plaza; however there are several small mounds, not part of this plaza group, that have been almost completely overlooked in the history of Moundville research. Mound R1 is one of these small mounds. Mound R1 is located approximately 40 meters west of Mound R on a narrow, isolated projection of a terrace bordered by ravines. Excavations were conducted in the fall of 2011 and the summer of 2012. These excavations reveal Mound R1 to be a multi-stage platform mound constructed of clay with evidence of perishable architecture on the mound during each major episode of construction. The stratigraphy and artifact analysis reveal the same construction chronology, structure, and function as the much larger plaza periphery mounds at Moundville. Moreover, the surrounding landform exhibits an occupation history comparable to that found in other areas at Moundville. I suggest that this landform was occupied by a distinct kin-based residential group. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Performance Metrics for Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry Systems in Proteomics Analyses*

A major unmet need in LC-MS/MS-based proteomics analyses is a set of tools for quantitative assessment of system performance and evaluation of technical variability. Here we describe 46 system performance metrics for monitoring chromatographic performance, electrospray source stability, MS1 and MS2 signals, dynamic sampling of ions for MS/MS, and peptide identification. Applied to data sets from replicate LC-MS/MS analyses, these metrics displayed consistent, reasonable responses to controlled perturbations. The metrics typically displayed variations less than 10% and thus can reveal even subtle differences in performance of system components. Analyses of data from interlaboratory studies conducted under a common standard operating procedure identified outlier data and provided clues to specific causes. Moreover, interlaboratory variation reflected by the metrics indicates which system components vary the most between laboratories. Application of these metrics enables rational, quantitative quality assessment for proteomics and other LC-MS/MS analytical applications