Louisiana Prehistory :: NEO-INDIAN

NEO-INDIAN

During the Neo-Indian Period the population expanded and some groups became sedentary, staying in one place for several years or more. Most Meso-Indian tools continued to be used by Neo-Indians, but added to these were stone and pottery vessels, baked clay balls, and many decorative or ceremonial objects. Also, for the first time, shell and earthen mounds were regularly built.

The Neo-Indian Period lasted from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1600 and included the following cultures: Poverty Point, Tchefuncte, Marksville, Troyville-Coles Creek, Caddo and Plaquemine-Mississippian. These groups differed from one another in when and where they lived, as well as in the objects and earthworks they made.

Poverty Point

The Poverty Point Culture flourished from approximately 2000 B.C. to 700 B.C. The culture is named for the famous Poverty Point Site where the largest earthworks of the period were built. During this time, Poverty Point people lived in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, and they usually settled near major rivers, junctions of lakes and rivers, or in coastal marshes. These locations supported a wide variety of plants and animals that could be used for food.

Poverty Point Site

The Poverty Point Site is near Epps, Louisiana, in the northeastern corner of the state. The site is now a State Commemorative Area that can be visited by the public. It covers more than a square mile, and when the ridges and mounds were built they were the largest earthworks in the Western Hemisphere. Although the exact function of the ridges is as yet unknown, it is speculated that the aisles may have been used in astronomical observations because two of them line up with the summer and winter solstice sunsets.

Like Meso-Indians, some Poverty Point Indians lived in small dispersed groups, but others established regional centers where large populations lived throughout the year. Oval or horseshoe-shaped structures of earth or shell were usually built at these centers. The reason for the construction is unknown, but it is likely that the Poverty Point leaders lived at such sites and that the sites functioned as ceremonial, political and trading centers.

The Poverty Point Site in northeastern Louisiana was the largest regional center. It was built between the Mississippi and the Arkansas rivers. Using these rivers, as well as land routes, Poverty Point Indians traded with other Indians as far away as Illinois, Virginia and Florida.

At the Poverty Point Site, the Indians built earthen ridges that form six semicircles, one inside the other. The ridges are interrupted by four aisles that radiate out from the inner area. The outer ridge of these earthworks measures nearly three-quarters of a mile across. Immediately to the west is an earthen mound 70 feet high and just north of it is another mound, 21 feet high.

The ridges and mounds were built by hand. Workers loosened dirt with shells or stones used like hoes, then filled baskets and animal hides with soil and carried them to the construction area. It took approximately 30 million 50-pound loads to build the earthen ridges and the two large mounds at Poverty Point. The construction must have taken many generations to complete.

Poverty Point Indians probably had a ruling class, perhaps with a chief, to direct earthwork construction and long-distance trade. The leadership also may have helped organize food collecting and hunting activities.

People living at the regional center relied on hunting, fishing, and plant collecting to supply their food, just as Meso-Indians had. They may also have sown seeds of favorite wild plants in cleared garden areas. There are indications that the Poverty Point Indians grew pigweed, marsh elder, knotweed, lamb’s quarters and sunflowers using this cultivation technique. This gardening, though helpful, would not have been essential to feed the people in the rich natural environments where they lived.

Poverty Point Indians continued to use the tools that Meso-Indians had used for hunting, collecting, and food preparation. They were likely, however, to get some of the stone for these tools through long-distance trade. The Neo-Indians also made new tools that were added to the Meso-Indian ones.

They made oval-shaped stone plummets that were used as weights on bolas or nets. A bola could be flung so that it wrapped around the feet of wild game. Weighted nets could have trapped both fish and small game. Stone for the plummets used by Louisiana Indians was magnetite and hematite from Missouri and northern Arkansas.

The Poverty Point Indians cooked their food in a new way. They made clay cooking balls that probably were used like charcoal briquettes for roasting and baking. They rolled clay in their hands, then squeezed or shaped it into one of many forms. These were dried and heated in a fire until hot, then up to 200 were placed in a roasting pit. The different shapes may simply indicate the maker’s design preference or may have controlled temperature and cooking time.

