Spiro Mounds

Spiro Mounds is a state archaeological site run by the Oklahoma Historical Society and open to the public. It is located in Eastern Oklahoma, near the modern town of Spiro. It is one of the most important pre-Columbian sites in the United States.

Mounds

Spiro is the largest Caddoan Mississipian site, and the western-most known outpost of the over-arching Mississippian culture that spread along the lower Mississippi drainage area and its tributaries. Like other Mississippian sites, it is composed of a number of large ceremonial mounds. The site was inhabited between about 850 and 1450 AD. It was the residence of powerful leaders who directed the building of twelve platform mounds and burial mounds over a convert|150|acre|km2|sing=on area. The heart of Spiro is an oval plaza area formed by a grouping of nine mounds. Here the inhabitants carried out complex rituals, focused especially on the deaths and burials of great leaders. Craig Mound, one of the largest at Spiro and the only burial mound, was looted by artifact hunters in the 1930s. A small part of the mound had a cavity which allowed for almost perfect preservation of fragile artifacts like lace, fabrics, copper and conch shell. It appears to have begun as a burial chamber for an ancient ruler that was covered over with earth but never collapsed. Some of the artifacts looted at the time have been recovered.

=Importance in the development of the S.E.C.C.=

Spiro was instrumental in the formulation of what archaeologists call the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. When the Craig Mound was entered in the 1930s, many hundreds of elaborately engraved shell fragments were found, as well as stone effigy pipes, repousse copper plates and mortuary pottery. In the 1940's (along with artifacts from Cahokia, Etowah, Moundville,Ocmulgee, and various other sites) the S.E.C.C. was formulated by Antonio Waring and Preston Holder as a series of four lists of traits which they categorized as the "Southeastern (centered) Ceremonial Complex". [ cite book | editor= Williams, S.|author =Waring, A.J. Jr.| title=The Waring Papers: The Collected Work of Antonio J. Waring | article = The Southeastern Cult and Muskogean Ceremonial | publisher = Harvard University| date = 1968 | pages = pp. 30-69 ] Since then scholars have expanded the original definition while still using its trait lists. Since the late 1980's scholars have proposed a more archaeologically centered definition for defining the Mississippian artistic tradition. They propose the classification of the complex into five horizons, with each as a discrete tradition defined by the origin of specific motifs and ritual objects and the specific developments in long-distance exchange and political structures. [ cite book | editor= Galloway, Patricia|author =Muller, Jon| title=Southern Ceremonial Complex, Artifacts and Analysis:The Cottonlandia Complex| article = The Southern Cult | publisher = University of Nebraska Press| date = 1989 | pages = pp. 11-26] The S.E.C.C. was a vast Mississippian trading network that brought colored flint from New Mexico, copper from the Great Lakes, mica from the Carolinas, and whelk shells from the Gulf Coast to Spiro. [cite web | url = http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologicals4/a/spiro.htm|title=Spiro Mounds-A Ceremonial Center of the Southern Cult| access date-09-08-13] . Alone among Mississippian sites, obsidian from Mexico was found at the Spiro site. [ cite book | last = Pauketat | first = Timothy | title = Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians| publisher = Cambridge University Press | date = 2004 | isbn - 0-521-52066-5] . These exotic materials were engraved with intricate designs of humans, animals, and geometric designs. The designs on whelk shells at Spiro are particularly well rendered and undoubtedly had profound symbolic significance. The shells were made into drinking vessels. One of the whelk shell cups found in the Craig mound had a black ring in the bottom, possibly indicating a participation in the "Black drink Ceremony" of the Gulf Coast. [ cite book | author = Hudson, Charles M. | title =Black Drink| publisher = University of Georgia Press|date =1979 | pages = pp 83 - 112] There are four different distinct styles found on the Spiro artifacts. The "Braden Style" is found on objects brought from the faraway Cahokia site, while the "Craig A, B, and C styles" are local derivates of the "Braden Style". [ cite book | editors = F. Kent Reilly and James Garber | title = Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms | publisher = University of Texas Press | date = 2004 | isbn - 978-0-292-71347-5] [ cite book | last = Townsend | first = Richard F. | title = Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand| publisher = Yale University Press | date = 2004 | isbn - 0-300-10601-7] Spiro's ceremonial objects are among the finest examples of pre-Columbian art in North America.

Caddoans

[
thumb|right|Image_of_a_raccoon from a shell drawing found at Spiro Mounds]

The Spiro people appear to have been speakers of one of the many Caddoan languages.

Listings associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

*Mississippian culture
*Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
*List of known Mississippian Chiefdoms

References

Further reading

*Brown, James Allison & Alice Brues. "The Spiro Ceremonial Center: The Archaeology of Arkansas Valley Caddoan Culture in Eastern Oklahoma", Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1996.
*Hamilton, Henry, Jean Tyree Hamilton, & Eleanor Chapman. "Spiro Mound Copper", Columbia, MO: Missouri Archaeological Society, 1974.
*Merriam, Larry & Christopher Meriam. "The Spiro Mound, A Photo Essay: Photographs from the Collection of Dr. Robert E. Bell", Oklahoma City: Merriam Station Books, 2004.
*Phillips, Philip & James Allison Brown. "Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma", Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press, 1984.

Websites

* [http://www.spiro.lib.ok.us/mounds.htm Spiro Mounds Archaeological Park]
* [http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/spiro.html Spiro and the Arkansas Basin]
* [http://www.oldstatehouse.com/samdellinger/arkansas-antiquities/spiro-mound.asp Spiro Mound]
* [http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/leflore.htm Oklahoma Archeological Survey] , Oklahoma University
* [http://www.mississippian-artifacts.com/html/spiro.html Spiro Artifacts]
* [http://members.aol.com/spiromound/goods.htm Photo Essay]
* [http://www.riverweb.uiuc.edu/prehistory/archives/images/art/pages/ptartrsnakex.html Spiro Conch Shell Design]
* [http://www.mississippian-artifacts.com/ Mississippian Art and Artifacts]