Changing Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley

9. The Langdon Site, Dunklin County, Missouri

9 The Langdon Site, Dunklin County, Missouri Robert C. Dunnell LANGDON IS A large Mississippian-period, fortified settlement on the edge of the Malden Plain in southern Dunklin County, Missouri. The Malden Plain is an erosional remnant of Pleistocene braided-stream deposits (O'Brien and Dunnell, Chapter 1) that flanks the eastern edge of Crowley's Ridge, extending from Dexter, Missouri, well into Arkansas, where the deposits are buried by more-recent alluvium of the meandering Mississippi River. Standing as much as 5 meters above the Mississippi floodplain, the Missouri portion of the plain was a fairly dry haven in an otherwise swampy morass. Consequently, it attracted settlement during both the prehistoric and historical periods (Van Frank 1891). The archaeological record of the Malden Plain is not particularly well known. The area was isolated from settlement and commerce related to the Mississippi River by as much as 50 kilometers of swamp until drainage ditches and the first hard-surfaced road to Hayti, in Pemiscot County, Missouri, were completed in 1917 (Bratton 1926). Before that time, connection with the outside world was principally by boat through the Little River-St. Francis river systems for southern Dunklin County and, after 1877, by rail by way of Dexter for Stoddard County, Missouri, and northern Dunklin County (Bradley 1951). As a result of this isolation, archaeological resources of the area were overlooked by most early investigators. Following Crowley's Ridge south, Cyrus Thomas's archaeological scouts, in this area 1. H. Thing, recorded two important sites: Rich Woods, an enormous Mississippian site with at least thirty-two mounds (Figure 9-1), and County Line, a ditched Mississippian enclosure apparently without mounds (Thomas 1894:174-83; see also Leeds 1979; Teltser 1988, 1992) (Figure 9-1). Despite the obvious promise of the region, Thing found conditions in southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas too unbearable to persist, as witnessed by his correspondence with Thomas: "As the water there was very high, I abandoned work there entirely. I was obliged to take my specimens to the railroad in a dug out. ... I could have found some whole pots there (Webb Place), but as soon as I dug a hole it would fill with water and I could not see what I was doing" (Thing to Thomas 18831). Indeed, everywhere Thing went he was faced with water, and all of his letters to Thomas make mention of the problems for collecting and transporting thus posed. 200 Langdon Site in Missouri I 201 .. ______ n:~N&S$& MISSISSIPPI Figure 9-1. Map of the central Mississippi Valley showing locations of physiographic features and archaeological sites mentioned in the text. 202 I Dunnell The Malden Plain likewise was spared the attentions of Clarence B. Moore, though the reasons, albeit related to the isolated nature of the area, were somewhat different: It was not possible to take on the St. Francis above its union with the Little River.... Our quest ... on Little River ... came to an end owing to the hostility against negroes, entertained by the natives along the river above Lepanto, who maintained a negro deadline, permitting no colored person go among them. As this race prejudice has resulted in the murder of a number of negroes, we did not deem it fair to expose to slaughter men who had served us faithfully for years. (Moore 1910:256) Langdon was well known locally from the earliest European settlement in the 1830s. The site was bisected by the main north-south road connecting Kennett , the county seat, and Hornersville, the "port" of the county and the northernmost navigable point on Little River. The main pyramidal mound at Langdon lay only a few meters east of the thoroughfare and from the 1880s onward was the site of the residence of one of south Dunklin County's leading families. Local histories (e.g., Smith-Davis 1896:12) take note of all major mound groups, including Langdon. The first extralocal account of Langdon and other major sites of the southern Malden Plain, however, was published in Louis Houck's A History ofMissouri (1908). Houck commissioned two men, Lewis M. Bean and D. L. Hoffman, to "accurately and definitively locate every mound and settlement of the[se] prehistoric denizens of the state" (Houck 1908:41) before they were obliterated by "the plowshare and the ignorance of destroying man" (Houck 1908:41). All of the Dunklin County works are relegated to a single footnote , where the...