Editing Louisiana (section)

=== Pre–colonial history ===
{{further|Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands}}
[[File:Watson Brake Aerial Illustration HRoe 2014.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Watson Brake]], the oldest mound complex in North America]]
The area of Louisiana is the place of origin of the [[Mound Builders]] culture during the Middle [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic period]], in the [[4th millennium BC]]. The sites of Caney and Frenchman's Bend have been securely dated to 5600–5000 [[Before Present|BP]] (about 3700–3100 BC), demonstrating that seasonal hunter-gatherers from around this time organized to build complex earthwork constructions in what is now northern Louisiana. The [[Watson Brake]] site near present-day [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]] has an eleven-mound complex; it was built about 5400 BP (3500 BC).<ref>[http://www.archaeology.org/9801/newsbriefs/mounds.html Amélie A. Walker, "Earliest Mound Site"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100227043152/http://www.archaeology.org/9801/newsbriefs/mounds.html |date=February 27, 2010 }}, ''Archaeology Magazine'', Volume 51 Number 1, January/February 1998</ref> These discoveries overturned previous assumptions in archaeology that such complex mounds were built only by cultures of more settled peoples who were dependent on maize cultivation. The Hedgepeth Site in [[Lincoln Parish, Louisiana|Lincoln Parish]] is more recent, dated to 5200–4500 BP (3300–2600 BC).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ccsmpug-xaoC&q=Hedgepeth+Middle+Archaic+site&pg=PA177 |title=Robert W. Preucel, Stephen A. Mrozowski, ''Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism'', John Wiley and Sons, 2010, p. 177 |date=May 10, 2010 |access-date=April 23, 2014 |isbn=9781405158329 |last1=Preucel |first1=Robert W |last2=Mrozowski |first2=Stephen A |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220153248/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ccsmpug-xaoC&q=Hedgepeth+Middle+Archaic+site&pg=PA177 |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Poverty Point Aerial HRoe 2014.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|[[Poverty Point]] [[UNESCO]] site]]

Nearly 2,000 years later, [[Poverty Point]] was built; it is the largest and best-known Late Archaic site in the state. The city of modern–day [[Epps, Louisiana|Epps]] developed near it. The [[Poverty Point culture]] may have reached its peak around 1500 BC, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture in North America.<ref>[http://www.deltablues.net/jon.html Jon L. Gibson, PhD, "Poverty Point: The First Complex Mississippi Culture"], 2001, ''Delta Blues'', accessed October 26, 2009 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131207234411/http://www.deltablues.net/jon.html |date=December 7, 2013 }}</ref> It lasted until approximately 700 BC.

The Poverty Point culture was followed by the [[Tchefuncte culture|Tchefuncte]] and Lake Cormorant cultures of the [[Tchula period]], local manifestations of Early [[Woodland period]]. The Tchefuncte culture were the first people in the area of Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery.<ref name="Tchefuncte">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/dataprojects/archaeology/tchefuncte/|title=Tchefuncte|access-date=June 1, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331120414/http://www.crt.state.la.us/dataprojects/archaeology/tchefuncte/|archive-date=March 31, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> These cultures lasted until 200 AD. The Middle Woodland period started in Louisiana with the [[Marksville culture]] in the southern and eastern part of the state, reaching across the Mississippi River to the east around Natchez,<ref name="Prehistory">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/laprehis/marca.htm |title=Louisiana Prehistory-Marksville, Troyville-Coles Creek, and Caddo |access-date=February 4, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081215051856/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/laprehis/marca.htm |archive-date=December 15, 2008 }}</ref> and the [[Fourche Maline culture]] in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture was named after the [[Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site]] in [[Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana|Avoyelles Parish]].
[[File:Troyville Earthworks HRoe 2017sm.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|[[Troyville Earthworks]], once the second tallest earthworks in North America]]

These cultures were contemporaneous with the [[Hopewell tradition|Hopewell cultures]] of present-day [[Ohio]] and [[Illinois]], and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the [[bow (weapon)|bow]] and [[arrow]].<ref name="OASPAST">{{cite web|url=http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/latimer.htm|title=OAS-Oklahomas Past|access-date=February 6, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100531183817/http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/latimer.htm|archive-date=May 31, 2010}}</ref> The first [[burial mound]]s were built at this time.<ref name="TejasWoodland" /> Political power began to be consolidated, as the first [[platform mound]]s at ritual centers were constructed for the developing hereditary political and religious leadership.<ref name="TejasWoodland">{{cite web|url=http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/ancestors/woodland.html|title=Tejas-Caddo Ancestors-Woodland Cultures|access-date=February 6, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029090229/http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/ancestors/woodland.html|archive-date=October 29, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref>

