Spiro Mounds ( 34 LF 40) is an Indigenous archaeological site located in present-day eastern

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

. The site was built by people from the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. that remains from an American Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture. The 80-acre site is located within a floodplain on the southern side of the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically ...

. The modern town of Spiro developed approximately seven miles to the south. Between the 9th and 15th centuries, the local Indigenous people created a religious and political center, culturally linked to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex identified by anthropologists as the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere (MIIS). Spiro was a major western outpost of

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a collection of Native American societies that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building la ...

which dominated the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries for centuries. In the 1930s during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, treasure hunters bought the rights to tunnel into Craig Mound—the second-largest mound on the site—to mine it for artifacts. Without concern for scientific research, they exposed a hollow burial chamber inside the mound, a unique feature containing some of the most extraordinary

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

artifacts ever found in the United States. The treasure hunters sold the artifacts they recovered to art collectors, some as far away as Europe. The artifacts included works of fragile, perishable materials: textiles and feathers that had been uniquely preserved in the conditions of the closed chamber. Later, steps were taken to protect the site. This site has been significant for North American archaeology since the 1930s, especially due to its many preserved textiles and a wealth of shell carving. Later, some of the artifacts sold by treasure hunters were returned to regional museums and the Caddo Nation, but many artifacts from the site have never been accounted for. Since the late 20th century, the Spiro Mounds site has been protected by the

Oklahoma Historical Society The Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) is an agency of the government of Oklahoma dedicated to promotion and preservation of Oklahoma's history and its people by collecting, interpreting, and disseminating knowledge and artifacts of Oklahoma. ...

and it is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

."Spiro Mounds."
''Oklahoma Historical Society.'' (retrieved 30 May 2011)

Chronology

Typically, the history of the Spiro culture is divided into archaeological phases: * Evans Phase (900–1050 CE) * Harlan Phase (1050–1250 CE) * Norman Phase (1250–1350 CE) * Spiro phase (1350–1450 CE) Residential construction at Spiro decreased dramatically around 1250 CE, and the people resettled in nearby villages, such as the Choates-Holt Site to the north. Spiro continued to be used as a ceremonial and mortuary center through 1450. The mound area was abandoned about 1450, but nearby communities persisted until 1600 CE. The historic cultures following in the wake of Spiro, such as the Caddo, Pawnee, and Wichita peoples, were less complex and hierarchical.

Mounds and plaza area

spread along the lower

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

and its tributaries between the 9th and 16th centuries. The largest Mississippian settlement was

Cahokia Cahokia Mounds ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis. The state archaeology park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. L ...

, the capital of a major chiefdom that built a six-mile-square city east of the Mississippi River that now is St. Louis, Missouri, in present-day southern Illinois. Archeological studies have revealed that Mississippian culture extended from the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

to the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

, along the Ohio River, and into both the lowland and mountain areas of the Southeast. Mississippian settlements were known for their large earthwork, platform mounds (usually truncated pyramids), surmounted by temples, the houses of warrior kings and priests, and the burial houses of the elite. The mounds were arranged around large, constructed flat plazas believed to be used for ceremonial community gathering and ritual games. Archaeological research has shown that Mississippian settlements such as Cahokia and Spiro took part in a vast trading network that covered the eastern half of what is now the U.S. and parts of what is now the western U.S. as well. The Spiro site includes 12 earthen mounds and 150 acres of land. As in other Mississippian-culture towns, the people built a number of large, complex earthworks. These included

mound A mound is a wikt:heaped, heaped pile of soil, earth, gravel, sand, rock (geology), rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded ...

s surrounding a large, planned and leveled central

plaza A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Rela ...

, where important religious rituals, the politically and culturally significant game of

chunkey Chunkey (also known as chunky, chenco, tchung-kee or the hoop and stick game) is a game of Native Americans in the United States, Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc-shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them i ...

