Volume 13 , Issue 17

Spiro Mounds of Oklahoma

The Spiro Mounds are a prehistoric gateway, located 7 miles outside of Spiro, Oklahoma. It is the only prehistoric, Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public. It is located on a bend of the Arkansas River, and is the site of a natural gateway from which the Spiro people exerted their influence.

The prehistoric Spiro people created a sophisticated culture which influenced the entire southeast. It had an extensive trade network, a highly developed religious center, and a political system, which controlled the entire region.

The protected site includes 150 acres of land that encompass 12 mounds, the elite village area and part of the support city. Various groups of people camped on or near the Spiro area over the previous 8000 years. The location did not become a permanent settlement until A.D. 800 and was used until about A.D. 1450. This Mississippian period, Spiro leaders were developing political, religious and economic ties with people format he Gulf of California to the Gulf of Mexico and from the coast of Virginia to the Great Lakes.

The Spiros shared horticulture, elaborate ceremonies, mound building and an iconographic writing system with over 60 different tribes. The leaders of the Spiro Mounds thrived from A.D. 900 to 1300. The mound center declined and was eventually abandoned by A.D. 1450, but the city continued to be occupied for another 150 years.

The people of the Spiro Mounds were believed to have been Caddoan speakers, like the modern Wichita, Kichai, Caddo, Pawnee, and Arikara. From A.D. 1600 until 1832, the site remained unoccupied. Choctaw and Choctaw Freedman cleared the mound site for farming late in the 1800s. They did not allow any major disturbance of the site until the Great Depression.

The Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center is located 3 miles east of Spiro, Oklahoma, on Highway 271 and four miles north on Sprio Mounds Road. The Center is open Wednesday through SAturday from 9am until 5pm and Sunday from noon until 5pm throughout the year. The site is closed for state holidays.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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