BOSSIER FOCUS
Between A.D. 1100 and 1200 the early Caddo culture was changing into a simpler culture that has been named Bossier, for the parish in which it was first discovered (Webb 1948a). The large centers faded out or were inhabited by small groups. The people seem to have been secure, not menaced, and beginning to spread out along the streams in small settlements or family homesteads. Local materials were used and few exotic objects have been found. Burial customs became simpler, usually single graves with a few offerings and situated near the home or in small cemeteries. The pottery of the Bossier folk was of good quality and still had some of the decoration by engraving, incising, and punctating techniques of the earlier period, but increasing amounts of everyday wares were decorated by simple brushing (similar to Plaquemine pottery of eastern and southern Louisiana).
Between Caddo Lake and Natchitoches the location of settlements in the Red River Valley almost disappeared at this time, possibly signifying the beginning of the Great Raft. The villages and hamlets were on the lateral streams, lakes, and into the uplands, along virtually every watercourse. A calm period of pastoral life is indicated and probably lasted until it was shattered in 1542 by Moscoso’s tattered Spanish army and the subsequent arrival of other Europeans.
One such hamlet or family homestead of Bossier people is under study at the Montgomery site in upper Webster Parish at the Springhill Airport (Webb and Jeane 1977). The people seem to have lived here long enough for their thatched roof, clay-daubed houses to have been repaired and relocated a number of times, leaving numerous post molds. Their simple tools and arrow points were made of local cherts; ornaments are missing and polished stone tools are rare. Residues of gathered or hunted food stuffs are present: hickory nuts, acorns, persimmons, mussels, turtle, fish, and deer bones. No corn, beans, or pumpkin seeds have been found, but they must have grown these crops and probably did so in gardens rather than in fields. Their pottery, as shown by broken sherds, ranged from rough culinary or storage pots to nicely engraved bowls and red-surfaced or engraved bottles.
Bossier Focus pottery from Mill Creek site, Lake Bistineau. Photos courtesy of Sergeant O. H. Davis.
Bossier Focus pottery from Mill Creek site, Lake Bistineau. Photos courtesy of Sergeant O. H. Davis.
A Bossier group of higher culture lived along Willow Chute, an old Red River channel in the valley east of Bossier City. Farming homesteads and hamlets are strung along its course and two large mounds—Vanceville and Werner—mark the Bossier ceremonial centers. Beneath the Werner mound, destroyed in the 1930’s, were the ruins of an immense lodge which was circular with a projecting entrance. The entire lodge measured eighty by ninety feet. It was probably ceremonial, or the lodge of aCaddi(chief), as few arrows, tools, or personal possessions were found. There were quantities of deer and other animal bones, fish and turtle bones, and mussel shells. Broken pottery in large amounts denoted feasts and the ceramics were of exceptional quality. No burials or whole vessels were found.
Each lateral lake along Red River—Black Bayou, Caddo, Wallace, Clear, and Smithport lakes on the west side; Bodcau, Bistineau, Swan, and Black lakes on the east—has Bossier period sites around its margins. Occupations continue westward to Sabine River and into eastern Texas, southward almost to Catahoula Lake, eastward along D’Arbonne and Corney bayous toward the Ouachita, and northward into Arkansas. Either late Bossier or Belcher people could have been in the populous Naguatex district described by the De Soto chroniclers, encountered just before the Spaniards crossed Red River.