The Artistic Legacy of SPIRO MOUNDS By America Meredith Craig Mound with yaupon holly and poke growing at Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma. Photo: America Meredith (Cherokee Nation). N EASTERN OKLAHOMA near the Classified as Caddoan Mississippian, archaeologist Timothy Perttula.2 At least Arkansas border sits Spiro Mounds, an Spiro is part of the Mississippian 72 mound sites have been identified in there preserved perishable items such as The nearby Norman site was an region while trade along the Arkansas extraordinary Mississippian mound Ideological Interaction Sphere, a wide- the Arkansas River basin alone.3 The same wood, basketry, and textiles that quickly important ceremonial center with six River basin increased connections to the Icomplex abandoned by 1450. House spread network of Eastern Woodland culture that built Spiro first built mounds degenerated elsewhere in the humid mounds 8 during the Norman Phase Plains and Southwest.11 mounds and two platform mounds ring cultures centered on the Mississippi River at the Harlan site in Cherokee County, southeast. Perhaps as much as 95 percent (1250–1350). Around 1250, when most In the early 15th century, the its central plaza; to the west stand the that flourished between 800 and 1500. Oklahoma, then the Norman site in of precontact material culture was of Spiro’s residents moved to nearby people of Spiro buried an unprecedented, two Ward Mounds and Craig Mound. Maps often give the false impression that Wagoner County. After establishing Spiro, perishable. Spiro artifacts provide one of villages, Spiro functioned as a ceremonial unparalleled concentration of sumptuous The Caddo name for this site is Ditteh Spiro was an isolated community. In they built the nearby Skidgel Mound. the few windows into this world. center and cemetery.9 ceremonial and prestige goods in the and was built by the Keeohnawah’wah, or reality, Spiro was part of a regional cluster While many mistake the Major changes happened during largest cone of Craig Mound, a unique “Old People.”1 The 1930s looting of Spiro of mound sites, villages, and camps in Mississippian Ideological Interaction Context & History the Spiro Phase (1350–1450). “Spiro structure of four conjoined conical is considered one of the greatest travesties eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas Sphere for a single culture, it is a shared continued as a spiritual center long mounds. The cone was capped, and Spiro in American archaeology. The mound that traded east and west. set of conventions and a network of many WHEN SPIRO WAS FIRST SETTLED after the collapse of Cahokia, which Mounds was abandoned. complex produced one of the largest “From AD 850 to 1250, Spiro was cultures from diverse language families during the Evans Phase (900–1050), was believed to have been around 1275 In Fort Coffee Phase (1450–1650), Toltec Mounds in central Arkansas was assemblages of precontact artifacts of any one of at least twelve ceremonial centers across a broad geographic expanse. to 1350,” says Peterson. Cahokia, today Spiro Mounds remained largely unoccu- a prominent spiritual center, and early site in the country, most notably fragile, in the region, with it and the Harlan site Mississippian cultures generally share in Collinsville, Illinois, was the largest pied. Anthropologist Charles M. Hudson Spiro pottery resembles that found at perishable fabrics and basketry. Today, being preeminent among independent maize horticulture, shell-tempered pottery, precontact city north of the Rio Grande. believed that Hernando de Soto’s 1540–42 Toltec Mounds and at Caddo sites along Spiro’s future is uncertain. Arkansas River communities,” writes social stratification, and monumental Archaeologists debate Cahokia’s impact, expedition camped near Spiro. In 1700, the Red River. “But then Spiro took off earthworks in the Eastern Woodlands. but some consider it to be the origin of the Mentos, a band of Wichita, lived at the on its own, particularly after Toltec fell “Now we understand better than many Mississippian traits. Peterson is convergence of the Arkansas, Neosho, and into disuse after about AD 1050,” explains 12 we did 20 or 30 years ago that the skeptical and explains, “Cahokia was the Verdigris Rivers, and the Osage settled Sabo. “It became a very important 13 major Mississippian period centers had big city, but for the Mississippian peoples, the region in the late 18th century. ceremonial center of its own renown.” it’s really about these regional powers.” From 1831 to 1833, Choctaw very distinctive cultural expressions,” In the Harlan Phase (1050–1250),6 When Cahokia collapsed, its residents, people were forcibly relocated to the says George Sabo III, director of the the nearby Harlan mound group which may include ancestors of Dhegiha southeastern corner of Indian Territory. Arkansas