Beginning in 2004, archeologists working on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation conducted several phases of investigations at the Kitchen Branch site (41CP220) in northeast Texas’ Camp County. The Kitchen Branch site, situated on the northern bank of the Kitchen Branch of Prairie Creek (the site’s namesake), was located within the footprint of a proposed bridge slated for construction during expansion of FM 557 and would (within the expansion area) be destroyed as a result. For compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended) and the Antiquities Code of Texas , those impacted areas were investigated and excavated in detail prior to bridge construction. While the site contained evidence of occupations that ranged from among the earliest humans in the New World through the 20th century, researchers focused on the remnants of a single-family home site attributed to the later phases of Caddo native history, the peoples who dominated the region of northeast Texas, eastern Oklahoma, northwest Louisiana, and western Arkansas from A.D. 800 through the age of European contact.
Extensive investigations beginning in 2004 revealed some 236 prehistoric features and collected roughly 20,000 artifacts, shedding light on a lesser-known period of Caddo culture in this particular area. The results have been interpreted for the public by Texas Department of Transportation and AmaTerra Environmental, Inc., and are available in tDAR now! We encourage you to visit tDAR and download a digital copy of this report, designed to be approachable and interesting to a lay audience.