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ABSTRACT
A Caddoan presence in the extreme southwest portion of Missouri was firmly established after investigations were conducted in the upper White River valley in the late 1950s. Later, James Brown exposed the myth that the southwestern Ozarks was a cultural enclave that lagged behind Mississippian developments in other parts of the Trans-Mississippi South. Recent discoveries and reanalysis of artifacts from sites located across much of southwest Missouri suggest that a substantial presence and influence of Caddoan peoples extended far beyond the upper White River valley. This area, referred to here as the Northern Frontier, extends from the lower James River valley on the south to the Osage River on the north. Multiple lines of evidence are presented that suggest this portion of the western Ozarks was within the Caddoan orbit and sphere of influence.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Larry Brown for donating many interesting artifacts to Missouri State University, including the two ear spools from the Earorn site, which sparked my interest in writing this paper. I also thank Lisa Burton and Dustin Thompson for preparing five figures in this manuscript. Doug Porter, W. Raymond Wood, and R. Bruce McMillan provided three photographs. The Missouri Archaeological Society approved the use of two figures of the Montgomery pipe. Finally, I thank Neal Lopinot, George Sabo, Bruce McMillan, Tim Perttula, and Ray Wood who provided valuable comments on a draft of this paper. However, the contents of this paper are the sole responsibility of the author.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Data availability statement
Data are available at the Center for Archaeological Research, Missouri State University. With one exception, artifacts are curated at either Missouri State University or the University of Missouri. The exception is an artifact in a private collection.
Notes on contributor
Jack Ray received a B.A. degree in anthropology from Western Kentucky University and a M.A. degree in anthropology from the University of Missouri. He joined the Center for Archaeological Research at Missouri State University in 1982 and has conducted research and supervised more than 150 large- and small- scale CRM projects in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa. His research interests include early prehistoric cultures, geoarchaeology, geomorphology, and lithic technology, but his area of specialization is the identification and analysis of chipped-stone resources located throughout the Ozarks and adjacent regions.