Dating Gahagan and Its Implications for Understanding Cahokia-Caddo Interactions

Abstract

The Gahagan site (16RR1) in northwestern Louisiana is an Early Caddo mound center justly famed for the rich prehistoric tombs excavated there by early archaeologists. The recovered objects included two examples of twelfth-century Cahokia-style figure pipes crafted from CBP Missouri flint clay. These two specimens represent a rare example of the in situ recovery of Cahokia figures in the Trans-Mississippi South. In an effort to more precisely determine when the flint clay figures were interred, three AMS samples were run on associated wood and leather objects. The weighted mean of these dates yielded a two-sigma range of cal A.D. 1021 to 7260. This is the first evidence demonstrating that Cahokia-style flint clay effigies were moving into the Caddo area during Cahokia's early Stirling phase (A.D. 1100-1150). This analysis adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting early interaction between the Cahokia and Caddo centers. The Gahagan Mound and village complex (16RR1) excavation by Clarence B. Moore (1912) represented some of the initial archaeological investigations in what would eventually be known as the heartland of the Caddo culture (sensu Harrington 1920 or Perttula 1996), that is, in the Great Bend region of the Red River of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Moore's unearthing of a large assemblage of unusual burial accouterments from a burial chamber in Mound A must have served to encourage Clarence Webb's (Webb and Dodd 1939) excavations at Gahagan several decades later. Reopening Mound A, Webb's efforts revealed two additional burial chambers containing a large assortment of finely crafted ceramic vessels, lithic artifacts, copper, and other ornaments. At the time of its discovery, the exotic nature of the material remains so struck Webb and Dodd (1939:121) that they postulated those buried there had ancestral ties to the St. Johns River groups of Florida. Some sixty years later we have a firmer grasp of the cultural context of the Gahagan assemblage, but there are still questions to be answered regarding its chronological placement and ultimate (e.g., Jeter and Williams 1989:198-200; Neuman 1984:215ff). Located 40 miles south of Shreveport, Louisiana, Gahagan is one of several Caddo ceremonial centers spread along the Red River (see Figure 1). Other centers include Mounds Plantation (16CD12) just north of Shreveport in Caddo Parish (Webb and McKinney 1975) and Crenshaw (3MI6) in Miller County, Arkansas, near Texarkana (Schambach 1982). Based on similarities in artifacts and burial patterns, Gahagan Mound A, Mounds Plantation Mound 5, and Crenshaw represent expressions of the earliest Caddo centers on the Red River and are contemporaneous with Mound C at George C. Davis in Texas (Story 1997, 2000). The evidence from these early mound centers is critical to research aimed at elucidating the origins and chronology of Caddo emergence. The southernmost of these early Red River Caddo centers, Gahagan, is the focus of our discussion in this article. Among the recovered objects from Gahagan are two examples of twelfth-century Cahokia-style figure pipes crafted from CBP1 Missouri flint clay. These two specimens represent a rare example of the in situ recovery of Cahokia figures in the Trans-Mississippi South (Emerson et al. 2003). Their presence at Gahagan poses questions regarding the role of Cahokia in the early development of the Caddo cultural tradition. Unfortunately, the Gahagan site itself can provide few additional answers to such questions, having been almost totally destroyed by cultivation and erosion by the Red River. The evidence available on the chronological and cultural position of Gahagan today rests solely on the curated records and collections made by early archaeologists. The Early Caddo Period In northwestern Louisiana, the period between approximately A.D. 900 and A.D. 1100 was one of considerable changes in ceramic assemblages, site locations, and mortuary traits. …