Menard-Hodges Site

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Menard-Hodges Site
3 AR 4
Menard-Hodges2.jpg
USA Arkansas location map.svg
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Menard-Hodges Mounds
Location within Arkansas today
Alternative nameOsotouy
Location Nady, Arkansas, Flag of the United States.svg  USA
Region Arkansas County, Arkansas
Coordinates 34°0′13.93″N91°15′15.17″W / 34.0038694°N 91.2542139°W / 34.0038694; -91.2542139 Coordinates: 34°0′13.93″N91°15′15.17″W / 34.0038694°N 91.2542139°W / 34.0038694; -91.2542139
History
Cultures Mississippian culture, Quapaw
Site notes
Archaeologists James A. Ford
Architecture
Architectural styles platform mounds
Architectural detailsNumber of monuments: 2
Menard-Hodges Site
NRHP reference No. 85003542
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 31, 1985 [1]
Designated NHLApril 11, 1989 [2]

The Menard-Hodges Site (3AR4) (also known as Menard-Hodges Mounds and Osotouy), is an archaeological site in Arkansas County, Arkansas. It includes two large platform mounds as well as several house mounds. It is the type site for the Menard phase, a protohistoric Mississippian culture group.

Contents

The Menard Mound was named for Frank Menard, on whose farm the mound was discovered. [3]

Description

The proposed Hernando de Soto route thru Arkansas DeSoto Map Leg 3 HRoe 2008.jpg
The proposed Hernando de Soto route thru Arkansas

The site is considered as a possible candidate for the Province of Anilco encountered by the Hernando de Soto Entrada in 1540. [4] It was contemporaneous with the Parkin site, believed by many archaeologists to be the location of the province of Casqui, [5] [6] and the Nodena Site, believed by many archaeologists to be the location of the province of Pacaha. [5] [6]

The site is also considered to be the location of the protohistoric Quapaw village of Osotouy (or Ossoteoue) first encountered by French explorers in the late 17th century. [7] [8] The Quapaw at the time had four villages, Kappa, Ossoteoue, Touriman, and Tonginga. Kappa was reported to have been on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River and the other three located on the western bank in or near present-day Desha County, Arkansas. [9] The location was excavated by James A. Ford in 1958. The excavations included burials, with graves in extended, flexed, and secondary interments scattered throughout the site and oriented in many different directions. [10] The site has yielded evidence of occupation as early as the Baytown Period (300-700 CE), all the way to the European contact period in the 16th century. The most unusual formation at the site is Mound A, which is conical in shape, and was built in two stages. Ceramics found at the site are consistent with native occupation at the time Henri de Tonti established the first French outpost west of the Mississippi at the Arkansas Post in 1686. [8] [11]

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. [2] [1] In 1997 the National Park Service acquired a tract of 360 acres (150 ha) which encompasses the site of the mound complex and the site believed to be that of Tonti's 1686 outpost. It is now administered as part of the Arkansas Post National Memorial, whose main site is 5 miles (8.0 km) (but 25 miles (40 km) by road) from the mound site. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

Arkansas Post, Arkansas Unincorporated community in Arkansas, United States

Arkansas Post is an unincorporated community located along the north side of the Arkansas River in Arkansas County, Arkansas, United States, near the Arkansas Post National Memorial. Arkansas Highway 169 ends here.

Arkansas Post Historic settlement and National memorial in Arkansas County, Arkansas

The Arkansas Post was the first European settlement in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and present-day Arkansas. Henri de Tonti established it in 1686 as a French trading post on the lower Arkansas River, where the French and Spanish traded with the Quapaw people for years.

Pacaha

Pacaha was a Native American polity encountered in 1541 by the Hernando de Soto expedition. This group inhabited fortified villages in what is today the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Arkansas.

Casqui

Casqui was a Native American polity visited in 1541 by the Hernando de Soto expedition. This group inhabited fortified villages in eastern Arkansas.

Mississippian culture Mound-building Native American culture in Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States

The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois.

Quapaw Native American tribe

The Quapaw people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Ohio Valley area to the west side of the Mississippi River and resettled in what is now the state of Arkansas; their name for themselves refers to this migration and to traveling downriver.

Nodena Site Archaeological site in Arkansas, United States

The Nodena Site is an archeological site east of Wilson, Arkansas and northeast of Reverie, Tennessee in Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. Around 1400–1650 CE an aboriginal palisaded village existed in the Nodena area on a meander bend of the Mississippi River. The Nodena site was discovered and first documented by Dr. James K. Hampson, archaeologist and owner of the plantation on which the Nodena site is located. Artifacts from this site are on display in the Hampson Museum State Park in Wilson, Arkansas. The Nodena Site is the type site for the Nodena Phase, believed by many archaeologists to be the province of Pacaha visited by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1542.

Eaker Site Archaeological site in Arkansas

The Eaker Site (3MS105) is an archaeological site on Eaker Air Force Base near Blytheville, Arkansas that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1996. The site is the largest and most intact Late Mississippian Nodena Phase village site within the Central Mississippi Valley, with archaeological evidence indicating a palisaded village some 50 acres (20 ha) in size, with hundreds of structures. The site's major period of occupation was 1350–1450 CE, although evidence of occupation dates back to 600 CE. The site is also hypothesized to have been occupied by the Quapaw prior to a migration further south, after which they made contact with Europeans in the late 17th century.

