Editing Lincoln Parish, Louisiana (section)

==History==
Since the late 20th century, [[archeologists]] have dated eleven sites in northern Louisiana where thousands of years ago, [[indigenous cultures]] built complexes with multiple, monumental earthwork mounds during the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Middle Archaic period]], long before the development of sedentary, agricultural societies. At sites such as [[Watson Brake]], Frenchman's Bend, and Caney, generations of hunter-gatherers worked for hundreds of years to build and add to mound complexes. Hedgepeth Site, located in Lincoln Parish, is dated about 5200–4500 BP (about 3300–2600 BCE), from the latter part of this period. Such finds are changing the understanding of early human cultures.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ccsmpug-xaoC&dq=Hedgepeth+Middle+Archaic+site&pg=PA177 Robert W. Preucel, Stephen A. Mrozowski, ''Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism,'' John Wiley and Sons, 2010, p. 177]</ref>

The parish was one of several new ones established by the state legislature during [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]]; in 1873 it was formed from land that had belonged to [[Bienville Parish|Bienville]], [[Claiborne Parish|Claiborne]], [[Jackson Parish|Jackson]] and [[Union Parish|Union]] parishes to create one in which newly elected representatives might have more ties to the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]]. It was an attempt to break up the old order of political power, and to capitalize on the arrival of the railroad line. The parish is named for the late U.S. president [[Abraham Lincoln]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Gannett|first=Henry|title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ|year=1905|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n186 187]}}</ref>

Lincoln Parish is usually Republican in contested elections. In 2012, Republican presidential nominee [[Mitt Romney]] won the parish with 10,739 votes (56.5 percent) to [[U.S. President]] [[Barack H. Obama]], the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] who polled 7,956 ballots (41.9 percent).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/11062012/11062012_31.html |title=Lincoln Parish election returns, November 6, 2012|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.gov|access-date=November 17, 2012}}</ref>