Arkansas: A Narrative History

ARKANSAS

A NARRATIVE HISTORY

SECOND EDITION

JEANNIE M. WHAYNE

THOMAS A. DEBLACK

GEORGE SABO III

MORRIS S. ARNOLD

With a Foreword to the First Edition by Willard B. Gatewood and a Foreword to the Second Edition by Ben F. Johnson III

The University of Arkansas Press

Fayetteville

2013

Copyright © 2013 by The University of Arkansas Press

First Edition 2002. Second Edition 2013.

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN-10: 1–55728–993–X

ISBN-13: 978–1–55728–993–3

17    16    15                 5    4    3    2

Designed by Liz Lester

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48–1984.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Whayne, Jeannie M.

      Arkansas : a narrative history / Jeannie M. Whayne, Thomas A. DeBlack, George Sabo III, Morris S. Arnold ; with a foreword to the first edition by Willard B. Gatewood, and a foreword to the second edition by Ben F. Johnson III. — Second edition.

            pages      cm

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-55728-993-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

      1. Arkansas—History. I. DeBlack, Thomas A., 1951– II. Sabo, George. III. Arnold, Morris S. IV. Title.

F411.A772    2013

976.7—dc23

2012044181

Map Sources and Boundary Files: Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2011, http://www.nhgis.org. Historical Atlas of Arkansas (1989), University of Oklahoma Press. Arkansas Gazetteer Online—Cities, Features, Maps & Data, www.hometownlocator.com. Arkansas and the Land (1992), University of Arkansas Press. Battlefields of Arkansas Post (2003), Arkansas Post National Memorial. Arkansas: A Narrative History (2002), University of Arkansas Press. 2006 Statewide CIR County Mosaic, Arkansas Geographic Information Office, www.geostor.arkansas.gov. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Cultural, Society and Demography Database, Arkansas Geographic Information Office, www.geostor.arkansas.gov. The Delta Cultural Center—Helena, AR, http://www.deltaculturalcenter.com. National Hydrography Dataset, Flowline and Waterbody Feature Class, Arkansas Geographic Information Office, www.geostor.arkansas.gov. Pea Ridge National Military Park, Garfield, AR, The Campaign for Pea Ridge (2001), The Civil War Series: Eastern National Publishing. Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies: University of Arkansas, http://pg.cast.uark.edu/maps.php. National Atlas of the United States (Reston, VA), www.nationalatlas.gov. Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission—Little Rock, AR. United States Geological Survey, http://gisdata.usgs.gov. Cultural Encounters in the Early South: Indians and Europeans in Arkansas (1995), University of Arkansas Press. The Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi, 1541–1543 (1993), University of Arkansas Press. Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South (2011), Louisiana State University Press. The 18th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology—1896–’97, Smithsonian Institution, Government Printing Office. Indian Affairs Laws and Treaties (1904), Washington: Government Printing Office. Seismicity of the United States, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1527, United States Government Printing Office. U.S. Geological Survey: Earthquakes Hazards Program. 2010. National Atlas of the United States, 2005–06, Territorial Acquisitions of the United States: National Atlas of the United States, Reston, VA, www.nationalatlas.gov.

ISBN-13: 978-1-61075-043-1 (electronic)

To Willard B. Gatewood

CONTENTS

Foreword to the Second Edition by Ben F. Johnson III

Foreword to the First Edition by Willard B. Gatewood

Preface

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE. A Land Inferior to None

CHAPTER TWO. Native American Prehistory

CHAPTER THREE. Spanish and French Explorations in the Mississippi Valley

CHAPTER FOUR. New Traditions for a New World: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Native Americans in Arkansas

CHAPTER FIVE. Indians and Colonists in the Arkansas Country, 1686–1803

CHAPTER SIX. The Turbulent Path to Statehood: Arkansas Territory, 1803–1836

CHAPTER SEVEN. The Rights and Rank to Which We Are Entitled: Arkansas in the Early Statehood Period, 1836–1850

CHAPTER EIGHT. Prosperity and Peril: Arkansas in the Late Antebellum Period, 1850–1861

CHAPTER NINE. Between the Hawk & Buzzard: The Civil War in Arkansas, 1861–1865

CHAPTER TEN. A Harnessed Revolution: Reconstruction in Arkansas, 1865–1880

CHAPTER ELEVEN. Arkansas in the New South, 1880–1900

CHAPTER TWELVE. A Light in the Darkness: Limits of Progressive Reform, 1900–1920

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Darker Forces on the Horizon: Natural Disasters and Great Depression, 1920–1940

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. From World War to New Era, 1940–1954

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Stumbling toward a New Arkansas, 1954–1970

CHAPTER SIXTEEN. Arkansas in the Sunbelt South, 1970–1992

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. The Burden of Arkansas History, 1992–2012

Suggested Readings

List of Contributors

Index

FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION

Willard Gatewood in his foreword hailed the first edition of Arkansas: A Narrative History as a notable milestone confirming the unmistakable advancement in the scholarship and writing of the state’s history over the past quarter of a century. This trenchant, graceful portrait of the state, as Gatewood noted, came from four authors who themselves had contributed significantly to the blossoming of Arkansas studies.

These same accomplished scholars in this welcomed revised edition of Arkansas: A Narrative History have incorporated new scholarship that explores and reveals the state’s experience within broader historical contexts. The writers have brought to bear their diverse areas of expertise to render adroitly the complexity of developments while maintaining narrative coherence. Readers will not become lost; rather, they will discover much in this rich volume about a state too often veiled by stereotype and misunderstanding.

Arkansas was indeed a small parcel with an extended frontier phase before the catastrophe of the Civil War obliterated the stirrings of prosperity. A long recovery once again fueled cautious hope until nascent industrialization fell victim to the collapse of the American economy in the Great Depression. Yet, out of the crisis of global war, the state leapt into an era of economic modernization marked by political reform and persistent struggles for greater equality and rights. If Arkansas by the twenty-first century still ranked in the lower echelons of various measures for social and economic well-being, its comparative acceleration from rural periphery toward the national mainstream was nothing short of remarkable.