Parkin Archeological State Park Archaeological site

Parkin Archeological State Park, also known as Parkin Indian Mound, is an archeological site and state park in Parkin, Cross County, Arkansas. Around 1350–1650 CE an aboriginal palisaded village existed at the site, at the confluence of the St. Francis and Tyronza rivers. Artifacts from this site are on display at the site museum. The Parkin Site is the type site for the Parkin phase, an expression of the Mississippian culture from the Late Mississippian period. Many archeologists believe it to be part of the province of Casqui, documented as visited by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1542. Archeological artifacts from the village of the Parkin people are dated to 1400–1650 CE.

Nady is an unincorporated community in Arkansas County, Arkansas, United States. It is the location of a National Historic Landmark, the Menard-Hodges Site. The environs of Nady, at the southern tip of the Little Prairie, are in the portion of Arkansas that saw the earliest European settlement in what is now the state of Arkansas, including Tonty’s 1686 post. The Menard-Hodges archeological site, about one-half mile southwest of Wallace-Menard-Coose Cemetery, along with the adjacent Wallace Bottom archeological site, appear to be the locations of the late 1600s Quapaw village of Osotouy, Tonty’s 1686 Post, and the early to mid-1700s French Arkansas Post.

Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park Archaeological site from the Late Woodland period in Arkansas

Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park, also known as Knapp Mounds, Toltec Mounds Site or Toltec Mounds, is an archaeological site from the Late Woodland period in Arkansas that protects an 18-mound complex with the tallest surviving prehistoric mounds in Arkansas. The site is on the banks of Mound Lake, an oxbow lake of the Arkansas River. It was occupied by its original inhabitants from 600 to 1050 CE. The site is designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Plaquemine culture Archaeological culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley, United States

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Phyllis Morse (Anderson) is an American archaeologist.

Chucalissa United States historic place

The C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa is located on and exhibits excavated materials of the Mississippian culture archaeological site known as Chucalissa which means "abandoned house" in Choctaw. The site is located adjacent to the T. O. Fuller State Park within the city of Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Chucalissa was designated National Historic Landmark in 1994 due to its importance as one of the best-preserved and major prehistoric settlement sites in the region.

The Jere Shine Site (1MT6) is an archaeological site on the Tallapoosa River near its confluence with the Coosa River in modern Montgomery County, Alabama. Based on comparison of archaeological remains and pottery styles, scholars believe that it was most likely occupied from 1400–1550 CE by people of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture.

Nodena Phase

The Nodena Phase is an archaeological phase in eastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri of the Late Mississippian culture which dates from about 1400–1650 CE. The Nodena Phase is known from a collection of villages along the Mississippi River between the Missouri Bootheel and Wapanocca Lake. They practiced extensive maize agriculture and artificial cranial deformation and were members of a continent wide trade and religious network known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, which brought chert, whelk shells, and other exotic goods to the area.

The Carson Mounds,, also known as the Carson Site and Carson-Montgomery- is a large Mississippian culture archaeological site located near Clarksdale in Coahoma County, Mississippi in the Yazoo Basin. Only a few large earthen mounds are still present at Carson to this day. Archaeologists have suggested that Carson is one of the more important archaeological sites in the state of Mississippi.

Quigualtam or Quilgualtanqui was a powerful Native American Plaquemine culture polity encountered in 1542–1543 by the Hernando de Soto expedition. The capital of the polity and its chieftain also bore the same name; although neither the chief nor his settlements were ever visited in person by the expedition. Their encounters consisted of messages sent by runners and a three-day long canoe battle on the Mississippi River. Multiple archaeological cultures, archaeological sites, and protohistoric and early historic period Native American groups have been proposed by historians and archaeologists to identify the polity, but their identity will probably never be known with any degree of certainty.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Menard-Hodges Site". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. 2007-09-26. Archived from the original on 2007-03-01.
  3. HalliBurton, William Henry (1903). A Topographical Description and History of Arkansas County, Arkansas from 1541 to 1875. History of Arkansas County, Arkansas, 1541-1875. p. 4.
  4. Hudson, Charles M. (1997). Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun . University of Georgia Press. p.  337. ISBN   9780820318882.
  5. 1 2 Hudson, Charles M. (1997). Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun . University of Georgia Press. ISBN   9780820318882.
  6. 1 2 Phyllis Morse (1981). "Parkin". Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series. Arkansas Archaeological Survey. ISSN   0882-5491. OCLC   7540091.
  7. Ford, James A. (1961), Menard Site: the Quapaw Village of Osotouy On the Arkansas River, American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers, New York: American Museum of Natural History
  8. 1 2 "Menard-Hodges Site". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  9. "Quapaw". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  10. "UA-WRI-French Colonial Arkansas". Archived from the original on 2012-08-05. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  11. "Summary description of Menard-Hodges Site". Arkansas Preservation. Archived from the original on 2014-10-22. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  12. "The Weathervane, Volume 2, Number 2 (2006)". National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2014-10-20.