10 Summary, Comparisons, and Conclusions

Extract

The excavated portion of the Belcher Mound site seems to represent the ceremonial and possibly civil center of a small agricultural community located in the overflow valley of Red River. The village was scattered along the east bank of a stream which presently is inactive but apparently during the life of the site was the main course of Red River, building up its natural levee during the time when the mounds were being constructed. The prehistoric and protohistoric Caddoan inhabitants of the village were primarily farmers, but they were also hunters, fishermen, and gatherers of native foods. Although a riverine people, they left considerable evidence of extensive overland trade and contact.

The mounds, originally two which were later incorporated into one linear mound, were habitation substructures built up by accretion which resulted from the covering over of successively burned structures. This burning seemingly related to ceremonies attending deaths of important individuals, and burials in pits sunk through the covered-over burned structures accounted for most of the burials found in the site. A few individual burials were placed beneath house floors or at random in the mounds during construction.