By 400 the [[Late Woodland period]] had begun with the [[Baytown culture]], [[Troyville culture]], and Coastal Troyville during the Baytown period and were succeeded by the [[Coles Creek culture]]s. Where the Baytown peoples built dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers.<ref name="HANDBOOK">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JH-TPFjLk4C&pg=PA552|title=Handbook of North American Indians : Southeast|author=Raymond Fogelson|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|date=September 20, 2004|isbn=978-0-16-072300-1|access-date=December 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231200726/https://books.google.com/books?id=3JH-TPFjLk4C&pg=PA552|archive-date=December 31, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Southeastern Prehistory : Late Woodland Period|url=http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/04-woodland/index-3.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128232856/http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/04-woodland/index-3.htm|archive-date=January 28, 2012|access-date=October 23, 2011|publisher=National Park Service}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWm6FYXp50wC&q=troyville+culture |title=Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives |editor1=Timothy P Denham |editor2=José Iriarte |editor3=Luc Vrydaghs |publisher=Left Coast Press |date=December 10, 2008 |pages=199–204 |isbn=978-1-59874-261-9 |access-date=December 31, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231172006/https://books.google.com/books?id=fWm6FYXp50wC&q=troyville+culture#v=snippet&q=troyville%20culture&f=false |archive-date=December 31, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> Population increased dramatically and there is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period [[morgue|mortuary]] mounds. Scholars have speculated that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority.<ref>{{Cite book|last= Kidder |first= Tristram |editor= R. Barry Lewis |editor2=Charles Stout |title= Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces |publisher= [[University of Alabama Press]] |year= 1998 |isbn= 978-0-8173-0947-3 }}</ref>

The [[Mississippian culture|Mississippian period]] in Louisiana was when the [[Plaquemine culture|Plaquemine]] and the [[Caddoan Mississippian culture]]s developed, and the peoples adopted extensive maize agriculture, cultivating different strains of the plant by saving seeds, selecting for certain characteristics, etc. The Plaquemine culture in the lower [[Mississippi River]] Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana began in 1200 and continued to about 1600. Examples in Louisiana include the [[Medora site]], the archaeological [[type site]] for the culture in West Baton Rouge Parish whose characteristics helped define the culture,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/05-mississippian/index.htm |title=Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period |access-date=September 8, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607164259/http://www.nps.gov/seac/outline/05-mississippian/index.htm |archive-date=June 7, 2008 }}</ref> the [[Atchafalaya Basin Mounds]] in St. Mary Parish,<ref name="REES">{{cite book|editor1-last=Rees|editor1-first=Mark A.|editor2-last=Livingood|editor2-first=Patrick C.| author=Rees, Mark A. | chapter= Plaquemine Mounds of the western Atchafalaya Basin |title= Plaquemine Archaeology| publisher= University of Alabama Press |year=2007|pages=84–93}}</ref> the [[Fitzhugh Mounds]] in Madison Parish,<ref name="FITZHUGH">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/fitzhugh.html|title=Indian Mounds of Northeast Louisiana:Fitzhugh Mounds|access-date=October 20, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121224104816/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/fitzhugh.html|archive-date=December 24, 2012}}</ref> the [[Scott Place Mounds]] in Union Parish,<ref name="SCOTTPLACE">{{cite web|url=http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/scottplace.html|title=Indian Mounds of Northeast Louisiana:Scott Place Mounds|access-date=October 20, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121225083457/http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/moundsguide/scottplace.html|archive-date=December 25, 2012}}</ref> and the [[Sims site]] in St. Charles Parish.<ref name="WEINSTEIN2008">{{cite journal |journal=Southeastern Archaeology |title=The spread of shell-tempered ceramics along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico |volume=27 |issue=2 |year=2008 |author1=Weinstein, Richard A. |author2=Dumas, Ashley A. |url=http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425141409/http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |archive-date=April 25, 2012 }}</ref>

Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture that is represented by its largest settlement, the [[Cahokia]] site in Illinois east of [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. At its peak Cahokia is estimated to have had a population of more than 20,000. The Plaquemine culture is considered ancestral to the historic [[Natchez people|Natchez]] and [[Taensa]] peoples, whose descendants encountered Europeans in the colonial era.<ref name="The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000">{{cite web | url = http://bcn.boulder.co.us/environment/cacv/cacvbrvl.htm | title = The Plaquemine Culture, A.D 1000 | access-date = September 8, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120210023033/http://bcn.boulder.co.us/environment/cacv/cacvbrvl.htm | archive-date = February 10, 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

By 1000 in the northwestern part of the state, the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians occupied a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast [[East Texas|Texas]], and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present. The [[Caddo]] and related [[Caddoan languages|Caddo-language]] speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact were the direct ancestors of the modern [[Caddo Nation of Oklahoma]] of today.<ref name="TejasLinguistics">{{cite web | url= http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/languages.html | title= Tejas-Caddo Fundamentals-Caddoan Languages and Peoples | access-date= February 4, 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100310203249/http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/languages.html | archive-date= March 10, 2010 | url-status= dead }}</ref> Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include [[Belcher Mound Site]] in [[Caddo Parish, Louisiana|Caddo Parish]] and [[Gahagan Mounds Site]] in Red River Parish.<ref name="NAGRRA">{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/fed_notices/nagpradir/nic0419.html|title=Notice of Inventory Completion for Native American Human Remains and Associated Funerary Objects in the Possession of the Louisiana State University Museum|access-date=February 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106035503/http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/fed_notices/nagpradir/nic0419.html|archive-date=November 6, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>

Many current place names in Louisiana, including [[Atchafalaya River|Atchafalaya]], Natchitouches (now spelled [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]]), Caddo, [[Houma, Louisiana|Houma]], [[Tangipahoa]], and [[Avoyel]] (as [[Avoyelles]]), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages.