Grade 3: Social Studies Academic Standards

3.3.3 Describe American Indian pre-contact cultures that have inhabited what is now Oklahoma, such as the Spiro Mound Builders.

“Spiro Mounds: A Story of Prehistoric Oklahoma,” Crossroads

Oklahoma History Center Education Resources

Traveling Trunks
Archaeology
Okietales Archaeology

E-Exhibit
Archaeology in Oklahoma

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Robert L. Brooks, "Paleoenvironment"
Robert L. Brooks, "Prehistoric Native Peoples"
Robert L. Brooks, "Precontact Agriculture"
Susan C. Vehik, "Precontact Hunting Patterns"
Susan C. Vehik, "Precontact Trade Patterns"
Susan C. Vehik, "Coalesced Villagers"
Dennis A. Peterson, "Spiro Mounds"
Carolyn Garrett Pool, "Wichita"
Howard Meredith, "Caddo (Kadohadacho)"
Louis F. Burns, "Osage (tribe)"

Research Center Resources

Arrell Morgan Gibson, Spiro: The Golden Age (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1992)

I. C. Gunning, Prehistoric People of Oklahoma and Their Culture (Wilburton: Eastern Oklahoma Historical Society, 1975)

Audio/Visual

Online Primary Sources

“Red Ware,” Smithsonian Institution
“Shell Cameo – Bas Relief of Female Face,” Smithsonian Institution
“Shell Cameo – Bas Relief of Male Face,” Smithsonian Institution
“Stone Round Effigy Bowl,” Smithsonian Institution
“Clay, Gourd-Shaped Pot,” Smithsonian Institution
“Human Effigy, Wood,” Smithsonian Institution
“Shell Effigy, Human Head,” Smithsonian Institution
“Wichita Village on Rush Creek,” New York Public Library
“Lithographs of Osage Indians visiting Paris in 1827,” Edward E. Ayer Digital Collection, Newberry Library

Additional Resources

Don Wyckoff and Dennis Peterson, Spiro Mounds: Prehistoric Gateway…Present Day Enigma
“Spiro Mounds,” Atlas Obscura
“Caddo Fundamentals,” Texas Beyond History
“Spiro Farming: Corn, Squash and Beans Build a Mighty Trade Center,” Oklahoma Ag In the Classroom
David La Vere, Looting Spiro Mounds: an American King Tut's tomb (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007)
Caddo Nation
“Tribes of OK – Caddo Nation,” Oklahoma State Department of Education
Gordon Morris Bakken, The World of the American West: A Daily Life Encyclopedia