Going beyond mapping large-scale historic shifts, the authors reveal that under the seemingly calm surface of tradition roiled clashing interests, evolving community networks, and intrusive outside forces. Arkansans in no era, at no time stood still. The first peoples lived in a web of intricate social relations stressed and broken by the settlement of Europeans. A mélange of geographic and ecological zones belied the easy characterization of antebellum upland yeoman and lowland cotton nabobs. A divided state marched into the war that divided the nation. The chasm between Arkansas and the nation as a whole appeared to widen with the rise of northern industrial urban centers attracting waves of immigrants. Yet, Arkansas towns orbited the smoky metropolises through the gravitational pull of new consumer products and business interests. On the other hand the state’s rural majority remained a people apart, leading to new fault lines that both old guard political leaders and earnest reformers attempted to seal.

Those hoisting the banners of reform into the twentieth century concentrated upon the necessity of good roads and good schools to secure a prosperous future based upon sound business principles. Nevertheless, even those advocating change worked at cross purposes depending upon the particular crusade, and consensus became even more a lost cause as industrialization picked up steam following World War II. The civil rights movement was decisive in wrenching Arkansas politics off a well-worn path. Even the incomplete victories for equality and democracy transformed state government from an exchange market of personal favor to making policy through debate and process. Similar reconfigurations became readily apparent in other areas of life. The success of international but homegrown companies in the northwest rim spurred a new metropolitan hub that rivaled Little Rock, the only city the state had ever known. The continuing growth of urban areas nurtured organizations and institutions in the arts and culture. The last chapter in the volume makes clear, however, that the distinctive sound of Arkansas music grew from lonely and empty places away from city lights, echoing worlds lost and others dreamed about.

The authors have retained the strengths of the original volume while altering the organization of several chapters to ensure clarity and to blend new research unobtrusively into the elegant narrative. They have consistently met the challenge of offering a comprehensive history that reflects current interpretations without letting matters slip into sinkholes of academic preoccupation. The final section is not only a judicious account of events since the publication of the first edition but a penetrating discussion of the interaction of race, suburban expansion, educational opportunity, and shifting voter loyalties.

No less than the first edition, this revision of Arkansas: A Narrative History is a compelling introduction for those who know little about the state and an insightful survey for others who wish to enrich their acquaintance with the Arkansas past. The book reflects the authors’ craft and commitment to tell the story fully and honestly.

—BEN F. JOHNSON III

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

Anyone attempting to compile a bibliography of scholarly studies on Arkansas history as late as the mid-1970s would surely have been impressed by how few such studies existed except for the high-quality articles appearing in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly since its founding in 1941. At that time book-length scholarly studies concerned with the historical experience of Arkansas and its people would scarcely have filled a single shelf in a small bookcase. The dearth of such books had far-reaching consequences. For one thing, it led to the virtual omission of any consideration of Arkansas in works that purported to deal with the South, even though the state has been a part of the region since admission to statehood in 1836. Another result was that much of what was known about Arkansas, both inside and outside the state, was gleaned from impressionistic, highly subjective treatments, often written by individuals guided more by a determination to confirm preconceived notions than by a concern for balance and objectivity.

As the history of Arkansas related in the following pages clearly demonstrates, there is no longer a need to rely upon such works. In the last two decades, the quantity of books based on careful research and dedicated to the pursuit of objectivity has so dramatically increased that they now would completely fill all shelves of a much larger bookcase. A variety of developments, including the activities of dedicated individuals, account for the proliferation of such works, but the role of the University of Arkansas Press, established in 1980, has been of critical importance. Beginning with its first book released the following year, the press has published a succession of scholarly works that explore various aspects of Arkansas’s past—economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental—from prehistoric times to the end of the twentieth century. The talented authors of this volume, three historians and an anthropologist, have been active participants in the recent flourishing of Arkansas history; each has contributed significantly to the rapid expansion of historical scholarship devoted to the state. Drawing upon this greatly expanded scholarship, the authors have produced a work that includes ethnic and racial groups, women, and others often ignored in previous studies. It is altogether appropriate, therefore, that the University of Arkansas Press should begin its third decade by publishing Arkansas: A Narrative History, a model work that belongs alongside the best state histories.

Informed in its scholarship, rationally organized, and written in clear, graceful prose, this volume is extraordinarily comprehensive in its treatment of Arkansas’s past, from prehistoric times when it was inhabited by various Indian tribes through its colonial era under French and Spanish rule, early statehood, and the Civil War and its aftermath to the present. Throughout, it exhibits a sense of balance, maintains a view that places Arkansas in the larger perspective of the region and the nation, and effectively combines descriptive narrative and interpretative analysis. Careful to emphasize the role of geography in the historical development of the state, the authors also, quite appropriately, devote especial attention to its rural character, reliance upon agriculture, and efforts to industrialize. In the process they provide a wealth of information that illuminates similarities and differences that existed between the course traveled by Arkansas and those traveled by other southern states. While the authors focus on changes that have occurred over time, they are no less forthright in underscoring the continuities, some of which have persisted since the early years of statehood.

By any manner of reckoning this is an extraordinarily valuable addition to historical literature, one that provides a highly readable and comprehensive account of an often-neglected corner of the Trans-Mississippi South.

—WILLARD B. GATEWOOD

PREFACE

Arkansas: A Narrative History originated in 1997 when University of Arkansas Distinguished Professor Willard B. Gatewood brought the coauthors together and launched a project to create a concise, one-volume history of the state. Determined to produce a volume that was affordable, that would be of use in the college classroom, and that would also appeal to the general public, we quickly realized that formidable challenges awaited our efforts. The needs of teachers and the interests of the general public demanded treatment of the full sweep of Arkansas history from prehistoric times to the present. Our own sentiments further stipulated a balanced treatment of different time periods, groups of people, and cultural institutions. To achieve these goals within a volume of modest size, we chose to emphasize events that transcended the particular times and places with which they were associated to reflect major trends and trajectories that brought our state to its present moment in history.

This second edition of Arkansas: Narrative History begins with a new chapter focusing on Arkansas geography, cowritten by George Sabo and Thomas DeBlack. It includes a number of maps highlighting various features of Arkansas’s natural landscape and seeks to ground the reader in this place called Arkansas.

