Watson Break Mound Builders

A Vantage Point From  Which to Begin to View North American Pre-History

                I am using the Watson Break archaeological site as a beginning point to look at the prehistory of North America and at the people of that time. There is a lot to learn from what we learn about the pre-Columbian people of North America. This essay is a very brief  introduction to that which we are learning of these people.

History Can Provide Some Useful View Points

                With a bit of research we have learned from post-Columbian persons such as Hernando de Soto and his 1540 to 1542 travers of what is now the U.S. southeast and from other early Spanish visitors and colonists. They saw earthworks, many of which have been called mounds. We have also learn from the later French voyageurs and from men like the French artist wo saw Indian activity with an artistic eye, with perhaps, a view to later sales. A caption on a 1590 of his in what is now northeast Florida read, "Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it." His painting may have been exact, but his caption is likely to have been written with more humor than understanding. He saw mounds as did voyageurs and as did Spanish explorers, colonists and others.

                    The early Spanish and French who traveled up and down the Mississippi river and its large tributaries like the Missouri and Ohio rivers, one hundred and 200 years before the English, were privileged to see many mounds and other earth works still in use and cared for.

                    After about 1670 priests and others traveling the rivers were finding that most of the mounds were were becoming grown over with grass and some brush. However, some sites, like those at what was to become the present site of the U.S. city of saint Louis were still able to impress them. A very few, like those at Natchez were still occupied. So occupied that French colonists found it necessary to remove Indians by force.

                    Other information on Mound Builders may be gathered from writings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Haven, and John Wesley Powell. 

                    Archaeology has become an Important source of Information. Today archaeological sites, interpretation, and speculation is hot.

                    These days there is a great deal of fresh new archaeological information available. There is also more ethnological information available. You can find more interesting historical, archaeological, and pre-historic information here on this blogsite.

Watson Break Site

                    Some of the newer archaeological information deals with the Watson Break site. This site is in present da Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. It dates from what has been called the North American Archaic Period. What is now Ouachita Parish has been home to many succeeding Native American groups in the thousands of years before Europeans began to settle there. People of the Marksville culture, Troyville culture, Coles Creek culture, and Plaquemine culture built villages and earthwork mounds throughout the area. A notable example is the Filhiol Mound site located on a "natural" levee of the Ouachita river.

                    The name Ouachita is the Spanish version of the Indian people who lived in northeastern Louisiana along the Ouachita river and were known in the Ouachita mountains of the State of  Arkansas.

                    Watson Break earthworks date to about 5,400 BP, which is about 3,500 BC. The site seems to have been abandoned around 2,800 BC.

A Little About the People of Watson Break 

                    The arrangement of mounds at WB was constructed over centuries by what is thought to be a hunter harvester society. It is located near Watson Bayou.

in the flood plain of the Ouachita river. By the way, bayous might be constructs of Native Americans. The Break site consists of of eleven mounds connected by ridges and causeways to form a large oval, nearly 900 feet across. Researchers believe that it is older than the Poverty Point site. Poverty point is worth writing about. We can write about Poverty Point when you comment.

                    Watson Break people seems to have planned and organized work forces to accomplish their earthworks.

                    You can find more about  Native Americas on this blog and hope to publish more from time to time. You can tell me about content you would like to see here in "comments." I really like it when you offer help and suggestions. Have in mind that when you have corrections, additions, questions, or feel like making a comment, there is a ''comments'' app just below.

                    Thank you for reading!

                                                                                                rcs