Another change in food preparation was the introduction of stone, and later, pottery vessels. The stone cooking or storage bowls were made from steatite (soapstone), or less commonly from sandstone. Later in the period, the first Louisiana pottery vessels were made, and these probably were modeled after the earlier stone bowls.

In addition to these practical goods, Indians of this period made many exotic ornamental objects including stone and clay figurines, beads, and pendants. The figurines were about 2.5 inches tall and represented seated females, but usually the heads were removed. This may indicate that the clay figurines were used in some kind of ceremony. The beads were made from copper and clay, as well as gems and other stones. Pendants, also made from clay and stone, were in the shape of birds, insects, miniature tools, and geometrical shapes.

The Indians may have cut and drilled stones to make pendants and beads with small stone tools usually less than an inch in length. These tools, called microtools, were also used for cutting, scraping, sawing and engraving bone, antler, and wood.

Many distinctive traits of the Poverty Point Culture were shared by people living in Mexico and Central America at that time and even earlier. These traits included earthwork construction, planned villages, clay figurines, stone beads and pendants, and microtools. These southern Indians almost certainly influenced the development of certain aspects of Poverty Point culture, either by direct contact or by descriptions shared by travelers.

Poverty Point: a, Plummet; b, Atlatl Weight; c-f, Clay Cooking Balls; g, Clay Female Figurine; h, Stone Point; i, Gorget; j-n, Stone Beads and Pendants; o, Microtools (½ actual size)

The Poverty Point Culture that flourished for over 1,000 years had virtually disappeared by 500 B.C. There is no evidence of warfare or conflict with another group, so perhaps internal political or religious changes caused the decline. In any event, people gradually abandoned the regional centers and returned to living in small scattered settlements. Never again in Louisiana did the Indian people build such massive earthworks or trade over such an extensive area.

Tchefuncte

The simplified lifestyle that developed at the end of the Poverty Point Period continued throughout the next cultural period. During the time of the Tchefuncte (pronounced Che-funk'tuh) Culture, from 500 B.C. until A.D. 200, people lived in small scattered settlements. Long distance trade was much less important, yet people in Louisiana were in contact with people in western Mississippi, coastal Alabama, eastern Texas, Arkansas, and southeastern Missouri.

In Louisiana, most Tchefuncte people seem to have lived in coastal areas and in lowlands near slow-moving streams. In these areas, they camped on natural levees, terraces, salt domes, cheniers and ridges that provided dry ground in this wet environment. Here they built their houses, probably temporary circular shelters having a frame of light poles covered with thatch or grass mixed with mud.

Tchefuncte Site

The Tchefuncte Site, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, was so named because it was situated inside Tchefuncte State Park (renamed Fountainebleau State Park). The site had two shell middens, one that measured 100 feet by 250 feet and another 100 feet by 150 feet. Both were excavated, and archaeologists found 50,000 pieces of pottery, as well as artifacts made from bone, shell and stone. Forty-three human burials were recovered, none of which had objects buried with them.

Building a circular shelter

They continued to depend on wild game and collected plant foods. In the coastal areas, they ate tens of thousands of brackish water clams and oysters, leaving behind piles of shells called shell middens. Because of the number of shells, it once was thought that clams provided the major protein source for Tchefuncte people. However, clam meat is actually low in protein and also in other nutrients and calories. Clams were probably eaten because they were always available, but they were not very important in nourishing the people. Surprisingly, Tchefuncte people apparently never ate crabs or crawfish, which also were plentiful.

Tchefuncte Indians obtained most of their protein from deer, raccoons, alligators, and fish, but many other animals, especially small animals and migratory birds were also eaten. The Indians used atlatls to kill large game like deer and bear. For smaller mammals and birds, they preferred traps, nets and bolas. They probably had several techniques for fishing including netting, spearing, and fishing with hook and line. Like the Meso-Indians before them, they gathered plant foods, including grapes, plums, persimmons, acorns, and hickory nuts. They also grew squash and gourds in small gardens.

Tchefuncte people were the first Indians in Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery. They rolled coils of clay into shape and then smoothed them to form a container. Many shapes of pots were made, but characteristically they had “footed” bases. The Indians often decorated the vessels by pressing fingernails, twigs or tools into the surface or by rocking a small tool across the wet clay. After decorating the pots, they fired them by slow baking.

