The Mystery of the Caddo Mounds in Coppell, Texas In May 2015, the Coppell Historical Society invited regional archeologists Jeff Durst and Becky Shelton from the Texas Historical Commission to participate in their research and investigations of the Mounds” as described through family histories passed down from “Caddo early settlers in the Grapevine and Coppell area. Members of the Coppell Historical Society had conducted extensive archival and map research which provided a good background from the local literature and these resources were integrated into this study. Who are the Caddo? In order to provide a historical context, a brief overview of archival and archeological research is summarized below. The Caddo Nation was formed through alliances of tribes that shared customs and had similar languages. Their ancestral home is the territory that encompasses East Texas, northwestern Louisiana, western Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma (Figure 1). Their origins are steeped in this region, and their modern day tribal headquarters are in Binger, Oklahoma. Historically, the name (which is derived from the French abbreviation “Caddo” a word meaning chief”) was not utilized or significant until the people were Kadohadacho, “real moved to Indian Territory in the late 1800s. Prior to then, the Caddo was one of at least 25 distinct social entities known in the ethnographic record (Perttula 1992:6). For thousands of years, Native American tribes in the south and southeast were relatively mobile groups, hunting game and gathering wild foods. But around 1,200 years ago (800 AD) the prehistoric Caddo had settled in and horticulturalists, traders, [who] lived in hamlets “were
The Mystery of the Caddo Mounds in Coppell, Texas In May 2015, the Coppell Historical Society invited regional archeologists Jeff Durst and Becky Shelton from the Texas Historical Commission to participate in their research and investigations of the “Caddo Mounds” as described through family histories passed down from early settlers in the Grapevine and Coppell area. Members of the Coppell Historical Society had conducted extensive archival and map research which provided a good background from the local literature and these resources were integrated into this study. Who are the Caddo? In order to provide a historical context, a brief overview of archival and archeological research is summarized below. The Caddo Nation was formed through alliances of tribes that shared customs and had similar languages. Their ancestral home is the territory that encompasses East Texas, northwestern Louisiana, western Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma (Figure 1). Their origins are steeped in this region, and their modern day tribal headquarters are in Binger, Oklahoma. Historically, the name “Caddo” (which is derived from the French abbreviation Kadohadacho, a word meaning “real chief”) was not utilized or significant until the people were moved to Indian Territory in the late 1800s. Prior to then, the Caddo was one of at least 25 distinct social entities known in the ethnographic record (Perttula 1992:6). For thousands of years, Native American tribes in the south and southeast were relatively mobile groups, hunting game and gathering wild foods. But around 1,200 years ago (800 AD) the prehistoric Caddo had settled in and “were horticulturalists, traders, [who] lived in hamlets
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