Clarence H. Webb (25 August 1902 – 18 January 1999)[1] was an American medical doctor and archaeologist who conducted extensive research on prehistoric sites in the southeastern United States.
A distinguished physician, his archaeological research included the study of Caddoan culture, and at a number of major sites such as Poverty Point, John Pearce (just N. of U.S. Hwy 171, a short distance E. of the De Soto and Caddo Parish line , Gahagan, and Belcher Mound.
Growing up in a rural area, he spent his early life working on family farms in Bayou Pierre in DeSoto and Caddo Parishes.
In 1935 Webb traveled to Poverty Point and uncovered a cache of about 1,500 stone vessel fragments, which was the first of many visits to the site either surface collecting or conducting excavations.
Even though his first large scale excavation project was some years in the future, salvage archaeology was occurring in the south during this time under the auspices of New Deal labor relief programs.
One of the sites examined was at Marksville, Louisiana where the project archaeologists, Frank Setzler, aided by James Ford, became Webb's mentors.
Over the next few years, Webb worked on many sites and met well-known archaeologists like Arden R. King, Robert Stuart Neitzel, Edwin Doran, Carlyle Smith, and William Malloy.
During the same time, the University of Oklahoma began its archaeological program and Webb made friends with Robert Bell, David Baerreis, and Kenneth Orr.
Webb did extensive archaeological work in Louisiana and adjoining areas, where the prehistory record was replete with pottery-making and mound building cultures.
Early in his career Webb concluded there was evidence for a fleeting Folsom-Yuma (Clovis) horizon in the state, and he later excavated the later Paleoindian San Patrice John Pearce[where?]
[8] Poverty Point is a Late Archaic period archaeological site located in the lower Mississippi Valley in West Carroll Parish occupied from ca.
[9] Webb's work shed light on the site, which had received minimal study prior to this due to an absence of major ceramic period occupations.
[5] Webb concluded the site represented the ceremonial and possible civil center of a small agricultural community located in the Red River Valley.
Webb further defined the San Patrice assemblages as a socio-cultural unit that was similar to Plains Paleoindian, but transitional to Early Archaic.