George Sabo follows with an examination of Native American prehistory that emphasizes cultural developments in the context of changing environmental and social conditions. The goal is to reconstruct, as accurately as present evidence allows, the world created by native peoples in the mid-South. This world suffered cataclysmic shock when adverse climatic changes coincided with the arrival of European explorers and colonists. These circumstances truly did create a new world, out of which Native American cultures of the historic era emerged. Sabo discusses how these newly emergent groups carried forward the legacy of their ancestors in maintaining economic and social institutions that proved crucial to the survival of early colonial endeavors. Quapaws, Caddos, and Tunicas cleared and worked the agricultural lands that provided crops to European immigrants, and Quapaw and Osage hunters produced meat and other products, including hides, tallow, and bear oil, that became important commodities in colonial exchange economies. The transfer of goods between indigenous and immigrant groups was facilitated by native social institutions that permitted incorporation of Europeans into existing economic and political networks.

Morris S. Arnold continues this theme with a detailed examination of the face-to-face accommodations that French and Spanish colonists worked out with neighboring Indian communities. In forging this analysis, Arnold concentrates on regional events and circumstances instead of rehashing the larger colonial objectives of European nations. Rather than focusing on the intrigues of France, England, and Spain, intrigues which led to wars for empire that did, indeed, have an impact on native populations, Arnold examines the patterns of intermarriage, of diplomacy and political alliance, of economic interaction, and other cultural accommodation through which these groups created functioning communities that withstood the local manifestation of international contests.

Another unique aspect of Arnold’s treatment of the colonial era is his incorporation of the roles that a number of minority groups, including women, African Americans, and Jews, played in establishing the institutions that continued into the territorial era. Arnold examines the contributions made by those groups to the development of legal, governmental, and religious institutions, the production of goods, and the organization of market economies.

Jeannie M. Whayne’s examination of the territorial era demonstrates how these multicultural relationships unfolded during the subsequent era of American settlement. The observations recorded by William Dunbar and George Hunter, explorers dispatched by Pres. Thomas Jefferson into the new territory, revealed the persistence of interethnic social and economic accommodations existing along the Ouachita River region. Whayne revised the chapter for the second edition, careful to include reference to new work on Arkansas’s native peoples, work that challenges the middle ground thesis and posits a native ground approach.

Some Native Americans came to believe that the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812 were a sign that they were wrong to forsake their own traditions in favor of European customs. These fears were realized when the Americans abandoned the accommodation of Quapaw interests with their different vision of how frontier Arkansas should evolve. The era of mutual relationships came to an end when white settlers transplanted plantation agriculture and slavery to lands previously occupied by the Quapaws and other indigenous groups. The removal of Native Americans from Arkansas occurred in the 1820s and 1830s against a backdrop of political intrigue involving competing groups of whites. The differences were manifestly economic and pitted the southeastern section against the northwestern area. Businessmen and politicians in the central section—where the capital city came to be located—established crucial ties to the southeastern planters and played a critical role in tilting the balance of power in that direction. Given the Southeast’s ties to plantation agriculture and slavery, planters there influenced the drive for statehood in the 1830s, a drive that was influenced in part by the growing division over slavery within the nation.

Thomas A. DeBlack next illustrates how the decision to move to plantation agriculture and slavery thrust the state into the Civil War and how that momentous decision shaped Arkansas history in the postwar period. Arkansas was poorly positioned, in any case, to assume the burden of financing a war, given its precarious financial condition. The failed experiments with a real estate and state bank early in the state’s history left Arkansas financially vulnerable. DeBlack’s treatment deals nicely with the major events leading up to, during, and following the Civil War, revealing how those national events affected people in different parts of the state and how they produced the conditions that gave rise to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century events and institutions. His Civil War chapter incorporated a number of new color maps especially commissioned from Joseph Swain, maps that provide a better sense of the battles fought in Arkansas.

Whayne’s 1880 to 2012 chapters show how the state fared in the New South era and became preoccupied with economic issues arising out of the bankruptcy caused by the failed banks and the decision to leave the Union and join the Confederacy. While attempting to do justice to the political history of the state and major events taking place during the twentieth century, Whayne focuses on crucial themes that remain important as we enter the twenty-first century. One major theme is the evolution of the state’s transportation system, from one relying first on steamboats, then on railroads and roads upon which motorized vehicles could travel, and finally on a modern intermodal transportation network connecting the state to the rest of the nation. The means to finance this system proved to be a problem that plagued governors and legislators throughout this period. Similarly, the impulse to improve schools and educational programs faced hard economic realities as well as some cultural resistance to the intrusion of the state into the affairs of the family. Planters in eastern Arkansas, moreover, were reluctant to educate a workforce that might find opportunity elsewhere. Whayne also suggests tensions resulted from promotion of industrial development in the context of a rural agricultural economy. Arkansas’s industrial boosters faced insurmountable problems not simply because leading agriculturalists were reluctant to support industrialization but also because of a lack of concentrated populations needed to provide an industrial workforce. Early in the century, much of the population was unschooled in the ways of industrial society. Despite the emergence of urban centers in central and northwest Arkansas, by the end of the century much of the state’s population remains unprepared for the new economy and its emphasis on advanced technology.

Arkansas failed to emerge as a Sunbelt South state late in the century, but in the early twenty-first century began to lay the foundation for educating its workforce sufficiently to take advantage of the new knowledge-based industries. Arkansas was forced to confront the inadequacies of its educational system by small school districts that brought suit against the state for violating constitutional guarantees of an adequate and equitable education. The new edition of the text includes substantive treatment of the continuing integration embroglio confronting central Arkansas, a problem that became notorious in the 1950s but which remains largely unresolved. The racial overtones that were manifested within the resistance to educating a plantation workforce have not dissipated and remain a major challenge to the state. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 ushered in a new era for the state’s African Americans and transformed political and social landscapes, but vestiges of the old attitudes and prejudices remain in place.

