Caddo/Colombia

[joshuaream]

Originally Posted by Jack Bates

He was digging down into the Caddo tomb shafts, at the bottom is where he found the burial and all the funeral offerings. He knew what was at the bottom and knew how to read the earth for sign of the shafts.

Jack

Jack,

You caught my attention when you mentioned tomb shafts. They aren't a common thing in the New World, and I hadn't heard of them being from Caddo culture deposits. They are most commonly found in Peru, Colombia, and West Mexico.

Here are a couple of small engraved pots from the Cauca region of Colombia that many people have said look like Caddo material. Kind of an interesting coincedence.







And my three little Agees from the Kidd Site. They aren't great examples, but they were decently priced, had the coas, and look nice in my Mississippian arrowhead frame.



It's pure conjecture, but Colombia has some other interesting similarities with the Mississippi River valley. Lot's of areas of Central and South America have some of these things, but only Colombia and the Mississippi river drainage share them all.

Quartz beads and animal effigies similar to Poverty Point material, the use of spuds, monolithic axes, shell gorgets, engraved pottery, platform earthen mounds, stockaded towns, textile and feather used in garments (from Spiro), log tombs, discoidals, earspools, large bipointed flint blades, cross legged statues, masks, etc. And now shaft tombs.

[Palmwood]

Joshua,

This link gives a brief description of these traits at 2 sites near me in N. LA. This is an older publication, and would not be written exactly the same today, but it is a relevant summary.

The Caddo Indians of Louisiana

Between the 2, everything on your list was represented. The copper was tested for chemical composition and matched Mexican copper, as opposed to Great Lakes.
The crouching human pipe is supposed to be a bound captive ready for sacrifice.
Mounds Plantation had cedar log tombs, although collapsed, still had logs intact enough to be lifted with a backhoe. There was preservation of some split cane matting with design that was laid on the floor, and some bois d'arc bows. The soil around here is very acidic, but the cedar helped preserve items that are not normally found intact.

[Shannon Graham]

Interersting and compelling 'coincidences'. Any items found in Columbia that resemble drilled bannerstones that you're aware of. The reference you made to spuds and monolithic axes surprised me.

Shannon

[joshuaream]

Shannon,

There are lots of types of stone tube pipes, mace heads, and extremely large beads that are made with similar technology, but none that would be considered atlatl weights.

Every once in a while a piece like Comanche's pops up that shows some sort of trade, but when you look at some of the fundamental bits and pieces of the culture you see a lot of similarities that go beyond just trade.

Joshua