Archaeological Survey, reached its zenith, while Spiro had its Siouan tribes, migrated westward.10 Today, Spiro falls within the Choctaw chairman of the Caddo Heritage largest residential population, residing “Early on in the history of Spiro, Nation of Oklahoma tribal jurisdictional Museum board, and a professor at the in rectangular, wattle-and-daub houses we can trace a lot of interactions and area. The Choctaw didn’t settle the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.4 with thatched roofs. Men fished and relationships with places like Cahokia. site—then an impenetrable canebrake. Spiro Mounds stands out from hunted deer, bison, raccoons, geese, wild But after about 1400,” says Sabo, the Anthropologist Frederic Clements wrote other Mississippian centers. Dennis turkeys, and various small game. Women archaeological evidence “in the Spiro area that the Choctaw and the freedmen were Peterson, archaeologist and site manager harvested water lily rhizomes, hickory indicates much stronger ties developing “familiar with ancient burial mounds in of the Spiro Mounds Archaeological nuts, acorns, hazelnuts, persimmon, with Southern Plains tribes to the west.” their Mississippi and Alabama homeland Center, points out that “Spiro had a pawpaw, and Jerusalem artichoke, and Circular houses replaced the rectangular and so recognized the true nature of these smaller population, which didn’t necessi- 14 When the federal 5 farmed maygrass, little barley, beans, houses. The main east-west trade routes earth structures.” tate the primary use of maize.” Peterson squash, and maize.7 shifted south to the Red River valley government divided Choctaw lands into also points out that Spiro didn’t need defense structures because they were 6. A. T. Mayes, “Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma: Dental Evidence for Subsistence Strategies,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 26, no. 5 (August 14, 2015): 751. surrounded by cousins. 7. James A. Brown, The Spiro Ceremonial Center: The Archaeology of Arkansas Valley Caddoan Culture in Eastern Oklahoma, Volume 1 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum, 1996), 29–30. Unknown Middle Mississippian Artist, Cup, ca. 1200–1400, incised whelked shell, Craig Mound, Spiro Not only does Spiro have an 8. Vogel, “Viewshed Characteristics of Caddo Mounds in the Arkansas Basin,” 146. Mounds, 13 1/3 × 7 in. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 18/9121. astonishing array of artwork, conditions 9. Brown, The Spiro Ceremonial Center, 197. 10. Robert L. Hall, “The Cahokia Site and Its People,” in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, Richard F. Townsend and 1. Vynola Beaver Newkumet and Howard L. Meredith, Hasinai: A Traditional History of the Caddo Confederacy (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2009), 36. Robert V. Sharp, ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 101–102. 2. Timothy K. Perttula, “Spiro Mounds,” in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Volume 1, Neil Asher Silberman, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 211. 11. Brown, The Spiro Ceremonial Center, 31–32. 3. Gregory Vogel, “Viewshed Characteristics of Caddo Mounds in the Arkansas Basin,” in Archaeology of the Caddo, Timothy K. Perttula and Chester P. Walker, ed. 12. Mildred Mott Wedel, “The Deer Creek Site, Oklahoma: A Wichita Village Sometimes Called Ferdinandina, An Ethnohistorian’s View,” Oklahoma Historical Society (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), 142. Series in Anthropology 5 (1981): 21. 4. All quotes by George Sabo III from discussion with the author, March 27, 2017. 13. Brown, The Spiro Ceremonial Center, 27. 5. All quotes by Dennis Peterson from discussion with the author, March 15, 2017. 14. Forrest E. Clement, “Historical Sketch of the Spiro Mound,” Contributions to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation 14 1945), 51. 18 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM SUMMER 2017 | 19 where he saw a vitrine “that was of exceptionally high in lime, and copper nothing but Spiro, which was cool for salts further preserved wood, cane, and somebody from Oklahoma.” One display textiles that would normally decompose briefly lit up to reveal a fragment of rapidly in the humid environment. bobbin lace openwork. “But to see not Inwardly leaning cedar poles, shaped like only fabrics that are a thousand years old a tipi, created an air pocket, which saved here in the US, but incredibly complex, fragile items from the crush of tons of tatted lace, this is incredible. It blew my earth. mind …” He was hooked. How Spiro came to possess such a Archaeological research at Spiro wealth of exotic items is debated. How Mounds has grown less invasive and much was traded and how much was destructive. Sabo says, “We’ve been using religious offerings?