The challenges confronting Arkansas as we enter a new century include finding ways to fund transportation and educational improvements, developing solutions to persisting social problems, and promoting the kind of economic development that will enable the state’s citizens to participate in the modern global economy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are greatly indebted to the many scholars who have done pathbreaking work in the study of Arkansas history. They established a solid foundation of fact and analysis, without which this textbook would have been greatly diminished in value. We wish especially to thank the individuals at the various agencies and archives who provided assistance: The University of Arkansas Special Collections Division; the Arkansas History Commission; the Archives of the University of Arkansas, Little Rock; Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives; the archives at Ouachita Baptist University; the Butler Center at the Central Arkansas Library System; the Old State House Museum; the Historic Arkansas Museum; and the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. The many years of journal articles published by the Arkansas Historical Quarterly were particularly useful on several crucial issues. We are especially indebted to the good folks at the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum in Tyronza and Lakeport Plantation House in Lake Village, both entities run by the Heritage Studies Program at Arkansas State University. We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a relative newcomer to the historical community, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, an online encyclopedia that functions as part of the Central Arkansas Library System and provides an invaluable service to the public and scholars alike. Jeannie M. Whayne would like to thank her coauthors for their forbearance and acknowledge the many students who have enrolled in her classes in Arkansas and southern history. Their questions and comments provided insights into what had been either omitted or treated too briefly in the first edition. She thanks her colleagues Patrick Williams and Michael Pierce for their thoughtful observations. Thomas DeBlack also thanks his coauthors and joins Whayne in recognizing the contributions of the many county and local historical societies across the state, particularly for the yeomen work they have done in publishing county and local histories. George Sabo acknowledges his coauthors and also the many students in his classes for helping him refine his ideas about Arkansas Indians, and the Caddos, Cherokees, Osages, Quapaws, and Tunicas, who over many years have generously taught him much. Morris S. Arnold joins in the above acknowledgments and thanks his coauthors for their indulgence. All four of us would like to thank our excellent geographer, Joseph Swain of Arkansas Tech University. Thanks to his expertise the book is complimented by new versions of maps that appeared in the first edition and many additional images and maps, some of which are now in color. We would all like to thank our spouses and families for their many kindnesses as we each took time away from them for this work. Finally, we would like especially to acknowledge Willard B. Gatewood, who, over a decade ago, urged us to come together and write this book. The first edition was the result of his encouragement. This second edition, sadly, comes to press without his good offices as we lost him late last year. We take this opportunity to dedicate this book to his memory.

CHAPTER ONE

A Land Inferior to None

Happen! happened in Arkansaw: where else could it have happened, but in the creation State, the finishing-up country—a state where the sile runs down to the center of the ’arth, and the government gives you title to every inch of it? Then its airs—just breathe them, and they will make you snort like a horse. It’s a State without fault, it is.

—THOMAS BANGS THORPE, The Big Bear of Arkansas

The soil of the Arkansas bottoms is inferior to none in the world.

—ALBERT PIKE, letter to the New England Magazine, 1835

Millions of years before the first human being set foot there, dynamic forces were shaping the land that would become the state of Arkansas, making it one of the most varied and beautiful in the American nation. Some 500 million years ago, all of present-day Arkansas was covered by the waters of what we now know as the Gulf of Mexico. Shallow waters teeming with marine life covered the northern part of the state, and as sea creatures died their shells became incorporated in bottom sediments that later formed into limestone. The tiny fossils that can be found today in that limestone provide a record of this era in the state’s geological history. Over time, the land began to emerge from the water, as ancient continents collided to form a supercontinent called Pangea. The first to emerge was the land in the northern and western regions, where the collision of continents gradually thrust the land upward. The land in the southern and eastern parts of Arkansas remained underwater for a much longer period. When the waters finally receded from this region, they left a flat and rolling landscape that resembled the ocean floor it had been for so long. See plate 1 following page 126.

Pangea: A supercontinent formed by the collision of the other continents about 300 million years ago. This supercontinent persisted throughout Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras until it began to break up some 200 million years ago.

At the conclusion of this lengthy period of dynamic change (roughly one million years ago), Arkansas assumed the general geologic pattern that exists today. A diagonal line running northeast to southwest divides the state approximately in half, with the areas north and west of the line being characterized by mountainous uplands, while the southern and eastern parts are flat or rolling lowlands. This geologic division would have profound implications for social, economic, and political development in Arkansas. But for all its significance, this division of Arkansas into highlands and lowlands greatly oversimplifies the complex nature of the state’s geology. Today geologists recognize six major natural divisions in Arkansas. Three—the Ozark Mountains, the Ouachita Mountains, and the Arkansas River Valley—make up the highland region, and three others—the West Gulf Coastal Plain, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain (the Arkansas Delta), and Crowley’s Ridge—constitute the lowlands. See plate 2 following page 126.

The Ozark Mountains

Perhaps the most well known of these natural divisions is the Ozark Mountains. Occupying the northwest corner of the state, the Ozarks reach elevations over two thousand feet higher than in the lowlands. See plate 3 following page 126. Technically, these mountains are actually what geologists call an elevated plateau. After the continental collision forced this land upward, a long process of erosion began that gradually lowered the surface of the land until it reached layers that were resistant to erosion. The result was the creation of a relatively flat, level plateau. Over long periods of time, rivers dissected the Ozark Plateau creating three smaller, discontinuous plateaus separated by valleys and erosional remnants in the shapes of hills and mountains. These plateaus are called the Springfield Plateau, the Salem Plateau, and the Boston Plateau.

Plateau: An area of fairly level high ground.

The Springfield Plateau extends westward from St. Louis, Missouri, to southwest Missouri, northeast Oklahoma, and northwest Arkansas. It is composed largely of highly soluble limestone and a flint-like rock called chert that was an important resource for stone tool-making American Indians during the prehistoric era. Much of this plateau is forested, but sizable areas of prairie with level land and tillable soil drew early settlers from southern Missouri to the area. Today the cities of Fayetteville and Springdale (Washington County), Rogers (Benton County), and Harrison (Boone County) are located in the Springfield Plateau.

Prairie: A large open area of grassland.

North and east of the Springfield Plateau lies the Salem Plateau. The vast majority of this plateau lies in Missouri, but the southernmost part crosses the border into north-central Arkansas. The soil here is much thinner and poorer than in the Springfield Plateau. Some nineteenth-century accounts described large parts of the region as barrens. Today, Eureka Springs lies on an escarpment between the Springfield and Salem Plateaus, and the towns of Mammoth Springs (Fulton County), Mountain Home (Baxter County), Calico Rock (Izard County), Cherokee Village (Sharp and Fulton Counties), and Yellville (Marion County) are located on the Salem Plateau.

Escarpment: A long, steep slope at the edge of a plateau.

The third plateau, the Boston Plateau (commonly called the Boston Mountains), lies south of the Springfield Plateau. Reaching elevations of up to 2,600 feet above sea level, this plateau is the highest in the Ozarks. The region is characterized by magnificent mountain vistas, but its rugged nature limited transportation and agricultural development, which led to the creation of an isolated, hill-country culture that gave the Ozarks its hillbilly image. The Boston Plateau was traditionally the poorest section of a region that was for much of Arkansas history the poorest in the state.

