As at Mounds B and C, the circular shape of the house at Mound D was
outlined by an area of organically stained soil which extended upward
from the house floor almost to the surface of the mound. The flanks of
all three mounds were of light colored sand which contrasted sharply
with the dark, circular house outlines. The only reasonable conjecture
thus far advanced to explain this circumstance is that a low embankment
of relatively clean sand had been piled against the exterior wall of
each house. Thus when a house burned the embankment would remain
standing, well above the house floor, as a sort of mold of the lower
portion of the house. Then when a mound was erected over the burned
house remains and the standing embankment, the outline of the house
might appear in the mound fill as a cast of the house, delineated by the
circular embankment.
OCCUPATIONAL FEATURES
House No. 4 was the only occupational feature discovered at Mound D.
_House No. 4_
This house was circular in shape, with an exterior wall formed of
upright poles, wattle, and clay daub. Post molds indicated that there
were at least 27 of the upright poles in the exterior wall (Fig. 10).
They were 0.3 to 0.6 feet in diameter at the base and were set about two
feet apart on an average. An interior hearth near the center of the
house was probably circular in shape and an estimated three to four feet
in diameter. Its exact dimensions could not be determined because of
disturbance by the pothole. No interior post molds were found.
Remains of an extended entranceway on the west side of the house
consisted in five post molds which outlined the two parallel sides of
the entranceway. The entranceway was slightly less than three feet wide,
and it sloped downward from the surface of the floodplain into the house
pit.
Burned poles and burned clay daub with wattle impressions showed that
House No. 4 had been destroyed by fire.
DISCUSSION
Investigation of Mound D revealed that the following sequence of events
had taken place. A round, Caddoan type of house (House No. 4) with an
extended entranceway on the west side was built in a shallow, excavated
pit on the south bank of Cypress Creek. Architecturally the house was
quite similar to those at Mounds B and C. Sand was probably banked
against the outside wall of the house to a height of somewhat more than
a foot. After an unknown period of time the house was destroyed by fire,
and then the house remains and the surrounding embankment of sand were
buried beneath a mound of sandy soil. This duplicates essentially the
events reconstructed for Mounds B and C, the only unique feature at
Mound D being the pit in which the house was built.
[Illustration: Fig. 10
HARROUN SITE
41 UR 10
PLAN OF HOUSE NO. 4
MOUND D
post mold
unexcavated
burned area
pothole]
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