Namely those villages........cities really...........

Precontact history[edit]

Main article: Caddoan Mississippian culture

Archaeology[edit]

Map of the Caddoan Mississippian culture and some important sites

The Caddo are thought to be an extension of Woodland period peoples, the Fourche Maline culture and Mossy Grove cultures who were living in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas between 200 BCE to 800 CE.^[7] The Wichita and Pawnee are related to the Caddo, as shown by their speaking Caddoan languages. By 800 CE this society had begun to coalesce into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. Some villages began to gain prominence as ritual centers, with elite residences and temple mound constructions. The mounds were arranged around open plazas, which were usually kept swept clean and were often used for ceremonial occasions. As complex religious and social ideas developed, some people and family lineages gained prominence over others.^[7] By 1000 CE a society that is defined as "Caddoan" had emerged. By 1200 the many villages, hamlets, and farmsteads established throughout the Caddo world had begun extensive maize agriculture.^[7] Their artistic skills and earthwork mound-building flourished during the 12th and 13th centuries.^[8] Spiro mounds, some of the most elaborate in the United States, were made by ancestors of the Caddo and Wichita.^[9] The Caddo were farmers and enjoyed good growing conditions most of the time. However, the Piney Woods, the geographic area where they lived, was affected by the Great Drought, from 1276–1299 CE.^[10]

Archeological evidence that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present, and that the direct ancestors of the Caddo and related Caddo language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact and the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is unquestioned today.^[11]