Hardwood forests of oak and hickory dominate the Ozark landscape, and clear, spring-fed rivers like the King, the Spring, the Buffalo, and numerous other streams cut deep valleys through parts of the Ozarks. The best known of these Ozark rivers is the Buffalo. Originating in the Boston Plateau, the Buffalo follows a generally east-to-west course for over 150 miles through present-day Newton, Searcy, and Marion counties before entering the White River in Baxter County. The beautiful bluffs, rapids, and waterfalls created by this river, in addition to the clear water and the abundance of fish, birds, and other wildlife make the Buffalo one of the most scenic rivers in the nation.

The Ozarks are also home to another of the state’s most unique features. Water seeping through cracks in the region’s limestone base causes the underlying rock to dissolve, creating large caves. The most spectacular of these may be Blanchard Springs Cavern near Mountain View. This massive underground cave contains an underground river, stalactites (formations descending from the cave’s ceiling), stalagmites (formations rising from the cavern floor), columns (where stalactites and stalagmites meet), and extensive areas of flowstone (sheet-like calcite deposits formed where water flows down a wall or along the floor). Bats, snails, spiders, and the rare Ozark blind salamander (the first cave-dwelling amphibian found in the United States) find a home in the cavern. Another geological feature—rock shelters eroded into the faces of vertical limestone and sandstone bluffs—was used extensively by prehistoric American Indians for short-term occupation. The dry environments of many rock shelters made them suitable for the storage of nuts and grains.

Travelers to the Ozarks have long been impressed by the region’s great natural beauty. The geologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft left an account of his visit to the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks in 1819–1820. He wrote, It is a mixture of forest and plain, of hills and long sloping valleys, where the tall oak forms a striking contrast with the rich foliage of the evergreen cane, or the waving field of prairie-grass. It is an assemblage of beautiful groves, and level prairies, of river alluvion, and high-land precipice, diversified by the devious course of the river, and the distant promontory, forming a scene so novel, yet so harmonious, as to strike the beholder with admiration; and the effect must be greatly heightened, when viewed under the influence of a mild clear atmosphere, and an invigorating sun, such as is said to characterize the region during the spring and summer.

The Ouachita Mountains

The Ouachita Mountains make up the second part of the Arkansas highlands. Lying south of the Ozarks, the Ouachitas extend from eastern Oklahoma to the western edge of present-day Little Rock in central Arkansas. Like the Ozarks, the Ouachitas were created by the collision of continents, but here uplift was only a minimal factor. Rather the collision folded layers of rock over other layers. Riverine erosion accentuated the folds, shaping them into a series of east-west running ridges. Sandstone and shale compose much of the Ouachitas, but the region also has deposits of quartz crystals and novaculite, a hard, dense stone prized for use as a whetstone during historic times and by ancient American Indians as a material for stone tool-making long before that. Pine forests predominate on the warmer south-facing slopes of the Ouachita’s ridges, while the cooler north-facing ridges tend to favor hardwood forests. The valleys between the ridges are mixtures of pine and hardwood. Streams in the region tend to follow the east-west fold patterns, and rainwater that follows the folds below ground emerges at various points in the region as hot springs, most noticeably at today’s Hot Springs National Park.

On his expedition up the Ouachita River with fellow Scottish immigrant George Hunter in 1804–1805, William Dunbar described the land along the Ouachita River just below the hot springs:

From the river camp for about two miles, the lands are level and of second rate quality, the timber chiefly oak intermixed with others common to the climate and a few scattering pine-trees; further on, the lands on either hand arose into gently swelling hills, clothed chiefly with handsome pine-woods; the road passed along a valley frequently wet, by numerous rills [small brooks] and springs of excellent water which broke from the foot of the hills: as we approached the hot-springs the hills became more elevated and of steep ascent & generally rocky.

The Arkansas River Valley

In 1819 the English-born naturalist Thomas Nuttall traveled up the Arkansas River from Arkansas Post on the river’s lower reaches to Fort Smith. As he passed the point where Little Rock would soon be established, he remarked on the changing nature of the lands that bordered the great river. After emerging as it were from so vast a tract of alluvial lands, as that through which I had now been traveling for more than three months, he wrote, it is almost impossible to describe the pleasure which these romantic prospects afford me. Who can be insensible to the beauty of the verdant hill and valley, to the sublimity of the clouded mountain, the fearful precipice, or the torrent of the cataract. This region, where the river passes between the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, is known as the Arkansas River Valley. The same geologic forces that caused the Ozarks and Ouachitas to be uplifted forced the area between them downward into a trough that was carved and sculpted by the Arkansas River. Up to forty miles in width and extending from the Oklahoma border to the Mississippi River, the River Valley contains characteristics of both the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, with both uplifted plateaus and folded ridges, and pine and hardwood forests. Other features are unique to the region. The wide bottomlands provide fertile farmland and also feature bottomland forests and swamps. Pockets of coal and natural gas are also found in the region. See plate 4 following page 126.

Trough: A long hollow in the earth’s surface.

Three unique features of the River Valley are Mount Magazine (Logan County), Mount Nebo (Yell County), and Petit Jean Mountain (Conway County). All are mesas—isolated hills with steep sides and flat tops. Mount Magazine is the highest point in Arkansas, reaching an elevation of 2,753 feet above sea level. The mountain is also famous for its diverse butterfly population. Ninety-four of the 134 species of butterflies in Arkansas can be found there, including the rare Diana fritillary. Petit Jean Mountain contains the greatest concentration of prehistoric American Indian pictographs (rock paintings) in the state. Mount Nebo was an important landmark for navigation along the Arkansas River during the early historic era. The three mountains provide magnificent views of the bottomlands and rolling uplands that characterize most of the River Valley.

Mesas: Isolated hills with steep sides and flat tops.

Thomas Nuttall reported that he was amused by the gentle murmurs of a rill and pellucid water, which broke from rock to rock. The acclivity, through a scanty thicket, rather than the usual sombre forest, was already adorned with violets, and occasional clusters of the parti-colored Collinsia. The groves and thickets were whitened with the blossoms of the dogwood (Cornus florida). The lugubrious vocifications of the whip-poor-will, the croaking frogs, chirping crickets, and whoops and halloos of the Indians, broke not disagreeably the silence of a calm and fine evening.

