A Visit to Caddo Mounds...

 I've spent an afternoon or two with a case of old cheap beer iced down in the back of a pickup truck while I drove up and down Texas highway 21 reading the historical markers. There's a bunch of them. I was glad when singer song writer Adam Carroll finally documented that engaging in such behavior, among other behaviors was common in his 1998 song "South of Town". I don't drink old cheap beer anymore or expensive beer for that matter but this past weekend I was out on 21 for a visit to Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.

It seems like it was a long time ago when I began driving up and down Highway 21 but mound builder culture seems to date to 5000 years ago in North America. It was about 1300 years ago when the Caddo people settled in the Neches River Valley. For reference it was about the same time the Chinese invented gunpowder, Charlemagne ruled the Franks and there was a good bit of war involving Christians, Muslims and anybody else who found themselves to be located between India and Spain. 

The high point of the Caddo civilization was 1100 A.D. They were farming, hunting, making pots, baskets and constructing mounds which were used for temples, ceremonies and burials. The mounds are still there today. Here's the photos I made. 

This is the burial mound. Just like a big monument in the local, modern cemetery you can bet there are important folks under there.  

    

The temple and ceremonial mounds. One of these is actually on the other side of 21.

Had to see the drop off in elevation from this photo but this is the barrow pit where the dirt for the mounds came from. That's a lot of toting and fetching using woven baskets to carry the dirt and clay. 

 About 1300 the Caddo abandoned this site. No one knows why and there is evidence it was premeditated. In 1542 members of the De Soto expedition encountered Caddos living along the Red River. In 1659 another Spanish expedition described "...a populous nation of people and so extensive that those who give detailed reports of them do not know where it ends..." In 1687 a member of the La Salle expedition to Texas spend four months with the Caddo leaving a journal account of life among them. By 1859, after what was described on a museum placard as "tension and conflict" but in reality was probably much more painful than that the Caddo were packed off to Oklahoma by the U.S. government where they remain today. 

Also to be seen on the site is a piece of the old El Camino Real or The Kings Highway. It began as a series of trails used by indigenous people and developed into a well traveled and marked road from Mexico City to Natchitoches, Louisiana. 

I have noticed that a one lane forest track in the wilderness area where I often hunt or hike disappears into the forest with only the faintest traces left after about 30 years. Apparently there was quite some heavy use of this old highway and I believe you could still it follow for a piece today.

Cathy leads the grandkids along a path previously used by Caddos, Spaniards and Frenchmen for a little taste of the old days and old ways and not a can of old cheap beer in sight.