, and other important community activities were carried out. The population lived in a village that bordered the plaza. In addition,

archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

have found more than twenty related village sites within five miles of the main town. Other village sites linked to Spiro through culture and trade have been found up to a away. Spiro has been the site of human activity for at least 8,000 years. It was a major Mississippian settlement from 800 to 1450 AD. The cultivation of

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

during this period allowed accumulation of crop surpluses and the gathering of more dense populations. The town was the headquarters of a regional

chiefdom A chiefdom is a political organization of people representation (politics), represented or government, governed by a tribal chief, chief. Chiefdoms have been discussed, depending on their scope, as a stateless society, stateless, state (polity) ...

, whose powerful leaders directed the building of eleven

platform mound A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity. It typically refers to a flat-topped mound, whose sides may be pyramidal. In Eastern North America The indigenous peoples of North America built substru ...

s and one

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

in an area on the south bank of the

. The heart of the site is a group of nine mounds surrounding an oval plaza. These mounds were the bases of the homes of important leaders or formed the foundations for religious structures that focused the attention of the community. Brown Mound, the largest platform mound, is located on the eastern side of the plaza. It had an earthen ramp that gave access to the summit from the northern side. Here, atop Brown Mound and the other mounds, the inhabitants of the town carried out complex rituals, centered especially on the deaths and burials of Spiro's powerful rulers. Archaeologists have shown that Spiro had a large resident population until about 1250. After that, most of the population moved to other towns nearby. Spiro continued to be used as a regional ceremonial center and burial ground until about 1450. Its ceremonial and mortuary functions continued and seem to have increased after the main population moved away.

The Great Mortuary

Craig Mound—also called "The Spiro Mound"—is the second-largest mound on the site and the only burial mound. It is located approximately southeast of the plaza. A cavity created within the mound, approximately high and wide, allowed for almost perfect preservation of fragile artifacts made of wood, conch shell, and copper. The conditions in this hollow space were so favorable that objects made of perishable materials such as

basketry Basket weaving (also basketry or basket making) is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets ...

, woven fabric of plant and animal fibers, lace, fur, and feathers were preserved inside it. In historic tribes, such objects have traditionally been created by women. Also found inside were several examples of

Mississippian stone statuary The Mississippian stone statuary are Artifact (archaeology), artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture (800 to 1600 CE) and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and ...

made from Missouri flint clay and Mill Creek chert

biface A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a Prehistory, prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is made from stone, usually flint or chert that has been "reduced" and shaped from a larger ...

s, all thought to have originally come from the

site in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. The "Great Mortuary", as archaeologists called this hollow chamber, appears to have begun as a burial structure for Spiro's rulers. It was created as a circle of sacred cedar posts sunk in the ground and angled together at the top similarly to a ''

tipi A tipi or tepee ( ) is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on ...

''. The cone-shaped chamber was covered with layers of earth to create the mound, preventing collapse. Some scholars believe that minerals percolating through the mound hardened the log walls of the chamber, making them resistant to decay and shielding the perishable artifacts inside from direct contact with the earth. No other Mississippian mound has been found with such a hollow space inside it, nor with such spectacular preservation of artifacts. Craig Mound has been called "an American King Tut's Tomb". Between 1933 and 1935, Craig Mound was excavated by a commercial enterprise that had bought the rights from local landowners to excavate and to keep or sell the artifacts they recovered. Tunneling into the mound and breaking through the Great Mortuary's log wall, they found many human burials, together with their associated grave goods. They discarded the human remains and the fragile artifacts—made of textile, basketry, and even feathers—that were preserved in these extremely unusual conditions. Most of those rare and priceless objects disintegrated before scholars could reach the site, although some were sold to collectors. When the commercial excavators finished, they dynamited the burial chamber and sold the commercially valuable artifacts, made of stone, pottery, copper, and conch shell, to collectors in the United States and overseas. Probably, most of these valuable objects are lost, but some have been returned through donation and have been documented by scholars. File:Spiro Big Boy effigy pipe HRoe 02.jpg, "Resting Warrior", side view, effigy pipe of Missouri flint clay File:(Man smoking from frog pipe) effigy pipe HRoe-2010.jpg, Effigy pipe of figure smoking from a frog effigy pipe, Missouri flint clay File:Smoker effigy pipe Spiro HRoe 01.jpg, Effigy pipe of a man smoking a pipe, Missouri flint clay File:Spiro Lucifer Pipe HRoe 02.jpg, "Lucifer" pipe, rear view File:Mill Creek chert bifaces Spiro HRoe 01.jpg, Two