The river itself and its adjacent lowlands have long served as a transportation corridor for both animals and people. Long before highways or railroads, the river was a major artery of commerce for early Arkansans, and some of the state’s earliest settlements grew up along its banks. Today Fort Smith, Ozark, Clarksville, Russellville, Morrilton, Conway, and several smaller communities are located in the River Valley.

The West Gulf Coastal Plain

Even after most of the water that originally covered Arkansas had receded, much of the southwestern region remained covered by a wide, shallow lagoon that was home to a variety of living things ranging from microorganisms to shellfish to dinosaurs. Near present-day Nashville (Howard County), paleontologists found the tracks of a number of huge dinosaurs that had traversed the area between 150 and 200 million years ago, when the climate was hotter and much more humid than today. Recent investigations led by University of Arkansas geosciences professor Steve Boss have identified numerous species, including Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, one of the largest predators ever to roam the earth’s surface, as well as gigantic long-necked, plant-eating sauropods. The remains of the shellfish eventually formed a soft version of limestone known as chalk. See plate 5 following page 126.

Paleontologists: Scientists who study the life of past geological periods through fossil remains.

Because various parts of the Coastal Plain formed at different times, the soil in this natural division varies widely. It ranges from the fertile farmland and bottomland forest of the Red River and the Blackland Prairies in the west to the later (and poorer) sandy pine-covered regions in the east. The varying soils gave rise to varying ways of life. In the western portion of the region, farming and livestock raising predominate, while in the east, timber harvesting is a major economic activity.

Several varieties of minerals are found in the Coastal Plain. Bauxite (used in making aluminum) is found in Saline County, and the discovery of oil and gas near present-day El Dorado and Smackover created a boomtown economy in the early twentieth century. A unique mineral found in the Coastal Plain comes from near present-day Murfreesboro (Pike County). Thousands of diamonds have been found at the site of an ancient volcano that exploded millions of years ago.

The Mississippi Alluvial Plain (the Delta)

The last part of Arkansas to take shape was the southeastern region. As the climate cooled dramatically some 110,000 years ago, thick glacial ice scoured northern parts of the continent. When the last vestiges of the ice sheets began to melt some 11,500 years ago, rivers filled with outwash spread deep sedimentary deposits across the more southerly regions. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain and a remnant elevated area in eastern Arkansas called Crowley’s Ridge were created during this period. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain, better known as the Delta, occupies roughly the eastern third of the state. The most obvious feature of the Delta landscape is its flat, level surface. Maj. Amos Stoddard, a U.S. Army officer who came to the region in 1804, noted that the land presents an almost perfect level, and . . . is much more elevated on the river than in the rear of it. This vast tract affords a thick growth of large and tall trees, mostly cotton wood and cypress, with extensive cane breaks . . . from fifteen to twenty feet in height . . . . All these lands are of an alluvial nature, and extremely fertile. Tupelo trees are also common. For the earliest white settlers, these dense forests, impenetrable canebrakes, and large swamps made travel through the region difficult or impossible. See plate 6 following page 126.

Alluvial: Deposits of clay, silt, and sand left by flowing flood-water in a river valley or delta.

Ecologist Tom Foti has written that the Delta is a land of rivers, built by rivers, and defined by rivers. The foremost of these is the Mississippi River, which has carved and sculpted the Delta landscape for millions of years, as it followed an ever-changing path southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Its frequent floods have been a bane to travel and settlement in the region, but those same floods have deposited tons of incredibly fertile soil over the area, making the Mississippi Alluvial Plain one of the richest agricultural regions in the world.

The Arkansas River has also played a major role in creating the Delta. From its headwaters in Colorado, the Arkansas flows east-southeast across Kansas and Oklahoma before entering western Arkansas near Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and continuing southeastwardly through the Arkansas River Valley before entering the Mississippi Alluvial Plain near Little Rock. The river continues its southeasterly path through the Delta and enters the Mississippi River in eastern Desha County. At almost fifteen hundred miles in length, the Arkansas is the nation’s sixth longest river.

Other major streams have also shaped the Delta landscape. The White River begins its 722-mile journey in northwest Arkansas, flowing north into Missouri before crossing back into Arkansas near Bull Shoals in Marion County. The river continues on a southeasterly course, entering the Mississippi Alluvial Plain near Batesville and proceeding 295 miles through the Delta before entering the Mississippi in Desha County just north of the mouth of the Arkansas. The Black and the Cache rivers flow southward from northeast Arkansas into the White. To the east the L’Anguille and St. Francis rivers flow southward along opposite sides of Crowley’s Ridge. The smaller L’Anguille joins the St. Francis in eastern Lee County, not far from where the St. Francis enters the Mississippi just north of present-day Helena.

In parts of the region, American Indian communities living in the area between A.D. 900–1600 built large, fortified towns that were supported by an agriculture based on the production of corn, beans, and squash. The first white settlers subsisted on the abundant game and fish, but later settlers accumulated great wealth by exploiting the fertile land. In the sandy soils along the rivers, cotton became the primary crop, and by the mid-nineteenth century the region was tied to plantation-style agriculture and to the institution of slavery.

Within this region there exists a subregion consisting of a broad terrace covered by wind-blown dust (loess) underlain by a substratum of clay. Originally covered by tall prairie grass, today the region is largely covered by croplands. The clay base in the region’s soil causes it to hold water, making the Grand Prairie an excellent region for growing rice. This Grand Prairie extends over half a million acres and covers all or part of four counties—White, Lonoke, Prairie, and Arkansas. The entire Alluvial Plain is a major bird migration corridor in the fall and spring, and the numerous flooded rice fields in the Grand Prairie annually attract tens of thousands of migrating ducks, making the area one of the nation’s best duck-hunting regions. Other smaller terraces are common north of the Arkansas River.

Loess: A loosely compacted deposit of wind-blown sediment.

For untold centuries, the region’s rivers changed course with almost every flood, wreaking havoc on settlers and creating a nightmare for anyone attempting to plot out permanent county or state boundary lines. Improved flood-control measures that were put in place after the disastrous Mississippi River flood of 1927 have greatly decreased the danger of flooding and stabilized the course of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers.