Later Indians almost always kneaded the clay thoroughly and mixed it with a small amount of another substance, called temper. These two steps strengthened the clay and helped prevent it from shrinking unevenly and cracking. Tchefuncte potters often omitted these steps, perhaps because they were unaware of their importance, or perhaps because clay was available and they could easily make another vessel if one cracked.

The introduction of pottery was an important improvement in food storage. When these pots were kept covered, they provided a relatively dry and animal-proof container that was portable. This made it easier to store food in times of plenty for use in leaner times. The Tchefuncte pots also meant that stewing and other new cooking techniques could be experimented with and developed for the first time.

Tchefuncte: a-d, Vessel Rim Sherds; e-f, Vessel Footed Bases; g, Clay Pipe; h, Stone Point; i, Stone Axe; j, Bone Fishhook; k, Antler Point (½ actual size)

Most of the other utensils and tools that Tchefuncte Indians used were very similar to those that Poverty Point Indians made. These included smoking pipes; stone, bone, and antler spear points; ground stone atlatl weights; mortars; bone fishhooks; clay cooking balls; and other butchering, hideworking, and woodworking tools.

In contrast to Poverty Point Indians, the Tchefuncte Indians did not specialize in making stone beads, pendants, or microtools, and they did not usually import materials to make tools and ornaments. Although some innovations from the Poverty Point Culture were carried over, most Tchefuncte tools and most Tchefuncte settlement patterns resemble those of the Meso-Indians.

The majority of the information about this era comes from coastal regions of the state. Archaeologists are not sure how Indians in the rest of Louisiana were living at this same time, but it is likely that their culture somewhat resembled that of the Tchefuncte Indians.

Marksville

Sometime after 200 B.C., Indians of the highly influential Hopewell Culture, centered in Ohio and Illinois, sent representatives throughout the eastern United States. By at least the first century A.D., groups of Louisiana Indians had met these travelers and had learned about their culture. Hopewell people had powerful leaders who supervised a cult centered around lavish burial rituals. Leaders organized construction of large mounds in which certain high-status people were buried along with exquisitely crafted objects made of copper, stone, bone, shell, pottery, and rare minerals.

The Hopewell representatives may have been sent south in search of a valued raw material or may have been sent as “evangelists” whose mission it was to explain the virtues of Hopewell ceremonial life. Intentionally or not, they introduced some Louisiana Indians to Hopewell practices. The Louisiana manifestation of Hopewell life is called the Marksville Culture.

Marksville Site

The Marksville Site, in Avoyelles Parish, was the first scientifically excavated site of the Marksville Culture. Burial mounds at the site are encompassed by a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment almost 3,000 feet long. The site is now a State Commemorative Area open to the public. A museum at the park houses an exhibit describing the site and the people who lived there.

Indians of the Marksville Culture began living in larger, more permanent settlements, building burial mounds, and making Hopewell-styled pottery, pipes, and ornaments. They most likely had leaders who directed craftsmen, organized community life, and officiated at burial ceremonies.

Burial rituals must have been a very important part of the Marksville Culture. Large mounds were constructed in several stages over many years. The first stage usually was a flat low platform approximately three feet high and 40 feet in diameter. Burial ceremonies were held months or perhaps years apart and those who had died between ceremonies were buried together. Some remains had been temporarily interred in other areas, so these were reburied along with primary burials, and even cremations.

A pit was dug into the mound surface, and sometimes lined with logs and matting. Human remains were placed in the pit with pottery, pipes, stone points, shells, asphaltum, quartz crystals, and other valuable objects. The bodies might be ornamented with jewelry such as copper beads, earspools, bracelets, and necklaces of shell, pearls, or stone. Occasionally, a dog was placed in the grave. The pit was filled with dirt. Later, other pits might be dug for another occasion or burials might be made by placing remains on the mound surface and covering them with a layer of earth. Eventually, more construction increased the overall size of the mound and shaped it into a dome.