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

and one Mill Creek chert ceremonial

s (from southern Illinois) File:Spiro ceremonial mace HRoe 2005.jpg, Ceremonial monolithic flint mace File:Spiro copper ear spools HRoe 2005.jpg, Copper ear spools File:Spiro engraved shell HRoe 2005.jpg, Engraved whelk shell cup with raptor heads Funded by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(WPA), archaeologists from the University of Oklahoma excavated parts of the site between 1936 and 1941. The Oklahoma Historical Society established the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center in 1978 that continues to operate. The site is listed on the

and is preserved as Oklahoma's only Archeological State Park and only pre-contact Native American site open to the public.

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Spiro human headed avian plate HRoe 2012

Spiro Mounds people participated in what cultural anthropologists and archaeologists call the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), a network of ceremonial centers sharing the Mississippian culture and similar spiritual beliefs, cosmology, ritual practices, and cult objects. The complex was a vast trading network that distributed exotic materials from all across North America that were used in the making of ritual objects. These materials included colored

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

from New Mexico, copper from the

, conch (or lightning whelk) shells from the

, and

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...

from the Carolinas. Other Mississippian centers also traded in these prized resources, but apparently, Spiro was the only trading center that acquired

obsidian Obsidian ( ) is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Produced from felsic lava, obsidian is rich in the lighter element ...

from Mexico. Using these valued materials, Mississippian artists created exquisite works of art reflecting their

cultural identity Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity (social science), identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, Locality (settlement), locality, gender, o ...

and their complex spiritual beliefs. When commercial excavators dug into Craig Mound in the 1930s, they found many beautifully crafted ritual artifacts, including stone effigy pipes, polished stone maces, finely made flint knives and arrow points, polished

stones, copper effigy axes, Mississippian copper plates ( Spiro plates), mica effigy cut outs, elaborately engraved conch shell ornaments, pearl bead necklaces, stone earspools, wood carvings inlaid with shell, and specially made mortuary pottery. The

conch Conch ( , , ) is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high Spire (mollusc), spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point on both ...

shells were fashioned into

gorget A gorget ( ; ) was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the English medieval clothing, medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon (headgear), chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather Collar (c ...

s and drinking cups

engraved Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an inta ...

with intricate designs representing costumed humans, real and mythical animals, and geometric motifs, all of which had profound symbolic significance. The Spiro Mounds ceremonial objects are among the finest examples of

art in North America. Later, archaeologists recognized that the ritual artifacts at Spiro were similar to comparable objects excavated at other powerful Mississippian towns that also participated in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. These include

in Illinois, the largest Mississippian town; Etowah and Ocmulgee in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

; and Moundville in

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. In economic terms, Spiro seems to have been a gateway town that funneled valuable resources from the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

and other western regions to the main Mississippian ceremonial centers farther east. In return, it received valuable goods from those other centers. Spiro's location on the

, one of the principal tributaries of the

, gave the Spiro traders access to the Mississippian heartland. Spiro and other Mississippian towns clearly looked to the great city of Cahokia, in what now is southern Illinois, as a cultural model to be emulated. Located about 400 miles northeast of Spiro near the confluence of the Mississippi and

