Exploring Settlement Patterning at a Premier Caddo Mound Site in the Red River Great Bend Region

Abstract

Archaeogeophysical methods are increasingly being utilized as a non-invasive, preservation-oriented, and economically feasible way to pursue the large-scale exploration of settlement patterning at mound sites throughout the Caddo archaeological area. Using these methods, a large-scale magnetic gradiometry survey at the Battle Mound site (3LA1), a premier Middle and Late Caddo mound site located in the Red River Great Bend region, produced an informative archaeogeophysical data set of numerous anomalies that can be attributed to both archaeological and geological sources. Findings include convincing evidence for burned rectangular and circular structures, a possible community cemetery, a farmstead with a compound fence, the extent of an historic occupation, and natural phenomena that include lighting strikes and palaeochannels of the Red River. The magnetic gradiometry survey not only has demonstrated the usefulness of archaeogeophysics as a primary data set in archaeological interpretation but also has provided a unique data set regarding the cultural and natural history at the Battle Mound site. It has recently become evident that a remote sensing revolution is underway in Caddo archaeology that is allowing new visualizations and analyses of die spatial structure and internal organization of villages and mound centers (Perttula et al. 2008). With this revolution, data collected throughout the Caddo homeland using ground-based remote sensing methods, or archaeogeophysics, are rapidly becoming part of a primary data set that is more routinely included in archaeological investigations (Walker and Perttula 2008). The research summarized in this article continues along this trajectory because it discusses the first consolidated subsurface view through archaeogeophysics of the intrasite spatial structure at the Battle Mound site (3LA1), a premier Middle and Late Caddo (ca. A.D. 1200-1680) mound site located in the Great Bend region of the Red River basin in Lafayette County, Arkansas. The site is considered a premier mound center most notably because of the large platform mound constructed and used there by Red River Caddo groups. The platform mound is the largest extant mound in the entire Caddo area and one of the largest in the southeastern United States (Perttula 1992:118; Schambach 1982:7). In 1948, investigations headed by Alex Krieger measured and recorded the mound at 672 ft (205 m) in length by 320 ft (98 m) in width, with a maximum height of 34 ft (10 m) (Krieger 1949:3). Additionally, the mound is composed of at least three platform levels and a large slope on the eastern side of the mound, a construction that is considered unique among Caddo mound sites. The archaeogeophysical survey at the Battle Mound site currently covers an area of 7.70 ha (18.48 acres) around the large mound (Figure 1). Data were collected during three long weekends that, taken together, totaled 10 days of field time. The results of these investigations have produced an informative archaeogeophysical data set of numerous anomalies attributed to both archaeological (prehistoric, historic, and recent cultural origin) and geological sources, not only demonstrating the usefulness of archaeogeophysical data as a primary data set in archaeological interpretation but also beginning the process of defining the cultural and natural history at the Battle Mound site. The Setting The Great Bend region of the Red River is ecologically diverse and has a rich cultural heritage. It is a region that has changed dramatically throughout time owing to various dynamic and destructive river processes (Guccione 1984, 2008). More recently, with the introduction of mechanized agriculture, it is a region scarred by the plow. With agriculturally productive alluvial soil deposits, combined with a diverse ecology and navigable waterways, the Great Bend region is host to numerous prehistoric and historic archaeological sites. Principal among them are the many sites left by the ancestors of the Caddo Indian peoples that lived in this area from at least as early as ca. …