The people buried in the mounds may have been high status individuals who lived in villages near the mounds, while ordinary people lived in scattered villages away from the ceremonial centers. Marksville Indians in the coastal areas lived far from the elaborate burial mounds, but they still practiced new styles of making pottery and other objects.

(¼ actual size)

The new Marksville pottery was made from local clay, but it was quite similar in shape and decoration to pottery of the Hopewell Culture in Illinois and Ohio. A typical Hopewell vessel would be a bowl three to six inches tall. The rim would have cross-hatched lines on the exterior at the top and the design on the rest of the pot would be outlined with bold lines cut in the clay. Quite often the designs were geometric shapes and stylized birds. The background would be textured by rocking or stamping a small, toothed tool across the wet clay. These decorated pots were made primarily for ceremonial uses.

The Marksville people also made other Hopewell-like objects including copper and stone jewelry, platform pipes and figurines. The pipes had relatively broad flat bases (platforms) approximately three inches long. At one end was a hole for a wooden or reed pipe stem and in the center was a bowl. Sometimes an animal figure was on the platform, with the bowl formed in the animal’s back. Animal and human figurines were also made. Most of these Hopewell-like objects were buried in mounds as religious or burial offerings.

Marksville: a-c, Vessel Rim Sherds; d, Clay Effigy Pipe; e, Copper Ear Spool; f, Asphaltum Effigy; g, Ceremonial Stone Point (½ actual size)

In contrast, Marksville people made most of their utilitarian objects the same way as Tchefuncte people before them. Marksville people hunted with atlatls, bolas and nets, and fished with hooks and line. They gathered wild plants and shellfish, and probably grew a few domesticated plants in small gardens. They stored food in pots and baskets, and cooked in pots.

It seems that despite the Hopewellian influence, much of the culture was unaffected by contact with the northerners. Through time, Hopewellian influence diminished. Louisiana Indians built fewer burial mounds, developed their own distinctive pottery, and began a new way of hunting.

Fishing

Troyville-Coles Creek

The Troyville-Coles Creek Period lasted from approximately A.D. 400 to A.D. 1100. By the beginning of this period, influence from the Ohio-Illinois Hopewell people had ceased, and pottery styles, mound building, and ceremonial life had gradually changed.

The Troyville-Coles Creek people continued building ceremonial centers with mounds, but these mounds differed from earlier ones. They were larger, shaped differently, and more numerous. They also served a new purpose. Instead of being primarily for burials, these mounds were constructed to support temples or civic buildings. Pyramidal mounds with flat tops, and sometimes with stepped ramps leading up one side, came into style. They were constructed over hundreds of years, and usually were enlarged one or more times. Although the total height might reach only 20 feet, the base might eventually be enlarged to more than 200 feet on each side. At certain sites, three to nine mounds eventually were built, all around an open, central plaza.

A temple and one or more other buildings were usually built on a mound summit. These buildings were either circular or rectangular with walls of wattle and daub. Wattle is a construction technique whereby branches, twigs, cane, or vines are interlaced around upright posts that have been sunk in the ground. These are then plastered with mud or clay daub. The Troyville-Coles Creek people probably used grass thatch or palmetto fronds for the roof.

Greenhouse Site

The Greenhouse Site, in Avoyelles Parish, is the most extensively excavated site that is typical of the Troyville-Coles Creek Period. Seven earthen mounds there surround an open plaza that measures 200 feet by 350 feet. No village or campsite remains were found in the plaza or outside the mound area. This leads archaeologists to conclude that the mound group was used for ceremonial activities only, and that villagers lived elsewhere.

Some people were buried in the mounds, but in contrast to Marksville burials, the bodies were not accompanied by a rich assortment of objects. One or more bodies were buried in pits, or simply laid upon the mound summit and covered with dirt. People were also buried in village areas away from the mounds. Why some were buried in the mounds and some were not, remains a mystery. It may be that people associated with mound construction, with temple activities, or those of significant social status were buried in the mounds. Alternatively, if many people died from illness, famine, or disaster, that might have signaled a time for special ceremonies and mound enlargement. Those victims might have been buried in a mound.

Villages and campsites were often a mile or more from these ceremonial centers. There, daily life was more focused on maintaining a stable food supply than on ceremonial activities. During the Troyville-Coles Creek Period, important changes in hunting techniques and garden crops helped guarantee this food supply.