Crowley’s Ridge

Running from north to south through the northern half of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain is an elevated strip of ground that varies in width from a half mile to twenty miles and rises up to two hundred feet above the flat Delta land. This ridge takes its name from Benjamin Crowley, one of the first white settlers in the region (c. 1820). Crowley’s Ridge runs for over 150 miles from extreme northeast Arkansas to Helena on the Mississippi River in Phillips County, disappearing briefly just north of present-day Marianna (Lee County). The ridge, which has its origins near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is the sixth and smallest natural division in Arkansas. As elsewhere in the Delta, the receding waters of the Gulf of Mexico left deposits of sand and marine organisms here. But unlike in the Delta the rivers did not remove all of this material. Instead they left a narrow ridge that was gradually overlain by riverine deposits of sand and gravel. Originally much lower than it is today, the ridge was built up to its present height by loess that has accumulated in some places to a depth of fifty feet. This loess is severely prone to erosion, making landslides a threat. See plate 7 following page 126.

Thousands of years ago, the Mississippi River actually flowed west of the ridge and the Ohio River flowed to its east, near the path of the modern Mississippi River. Over time, the Ohio retreated north and the Mississippi changed course to flow west of the ridge. Today hardwood forests of oak and hickory trees are found here, as are some of the most valuable gravel deposits in the state.

The heights of Crowley’s Ridge provide a spectacular view of the surrounding Delta. The German traveler and sportsman Friedrich Gerstacker, who lived in Arkansas from 1837 to 1843 including for a time on the ridge, described one such vista looking east from the eastern edge of the ridge on a foggy morning. The thick white fog, through which not a tree was visible, north, south, or east, looked like the sea, and I was prompted to look out for a sail; the glowing red ball of the sun as he worked his way through it, cast a roseate hue over all. As the sun rose higher the fog began to disperse, and the tips of the highest trees appeared. As the fog vanished, it gave place to a boundless extent of green, unbroken by any rise, save that on which we stood. I remained for a long time in silent admiration of the fascinating sight.

Climate

The other major environmental feature that has impacted the development of Arkansas is the climate, which is defined as the general weather conditions that prevail in an area over a long period of time. Climatic changes have a profound impact on the type of vegetation that can exist in a particular region. In Arkansas, the climate, like the land itself, has gone through a dynamic series of changes over time. At the end of the last Ice Age the mid-continental climate was colder than it is today but seasonal variations in temperature and precipitation were much less pronounced. Spruce and jack pine forests extended across the upland parts of Arkansas and much of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Spruce boreal forests covered much of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, though mixed deciduous woodlands grew along the river bottomlands. Animal life was very different as well: though several familiar species including deer and elk were present, now-extinct species of large mammals roamed the land, including mammoths and mastodons, giant sloths and llamas, peccaries, and large bison.

Boreal: Of, relating to, or comprising the northern biotic area, characterized especially by the dominance of coniferous forests.

Warming temperatures between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago, temperatures caused glaciers to retreat and vegetation to expand into newly emerging habitats. Oak and hickory woodlands dominated the northern part of the state, while the south was characterized by oak and hickory mixed with southern pine. Cypress and tupelo trees and a few hardwoods characterized the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. As we have seen, grassland prairies remained in parts of Arkansas, remnants of a drier period in Arkansas’s ancient past.

Deciduous: Falling off or shed seasonally at a certain stage of the development of the life cycle.

A period of pronounced global warming developed between 8,000 and 5,000 years ago. Climate patterns interacting with topography, soil, and hydrography produced different patterns of vegetation and wildlife in each of Arkansas’s major physiographic regions. These changes had important consequences for American Indian communities across the mid-South.

Modern landforms and habitats developed with a return to more temperate and moist conditions after 5,000 years ago. A blip in this environmental trajectory occurred between circa A.D. 1400–1850, the result of another global climate change called the Little Ice Age when cooler conditions prevailed. Protracted episodes of drought were experienced in many parts of Arkansas, with dramatic consequences for animals and plants as well as human settlement patterns and economic activities.

Today Arkansas has what scientists refer to as a humid subtropical climate, defined as a region with a hot summer and no specific dry season. Summers are generally hot and humid with high temperatures in the center of the state averaging around 90 degrees in the summer and 50 degrees during generally mild, drier winter months. When warm, moist Gulf air clashes with cool, dry air moving east from the Rocky Mountains, strong thunderstorms are produced. Arkansas has approximately sixty days of thunderstorms. Tornadoes are also common in the state. On average Arkansas experiences 26 tornadoes a year, but 107 tornadoes were recorded in the state during 1999. Thunderstorms and tornadoes are most common in the spring, but they can also occur in the fall and winter. Three of the state’s deadliest tornadoes occurred in the months of November, January, and February.

Rainfall averages between forty-five and fifty-five inches per year, but snowfall averages only five inches per year. With fertile soil, adequate rainfall, and over two hundred frost-free days a year, the southeastern part of the state is ideal for plantation-style agriculture.

Arkansas experiences all four seasons of the year, and the state has long been known for its changeable, unpredictable weather. Longtime residents are fond of telling newcomers, If you don’t like the weather in Arkansas, just wait a few minutes and it will change. Change has, in fact, been the operative word in describing the geology and climate of Arkansas. These geologic and climatic factors set the stage upon which human activity in Arkansas would take place, and it continues to influence activity in Arkansas today.

CHAPTER TWO

Native American Prehistory

Arkansas history began a very long time ago, when ancestors of modern American Indians began migrating out of central Asia at the end of the last Ice Age. Before this event, no humans lived in the Western Hemisphere. We can compare the remarkable achievement of these people in colonizing new and previously unseen lands to our own attempts to explore and—perhaps someday—inhabit the moon or other distant planets. Who were these people, whom modern archeologists call Paleoindians? When did they enter North America? When and how did they reach Arkansas, and what did they do once they arrived?

We know from DNA studies, skeletal and linguistic evidence, and archeological studies that Paleoindians descended from Ice Age hunters who learned to survive frigid environments of Europe and western Asia late in the Pleistocene epoch, some time after 28,000 B.C. Between 17,000–12,000 B.C., slightly warmer conditions made it possible for some of those people to reach North America on foot by following migrating herds of animals across Beringia—a thousand-mile-wide land mass connecting Siberia and Alaska. Beringia was created by lower sea levels when much of the world’s water supply was frozen in continental ice sheets more than a mile thick. At first, ice sheets covering much of northern North America prevented land-based hunters from migrating beyond western Alaska, though it was possible, after about 14,500 B.C., for maritime groups to reach the Americas by sailing from island to island in hide-covered boats across the north Pacific rim. North American ice sheets began to recede about 11,500 B.C., opening new land routes into the continental interior. Modern archeologists believe that Paleoindians probably crossed into North America via both land and maritime routes. The land route across Beringia closed around 10,000 B.C., when rising sea levels again separated Siberia and Alaska. Entering a new world containing no major biological competitors, Paleoindians migrated rapidly and within only a few hundred years their descendants had colonized extensive areas in North, Middle, and South America. Their ability to adapt to diverse environments in newly settled lands demonstrates a remarkable level of skill and ingenuity.

