Current Research: Spiro and Caddoan Connections on the Northern Frontier of Southwest Missouri

Excavations during the construction of Table Rock Lake in the late 1950s resulted in a proposition that there was a colonization of peoples into the upper White River drainage from Caddoan areas to the southwest (Chapman 1980; Chapman et al. 1960). This colonization, which resulted in the formulation of the Loftin phase, is widely accepted today (O'Brien and Wood 1998; Perttula 1983, 1989; Sabo and Early 1990). Later, James Brown (1984) exposed the myth that the southwestern Ozarks was a cultural enclave that lagged behind Mississippian developments in other parts of the Trans-Mississippi South.