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

Rivers, Cahokia was the largest and most impressive of all the Mississippian towns. Mineralogical analysis of some of the most beautiful stone effigy pipes found at Spiro, including the famous "Grizzly Man" or "Kneeling Rattler" pipe, have shown they came from Cahokia, based on the material from which they were made. Cahokia also influenced the styles of the artifacts made at Spiro. Archaeologists have identified four distinct styles: the Braden Style characteristic of artifacts brought from Cahokia and the Craig A, B, and C styles that are local derivatives of the Braden Style. Antonio Waring and Preston Holder first defined the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in the 1940s, according to a series of distinct cultural traits. Since the late 1980s, archaeologists have adopted a new classification scheme that is based on their greatly improved understanding of Mississippian cultural development. The new scheme divides the SECC into five periods, or horizons, each defined by the appearance of new ritual objects and cultural motifs connected with new developments in politics and long-distance trade. Archaeologists have determined that Spiro was at the peak of its cultural importance in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Mississippian iconography

Craig C style shell gorget Spiro HRoe 2005

Anthropologists have tried in recent years to interpret the meaning of the ritual artifacts and artistic imagery found at Spiro and other Mississippian sites. While reaching firm conclusions about the meanings of works of art made centuries ago by people of an extinct culture is difficult, they have made some compelling interpretations by comparing Mississippian artistic imagery with the

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

religious ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

s, art, and

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

of historic Native American groups. One of the most prominent symbols at Spiro is the "Birdman", a winged human figure representing a warrior or chunkey player.

Chunkey Chunkey (also known as chunky, chenco, tchung-kee or the hoop and stick game) is a game of Native Americans in the United States, Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc-shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them i ...

has been played by tribes from the far

Southeastern Woodlands Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern cultures, or Southeast Indians are an Ethnography, ethnographic classification for Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who have traditionally inhabited the area now ...

to the Northern Plains. Based upon historic records, the game consisted of players rolling a stone disk for a considerable distance and then hurling spears as close as they could to the point where the stone stopped. Another Spiro

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

is the "Great Serpent", a being said to inhabit the Under World, the spiritual domain on the opposite side of the Mississippian universe. The Great Serpent is portrayed in Mississippian art with a serpent's body, but also with wings or horns. Similar beings were the subject of myth in historic times among the Micmac, Huron, Kickapoo,

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

, Muscogee Creek,

Caddo The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who ...

, and other Native American tribes, representing at least three major language families. The spiritual beings of the Under World were thought to be in constant opposition to those in the Upper World. Humans had to fear these beings, according to Native American mythology, but they could also gain great power from them in certain circumstances. Mississippian art also features the cedar tree or striped-center-pole motifs, which researchers have interpreted as the ''

axis mundi In astronomy, is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles. In a geocentric coordinate system, this is the axis of rotation of the celestial sphere. Consequently, in ancient Greco-Roman astronomy, the is the axis of ...

'', the point at which the three parts of the Mississippian spiritual universe come together: the Upper World, the Under World, and the Middle World where humans dwell. Often, the cedar tree, or the striped-center-pole, is found on engraved conch shell gorgets, with human or animal figures positioned on either side. The concept of an axis mundi—the point where different cosmic domains converge—is found in many cultures around the world. It is frequently represented as a tree (including the

Tree of Life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythology, mythological, religion, religious, and philosophy, philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The ...

), since trees pass through the surface of the earth and connect the subsurface and the sky. The fact that the Great Mortuary at Spiro was built with cedar (or cedar elm) posts suggests that the burial chamber was meant to be a point of departure from one spiritual domain to another, as cedar was a sacred wood. Archaeologists found that one of the conch shell cups from Craig Mound had a black residue in the bottom. This suggests that the Spiro people may have practiced a version of the Black Drink Ceremony, a purification ritual that was also performed in historic times by their descendants—the Southeastern tribes. Participants drank a tea made from the Yaupon Holly from conch shell cups.

Caddoan Mississippians

Caddoan Mississippian culture map HRoe 2010

Most authorities agree that the people of Spiro were Caddoan speaking, but their descendants in historic times are difficult to identify. Archaeologists describe the cultures that built and used Spiro and surrounding sites as the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. Anthropologists speculate that the

Caddo Confederacy The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who ...