Pleistocene Epoch: The geological era that includes the last series of Ice Ages, from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years before the present (B.P.). The Pleistocene and (current) Holocene epochs represent the Quaternary Period.

Beringia: A Pleistocene age land bridge (now inundated by the Bering Strait) that connected eastern Siberia and western Alaska.

Arkansas’s First People: Entering a New Land

Paleoindians were a migratory people, moving across the land in pursuit of animals they hunted, never settling permanently in one place. When Paleoindians reached southeastern North America around 10,500 B.C., they discovered a land much different from today. Mammoths and mastodons, along with giant bison and paleollamas (a larger version of the modern llama) roamed expansive grasslands following their own migratory patterns. Modern zoologists refer to these large animals as Ice Age or Pleistocene megafauna. There were smaller animals, too. Caribou grazed in scattered tundra zones, and elk and smaller game lived in forest and forest-edge habitats along larger rivers and streams. Today these habitats are found at different latitudes, but during the Ice Age they existed side by side, creating an environmental mosaic unlike anything we find in today’s world. There were few edible plant foods then, and most streams and rivers were too cold to support fish, shellfish, or other edible species. Animals—most exhibiting great mobility—served as the main source of food and other materials. A special set of skills, supported by an equally specialized technology, helped Paleoindians cope with challenging conditions.

Migratory: A pattern in which a group or population (of people or animals) undertakes large-scale movements across the land, never settling permanently in one location.

Megafauna: Ice Age species of animals (now extinct) that were much larger than modern counterparts, including mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, tapirs, sloths, camels, paleollamas, etc.

Paleoindians manufactured elegant spear points using a stone-working technology developed by Upper Paleolithic ancestors in Europe and Asia. Called Clovis points by modern archeologists, these long, sharp, willow leaf-shaped points have a distinctive flute or channel extending from the base toward the tip. The flute made it possible to socket the point within a bone or ivory foreshaft that in turn could be fitted to the end of a longer shaft. This weapon could be thrust into an animal from close quarters or hurled from a distance. A throwing stick, or atlatl, was used to increase the force with which it could be thrown. Outfitted with this weaponry, Paleoindians hunted even the largest animals and secured abundant amounts of meat, hides, and other materials including bone, antler, and ivory.

Finely crafted stone cutting blades and blunt-end scrapers provided a handy means for butchering animal carcasses and cleaning and softening hides. Paleoindians used finely made antler or ivory needles and sinew thread to make warm and well-fitting hide clothing. Such clothing by itself provided adequate protection against cold and wet conditions.

With a mobile lifestyle tied to the habits of migrating herds of mammoth and mastodon, Paleoindians had no need for permanent houses. Temporary dwellings including lean-tos and pole-frame tents covered with hides provided adequate protection from the elements, especially when warmed by glowing campfires. Paleoindians erected these shelters at temporary campsites located in areas providing natural protection from adverse weather conditions, access to fresh water and raw materials for tool manufacture, and—perhaps most important—a favorable vantage for observing the movements of game animals. Paleoindians used domesticated dogs for transporting tent poles, hide coverings, and other items as they moved across the land.

Kill sites are among the most common types of Paleoindian sites found by modern archeologists. At the Domebo site in southern Oklahoma, archeologist Frank C. Leonhardy of the Museum of the Great Plains excavated Clovis points and butchering tools along with the remains of a Columbia mammoth radiocarbon dated to around 9,000 B.C. At the Kimmswick site in Missouri, paleontologist Russell W. Graham and colleagues from the Illinois State Museum found Clovis points and other Paleoindian artifacts dating to approximately the same period associated with remains of mastodons and a variety of other animal species, including deer, rabbit, squirrel, and gopher. The discovery of all these species together at Kimmswick tells us that Paleoindians in this part of the country occupied a complex environment where they made effective use of a wide range of habitats containing diverse food resources.

Radiocarbon date: A measurement, based on analysis of radioactive carbon isotopes, that indicates the age of organic material (such as charcoal or bone) preserved in archeological or geological contexts.

No Paleoindian hunting or camping sites have yet been found in Arkansas, though artifacts from this time period have been collected across the state. Since Clovis materials are relatively scarce in Arkansas, there must have been only a few Paleoindians at first, perhaps no more than one hundred to one hundred and fifty people across the entire state, living in scattered groups each consisting of perhaps two dozen or so members. The largest concentration of finds occurs in the eastern part of the state. This suggests that the first groups migrated down the Mississippi River from the northern plains, where earlier Paleoindian remains have been found. As migrating groups entered the mid-South, some began to settle down, adopting more localized patterns of movement based on seasonal distributions of game animals and other food sources and availability of stone for tool making.

After several generations in the mid-South, sometime around 8,500 B.C. at the beginning of the Holocene epoch, Paleoindians faced another significant challenge when large Ice Age animals became extinct. Archeologists and paleontologists debate whether this extinction was caused by climate change, by hunting, by disease, or by some combination of factors. Earlier episodes of climate change did not cause extinction, and Paleoindian hunters represent the only new ecological variable introduced at this time, suggesting they did indeed play some role. However it occurred, the extinction of large Ice Age animals forced descendants of Paleoindians to change their way of life. Deer, elk, and modern bison (smaller than the Ice Age bison species)—already present when Paleoindians entered the mid-South—became the primary animals sought for food and other materials. In contrast to Ice Age megafauna, which followed predictable migration routes and thus could be hunted at places favoring the safety and success of Paleoindians, deer are solitary wanderers while elk and bison follow different annual migration patterns, requiring new encounter strategies and hunting techniques. To what extent changing hunting patterns affected other aspects of life is a question many archeologists are now attempting to answer.

Holocene Epoch: The current geological period that began after the end of the last Ice Age about 11,700 years ago.

Did Paleoindians possess any distinctive social practices or religious