The Caddo Indians of Louisiana

Northwestern Louisiana was occupied for thousands of years before the beginnings of Caddo culture. In the upland areas, along small streams and bordering the river valleys, projectile points and tools of Early and Late Paleo-Indian peoples have been found (Webb 1948b; Gagliano and Gregory 1965). In the western plains, the makers of the fluted Clovis and Folsom points hunted now extinct types of big game (mammoth, mastodon, sloth) between 10,000 and 8000 B.C. The later Plainview, Angostura, and Scottsbluff points have been found with the extinct large bison. Since all of these distinctive projectile point types have been found in the Louisiana uplands and mastodon bones, teeth, and tusks have been found in Red River Valley, big game hunting was possible in the state. However, no camp or kill sites of Paleo-Indian people have been found thus far.