The A.W. Davis Site
Pot of the style found at
the A.W. Davis Site
Ancestors of the modern-day Caddo
Nation lived in southeastern Oklahoma probably for several thousand
years. The Caddo settled in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma
and Texas and developed a complex culture based on the cultivation
of corn and other crops.
Caddoan groups in Oklahoma lived along major streams
and tributaries in the oak-pine forests of southeastern Oklahoma.
In their gardens grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and tobacco.
They exploited local game animals like deer and turkey and they
may have organized seasonal hunting parties to the western prairies
in search of bison. The people traced their ancestry through their
mother's family. They traded pottery and other materials with groups
through the area.
The A.W. Davis site, on the west bank of the Glover
River, dates to the period just shortly before the arrival of Europeans
in the Americas. Excavations at the site in 1955 uncovered a circular
house pattern about 18' in diameter. Circular houses developed rather
late in time among the Caddo. Earlier houses were oval or rectangular
with rounded corners. These houses were grass-covered and usually
had a fire pit within although no such pit was found in the A.W.
Davis house.
Artifacts recovered during the excavation at the site
included dart and arrow points, elaborately-decorated pottery, stone
hoes and ground stone earspools (read more and see photos of these
artifact types in the Oklahoma
Artifacts web book).
A rectangular mound, 40' X 80' and 12' high, is within
100 yards of the A.W. Davis site, but it is unclear at this time
if the mound is directly related to the village occupation. Mounds
built by the Caddoan people of the area were often used as bases
for civic/religious structures.
For further information about the A.W. Davis site:
"The A.W. Davis Site, Mc-6, of McCurtain County,
Oklahoma," Bulletin of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society,
X, 1962.
For further information about the Caddo on the web:
Tejas:
Life and Times of the Caddo
Number of Prehistoric Sites in McCurtain
County Identified to Time Period
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