[Why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

We are continuing to pursue the first people in our area from pre-historic time. Pre-history simply means before a written history. Nevertheless, archaeologists have developed a significant record from artifacts.

We have the early great civilization of the world, Mississippi River Basin, setting up along the Ouachita Tributary. This is a massive structure with a non-governmental hierarchy. Over centuries, a large part migrated from the tributary closer to the main river, at Poverty Point. As the society grew and spread, they settled along the Arkansas River at Spiro, which apparently became the capitol of the Mississippi culture at the time.

Spiro is so significant to prehistory and has so many artifacts that it will get a separate article. First is the discussion of how advanced was the architecture, the technology, and the artistry of the earliest people.

The Watson Brake of the Ouachita River tributary of the Mississippi Basin is the oldest and best-preserved mound complex in North America, occupied 3500 ñ 2800 BCE, during the Middle Archaic Period. Initial occupation, before mound construction, was circa 4000 BCE. The mounds are older than the Egyptian Pyramids and Englandís Stonehenge. Think about that and all you know of history from that era.

The site has eleven earthen mounds connected by ridges. The enclosure measures 984 x 656 feet. Why is earthen significant when other world-wide mounds are stone? No large stone exists in the Delta area. The largest mound is 25 feet tall with a diameter of 230 feet. The mounds closer to the river were built in stages, over hundreds of years. Those further back were a single architectural event.

Why would they locate here? The proximity to the river, forest, and grasslands provided ample food for the fisher-hunter-gatherers. The society occupied the mounds during all seasons, as evidenced by fish ear residue, but not necessarily year around.

Consider the 56 different types of plants and animal food remains recovered. Louisiana calls themselves the Sportsmanís Paradise for a reason. Residue of upland game included turkey, fox squirrel, cottontail, pocket gopher, ruffed grouse, and white-tail deer. Bottomland and river diet encompassed fish, mussels, and aquatic snails. Lowland food added beaver, raccoon, muskrat, and otter. Waterfowl was mostly ducks and geese. The location is on the southern end of the waterfowl Mississippi flyway. The balanced diet added goosefoot, marsh elder, fruits, and nuts. The people ate well. With that diversity of available foods, farming and ranching would hold zero interest.

The culture was active before pottery developed in the next millennia. Like the Middle East, these people used local gravel to maintain heat. The fractured residue is found only outside, along the ridges, indicating cooking was done out of doors.

Tools included the unique designed Evans point spearhead with remains of antler shapers.

Decorative beads were made from local chert. The beads started with gravel chipped to working size. Then the artisans made the template smooth by sand and water. Next microdrills made from harder rock drove a hole through the bead. The number of drills, 154 finished and 93 unfinished, show the process was production line “big-business.”

Interestingly, the layout of the location, compared to other contemporaneous mounds, shows there was a plan from the beginning. The layout, the structures, and construction suggest a measurement system and geometry skills. Arrangement of the sites indicate an understanding of stars and seasons. Would these skills be beneficial to navigation, whether across land, rivers, or oceans?

The architecture illustrates technical and communications skills past what our technology society tends to presume.

The indication of ritual sites, leads to a religious understanding. No burial sites or graves are located. Why? Although the evidence is elusive here, three traditional ceremonies eliminate graves. Euro-Asian cultures of a slightly later time invoked a funeral pyre to return the remains to ashes. That effectively eliminated any disease. Other cultures would float the corpse down the river to its final dunking. What may be uniquely Native American was the Final Walk, where an individual who was in his last stage would go into the forest to pass privately on his own.

Where did the Watson Brake people go and why? After living in the area for 1200 years, the mounds dwellers left the neighborhood. Even today we see large communities disappear within a generation. Drive along Old Route 66. How many thriving towns just vaporized leaving little more than the ruins of old service stations and tourist courts from 80-years ago. Those will be gone in another generation.

Numerous contemporaneous mounds operated. But that culture vanished. We can speculate that weather, flooding, or reduction in game may have prompted relocations, just like changing jobs does now. They may have moved upriver for a while and those relics are unidentified, yet. As an illustration, one of the most famous ancient cultures dating over 1,000 years after Watson Brake was at Tall (mound) el Hammam (Sodom). That mound is just now being identified and excavated.

Can you imagine? All the people who exist live in your community. Evidence shows there was no government to coerce. There were no taxes. There was no money, but there was a society. There were specialists, as evidenced by the bead manufacturing. So, they had a trading system.

What you wanted to eat was outside the door. Nature was still harsh. In that warm, riverine region, snakes were prolific, bear and panthers were abundant. Thunderstorms and hurricanes were frequent events.

Think about: Over 5500 years ago, the first Native American society developed community. They were intelligent with skills in architecture, measurements, geometry, stars, navigation, craftsmanship, artistry, and culinary arts. Evidence is all people have a religious awareness of some sort. Other than technology, were they really that different?

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Excerpts from our books:

Where Indians, Outlaws & Oilmen Were Real, ISBN: 9781658834643.