Upcoming Exhibits
First Settlers of the Texas Panhandle: Panhandle-Plains Villagers
In the valleys and broken terrain along the Canadian River and the various upper stretches of the Red River are the remains of many prehistoric villages that are part of a much larger pattern of semi-settled life in the Great Plains. Collectively these are sometimes known as the Plains Village tradition and they represent a most fascinating range of bison-hunting and horticultural adaptations. Between roughly A.D. 1100 and 1500, resourceful prehistoric Indian groups in the Texas Panhandle staked out their home territories, built substantial houses often arranged in room blocks somewhat similar to southwestern pueblos, hunted buffalo and other game, collected many kinds of wild plants, grew their own crops with simple farming techniques, quarried local materials such as Alibates flint, and otherwise settled the land.
The story of these remarkable cultures has never been fully told, however, and much of what has been presented previously to the public is an outdated caricature. Instead of a single group of peaceful farming and hunting folk living in harmony, the emerging view of the Panhandle-Plains Villagers is one of competing alliances, increasing conflict, and a precarious existence. Trade goods show that the villages were tied to far-flung networks linking Pueblo communities to the west, Caddo centers to the east, and settled villages to the north as well as more nomadic groups to the south. Plant and animal remains suggest that the villagers relied on many food sources in addition to buffalo hunting and corn farming. Climatic and ecological data suggest that prehistoric corn farming in the region was, at best, a risky endeavor.
The Panhandle-Plains Villagers project will create a series of exhibits and educational features for Texas Beyond History, the new public education website on Texas' cultural heritage. Through a unique collaboration involving leading archeological scholars and fieldworkers, professional educators, school teachers, landowners, artists, photographers, universities, and area museums, new understandings of the late prehistoric cultural heritage of the Texas Panhandle will be available to anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. For the first time, schoolchildren, teachers, and the general public will gain direct access to what is now known about the Native American villagers who lived in the Texas Panhandle some 500-900 years ago. Photographs, maps, paintings, stories, learning activities, and teaching resources will present the big-picture, meaningful details, current interpretations, and lingering questions about these distinctive prehistoric cultures.
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8 March 2002