, Wichita, Kichai, or non-Caddoan Tunica, could be their descendants. However, the cultures of all these peoples, when encountered by the Spanish and French in the 16th and 17th centuries, were substantially different from that of Spiro. Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the

Caddo Nation of Oklahoma The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, w ...

and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco and Tawakonie) are recognized by the U.S. Federal government, cultural anthropologists, and archaeologists as the cultural descendants of the builders of Spiro Mounds. When the Spanish

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1497 – 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, ...

led a military expedition into what is now the southeastern United States in the 1540s, he encountered Native American groups including the

Tula people The Tula were a Native American group that lived in what is now western Arkansas.Sturtevant, 617 The Tula are known to history only from the chronicles of Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto's exploits in the interior of North America. History ...

, who lived near the Arkansas River. de Soto's forces also encountered numerous Caddo villages. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies, the Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and Natchitoches, which were all linked by similar languages. At the time of de Soto's conquest, the Caddoan peoples occupied a large territory. It included what now is eastern

, western

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

, northeastern

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, and northwestern

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. Anthropologists have thought that the Caddo and related peoples had been living in the region for centuries and that they had their own local variant of Mississippian culture. Recent excavations have revealed more cultural diversity than scholars had expected within that region. The sites along the Arkansas River, in particular, seem to have their own distinctive characteristics. Scholars still classify the Mississippian sites found in the entire Caddo area, including Spiro Mounds, as " Caddoan Mississippian". The Caddoan Mississippian region contained many towns in addition to Spiro, including the Battle Mound Site. Scholars have determined that Battle Mound, lying along the Great Bend of the Red River in southwest Arkansas, was a larger site than Spiro. Little excavation has been conducted there to date. The Caddoan Mississippian towns had a more irregular layout of earthen mounds and associated villages than did towns in the Middle Mississippian heartland to the east. They also lacked the wooden

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

fortifications often found in the major Middle Mississippian towns. Living on the western edge of the Mississippian world, the Caddoan may have faced fewer military threats from their neighbors. Also, their societies may have had a somewhat lower level of

social stratification Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political ...

. The Spiro people probably were speakers of one of the many

Caddoan languages The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of sp ...

. The Caddoan languages once had a broad geographic distribution, but many are now extinct. The modern languages in the Caddoan family include

, Wichita, Kitsai,

Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language: * Pawnee people * Pawnee language Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States: * Pawnee, Illinois * Pawnee, Kansas * Pawnee, Missouri * Pawnee City, Nebraska * ...

, and

Arikara language Arikara is a Caddoan language spoken by the Arikara Native Americans who reside primarily at Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Arikara is close to the Pawnee language, but they are not mutually intelligible. The Arikara were appare ...

s. Wichita and Kitsai are both extinct.

Museum complex

The Spiro Mounds are located within the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center complex in Fort Coffee, Oklahoma. The center features various exhibits and trails, and it offers tours, including a virtual tour.Brandes, Heide,
This little-known Native American society was once as powerful as the Aztecs and Incas
', National Geographic, March 9, 2021 - with many images

References

External links

Spiro Mounds on Oklahoma Historical SocietySpiro Mounds Archaeological Center on TravelOK.com
Official travel and tourism website for the State of Oklahoma
Spiro Mounds Information & Videos
- Chickasaw.TV
Arkansas Antiquities"Spiro Mounds"
''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''
Spiromound.com
* {{Authority control Caddoan Mississippian culture Mounds in the United States Native American history of Oklahoma Native American museums in Oklahoma Museums in Le Flore County, Oklahoma Archaeological museums in Oklahoma Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma Caddo Protected areas of Le Flore County, Oklahoma Parks in Oklahoma Historic American Landscapes Survey in Oklahoma Oklahoma Historical Society National Register of Historic Places in Le Flore County, Oklahoma