It was during this period that the bow and arrow came into use in Louisiana. First invented in Europe thousands of years before, bows and arrows were gradually adopted by people in Asia and eventually by people in North America. The introduction of the bow and arrow meant hunters could shoot further, more accurately, and with more firepower than before. The arrow points were generally smaller than those used on spears. These then, were the first true arrowheads made in Louisiana.

(¾ actual size)

Troyville-Coles Creek people also continued using the atlatl, as well as the traditional butchering and hideworking tools that had been made since Meso-Indian times. There was no dramatic change in the types of animals hunted during this time. The Indians killed game such as deer, bear, small mammals, and game birds. They also ate fish and mollusks as had their ancestors.

The Troyville-Coles Creek people continued collecting wild seeds, fruits, roots, and other plant foods. They cultivated squash, gourds, and native plants such as sunflowers and lamb’s quarters, but a most important addition to these garden crops was corn, which had been domesticated earlier in Mexico. The Indians no doubt experimented with it for many generations, developing strains and cultivation techniques best suited to Louisiana conditions. Certain plant foods were still ground with mealing stones and probably stored in pottery vessels.

Tending corn

In this period, pottery styles changed, producing more durable pots with more diversified uses. The Troyville-Coles Creek Indians tempered their clay with particles of dried clay before coiling it to shape the pot. They specialized in rounded or barrel-shaped jars and in deep or shallow bowls. The potters removed coil marks by patting the surface with a smooth wooden paddle.

Sometimes they used a carved wooden paddle to stamp designs onto the entire outer surface of the vessel. At other times they decorated only the top half of the pot with designs formed by incising lines or pressing tools into the damp clay. The colors of the clay were usually tan, brown, gray or black. On rare occasions vessels were colored red on the outside or shaped into human effigies.

Troyville-Coles Creek: a-e, Vessel Rim Sherds; f-h, Stone Points (½ actual size)

Late in the Troyville-Coles Creek Period, changes began to occur. Indians in the northwestern part of the state developed close ties with people living north and west of them, while those in the east became more closely aligned with people to their east. Descendants of the Troyville-Coles Creek people were Indians of the Caddo and of the Plaquemine-Mississipian cultures.

Caddo

By about A.D. 800, descendants of the Troyville-Coles Creek people living in northwestern Louisiana had developed close ties with people in southeastern Oklahoma, northeastern Texas and southern Arkansas. From this region emerged the Caddo Culture. These Indians developed a fine, new style of pottery, and used special ornaments and objects made from imported materials. They also performed elaborate burials of upper class people.

There was little change in the daily life of the ordinary Indians. Most people spent their lives in small villages and hamlets near streams or lakes. Many trends established in earlier generations persisted. New garden crops such as beans were introduced and were added to the corn, squash, gourds and native plants already grown. It seems that people from these small settlements were governed by high status individuals living at the ceremonial centers. Common people were probably required to help build mounds, to supply food, or to make tools or special objects for their rulers. They gathered at the centers when they were needed or when special ceremonies or festivals were celebrated.

Gahagan Site

At the Gahagan Site, in Red River Parish, early Caddo Indians built mounds and a village around a large open plaza. One mound had three deep shaft burials, each with three to six bodies and 200 to 400 burial offerings. Some of the unusual burial objects from this site are two clay human effigy pipes, two copper cutouts of human hands, two copper long-nosed mask ear ornaments, two frog effigy pipes, and numerous triangular stone blades called “Gahagan knives.”

Early Caddo people continued the Troyville-Coles Creek custom of constructing ceremonial centers with mounds around a central plaza. They built temples or special buildings on top of the mounds and also dug graves into the mounds for burials of important people.

These mound burials, however, differed somewhat from those of earlier cultures. To bury an honored priest or chief, Caddo people dug a large deep shaft, often all the way from the top of the mound to the ground level. Then they placed the chief’s body, and other bodies (possibly of sacrificed servants or family members) in the grave side by side. Special objects were piled in the corner or along the wall of the pit.

