The Barkman Site (41BW693) in the Red River Valley in Northeast Texas

Abstract

The Barkman site (41BW693) is an ancestral Caddo settlement on a natural alluvial rise in the Red River floodplain in Bowie County, Texas (Figure 1). The rise is on the north side of Clear Lake, an old river channel and now an oxbow lake, about 140 meters northwest of the large platform mound at the Hatchel site (41BW3, see Perttula 2014, 2015, 2018). The Hatchel site is a major ancestral Caddo village and mound center on a natural levee deposit in the floodplain of the Red River in Bowie County, Texas, just a few kilometers west of the Arkansas state line, and on the south side of Clear Lake. The platform mound and the main part of the associated village overlooks two channel lakes of the river; these likely were part of the channel of the river when the site was occupied by the Caddo. The Hatchel site was occupied by the Caddo from at least A.D. 1040 to the late 17th century, and the Barkman site appears to have been occupied contemporaneously much of the time with this ancestral Caddo village and mound center.