Burial offerings included well-made tools, ceremonial objects and jewelry designated only for high status people. Typical objects were fine pottery, carefully flaked stone knives, arrow points, bows, turtle shell rattles, polished stone axes, rare minerals, stone or clay smoking pipes, animal teeth pendants, bone hairpins, ear ornaments of bone, shell, or copper, and beads of copper, shell, and stone. Unusual objects were pipes in the form of humans and frogs, sheets of copper cut in the shape of hands, and ear ornaments resembling small copper masks. The face of each “mask” was an oval about three inches long, but the nose was seven inches long. Interestingly, at the same time, identical masks were also used by Indians as far away as Missouri, Wisconsin and Florida.

Caddo potters made special new shapes such as bottles, and bowls with sharply angled rims. They fired the pieces in a new way so they would be black or dark mahogany in color, then polished the dark surfaces to make them glossy. Some common ornamental designs were curved lines cut into the surface and sometimes highlighted with red or green-colored pigment rubbed into the engraved lines. Not surprisingly, much of the utilitarian pottery remained quite similar in appearance to the late Troyville-Coles Creek pottery. Caddo Indians probably still used it for daily chores, while they saved more ornate wares for special occasions.

The ordinary Caddo Culture people lived in villages away from the mound center. Their lives were centered around hunting, fishing, collecting, and gardening activities. When a commoner died, he or she was buried in a simple grave without objects. Although this way of life seems totally separate from the elaborate life of the elite, the two worlds overlapped at ceremonial occasions, when everyone gathered at the mound centers.

Caddo: a-c, Clay Vessels; d-e, Clay Pipes; f, Engraved Shell Cup; g, Shell Pendant; h, Stone Points (? actual size)

Between A.D. 1100 and A.D. 1400, Caddo ceremonial life seems to have been less important. All burials were simple, with only one person in a grave. Fewer imported stones and minerals were used to make high status objects, and more ordinary pottery was made.

After A.D. 1400, there was a return to Caddo ceremonialism. Many early Caddo customs were revived, but new practices were also added. Mound construction resumed, with temples, lodges, or chiefs’ houses being built on top. These structures characteristically were built of wattle and daub and had thatched roofs. They were used for a time, then they were burned, probably when the leader or an important person died. Workers covered the ruins with sand or clay, and eventually replaced the old building with a new one. Sometimes graves were dug through the floor of standing buildings or through the rubble of burned ones. As many as seven people have been found buried together in these graves, along with food offerings and large numbers of objects.

As in earlier times, important people had special customs and belongings that ordinary people did not have. One custom was that of binding an infant’s head to a cradleboard so that as the person grew to maturity the head was noticeably flattened and therefore distinguished the high class person from people of the lower class. Upper class people used ornate clay pipes, conch shell cups, ceremonial objects, fine pottery, and jewelry. Their jewelry included anklets, necklaces, bone hairpins, and bone pottery and shell discs that were worn through the ears. Some pendants were fashioned from mammal teeth or shells, and occasionally a large sea shell pendant had a lizard or salamander engraved on it.

Caddo leaders of this late period probably used the most delicate and decorated pottery. Pots ranged in size from miniatures to large wide-mouthed storage vessels. Many shapes were made, but special vessels were formed to resemble birds and turtles, or to act as rattles. Popular designs were circles, scrolls, and crosses engraved into the vessel after firing. Engraved designs were often highlighted with red, white or green pigments.

Daily life of ordinary people was much different than that of the elite. As far as we know, the former continued to live as they had during the earlier part of the period. They lived in circular houses in small villages located near their gardens and buried their dead in simple graves with few goods.

By the time the first Europeans reached Caddo villages in the mid-1500s, Caddo Indians were divided into several distinct groups. In Louisiana, these were the Adaes, Doustioni, Natchitoches, Ouachita and Yatasi. The Indians supplied the Europeans with salt, horses, and food in exchange for glass beads, kettles, guns, ammunition, knives, ceramics, bells and bracelets. Contact with the Spanish and French explorers ended the prehistoric era, and led to rapid and devastating changes in the traditional life.

Plaquemine-Mississippian

While Caddo Indians flourished in northwestern Louisiana, those in the rest of the state by approximately A.D. 1000 had a slightly different way of life. Many of the latter were part of the Plaquemine Culture, who like the Caddo, were descendants of Troyville-Coles Creek Indians. In keeping with the patterns established by their ancestors, Plaquemine people built large ceremonial centers with two or more large mounds facing an open plaza. The flat-topped, pyramidal mounds were constructed in several stages, and eventually measured more than 100 feet on a side and 10 feet high. Sometimes they were topped by one or two smaller mounds.

Medora Site

The Plaquemine Culture was so named because the Medora Site, typical of the period, is near Plaquemine, Louisiana, in West Baton Rouge Parish. The site had two mounds approximately 400 feet apart with a plaza in between. One was a flat-topped pyramid 125 feet on a side 13 feet high with a small domed mound three feet high and 25 feet in diameter on top. The other one was two feet high and 100 feet in diameter. Eighteen thousand pieces of broken pottery were found at Medora, along with a few stone tools.

Plaquemine Indians often built the mounds on top of the ruins of a house or temple, and constructed similar buildings on top of the mound. In earlier times, buildings were usually circular, but later they were likely to be rectangular. They were constructed with wattle and daub, and sometimes with wall posts sunk into foot-deep wall trenches.

At times, the Indians dug shallow, oval or rectangular graves in the mounds. These might be for primary burials of individuals, but more frequently they were for the reburial of remains originally interred elsewhere. Some graves contained only skulls, and one of these had 66 skulls. Burial offerings included pottery, pipes, stone points, and axes made of ground stone.

One type of pottery occasionally placed in the graves is called “killed” pottery. This type has a hole in the base of the vessel that was cut while the pot was being made, usually before it was fired. The Plaquemine Indians also decorated their pots in other characteristic ways. They sometimes added small solid handles called lugs, and textured the surface by brushing clumps of grass over the vessel before it was fired. They often cut designs into the surface of the wet clay, and like their Caddo contemporaries, the Plaquemine Indians engraved designs on pots after they were fired. Plaquemine Indians also had undecorated pots which they used for ordinary daily tasks.

(? actual size)

Not surprisingly, the ordinary people lived much as the average Caddo Indians. They participated in festivals and ceremonies at the mound centers, but spent most of their time with families and neighbors collecting and producing food, or participating in village activities.

During the early part of the period some hunters still used atlatls, but soon bows and arrows predominated. The Indians hunted deer, bear, rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, turkey and duck; fished for gar and drum; and collected mussels. Although the Plaquemine Indians tended gardens of corn, squash, pumpkins and beans, they still collected many wild seeds, roots, nuts and fruits.

At approximately the same time as Caddo and Plaquemine Indians were living in Louisiana, Mississippian Culture people in the St. Louis area had developed the largest prehistoric center in the United States. This was a ceremonial, residential, and trading center with a population of 35,000-40,000 people. The Mississippian Culture spread throughout the southeastern United States, and was characterized by huge earthen temple mounds, widespread trading networks, and a ceremonial complex represented by elaborately shaped pottery and stone, bone, shell and copper objects.

Plaquemine: a. Clay Pipe; b, Stone Gaming Piece; c, Stone Celt; d-g, Stone Points; h-j, Clay Ornaments (½ actual size)

Mississippian: a, Vessel Rim Sherd; b, Effigy Vessel (? actual size)

As far as we know, no major Mississippian centers developed in Louisiana, although ones were established in Georgia at Etowah and in Alabama at Moundville. There is evidence that sometime between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1600 small groups of people from the eastern Mississippian centers made their way to Louisiana. They came to the Avery Island area to collect and refine salt, and to other parts of the state to search for other materials. Perhaps through repeated contacts, a few groups of Louisiana Indians learned classic Mississippian techniques of making pottery and other ceremonial objects. Some Indians in the southeastern and northeastern parts of Louisiana may even have established close ties with their eastern neighbors and added Mississippian customs to the Plaquemine Culture. Louisiana groups that may have descended from those Mississippian groups are those who speak the Tunican, Chitimachan, and Muskogean languages. Those who probably descended from Plaquemine Culture Indians are the Taensa and Natchez.

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