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132 I Dan E Morse and Phyllis A. Morse lar, at least nine rare head vessels are thought to be from Pecan Point. Much of the site was washed into the Mississippi River during a flood. Pecan Point may still have once served as the capital of the Nodena phase. The Bradley site may have emerged later as a new capital, strategically located to better control vassal territories downstream or in response to changes in inheritance of the office of paramount chief. However, recent investigation of the Bradley site region indicates that this region was an important center since early Marksville times. Morse (1989:3-6) has initiated further research on Bradley Ridge to test this identification as the site of Pacaha. Four Late Mississippian/protohistoric Nodena phase sites have been mapped on Bradley Ridge. They ranged from 1.7 to 11.2 hectares in size. Grab samples were collected from each of these sites. It was concluded that one of the two largest, 3CT7, was probably the town of Pacaha . A large portion of the site was destroyed when the Mississippi River levee was built and much of it was covered by the levee. A large flat-topped mound is still present because of the presence of a nineteenth-century cemetery on top. A large and long aboriginal borrow pit on one side of the site reinforces the identification of 3CT7 as Pacaha, as this could be the canal that led from Pacaha to the River Grande. The de Soto accounts describe other "large towns" half a league to a league away, which correspond to the locations of 3CT40, 3CT43, and 3CT245. De Soto sent a small exploratory party out from Pacaha to reconnoiter the area to the northwest (Biedma 19°4:29-3°). They went through a wilderness and found wide plains and some isolated hunters. A site in the Western Lowlands area has been identified as a middle-period Mississippian mound center that was reoccupied by late-period Mississippian hunters (Morse 1986b). Nodena points are found at this and other nearby sites. It was concluded that the de Soto party encountered hunters out on a summer hunt from an agricultural society with towns at least 50 kilometers to the south. More evidence supporting the Hudson de Soto route in Arkansas was discovered by Scott Akridge (1986). After leaving Coligua (on the White River near Batesville), the Spaniards found a salt spring and distilled some salt. The only historically recorded salt location in this area of Arkansas is at Liberty Valley near Bald Knob. Akridge found a description of a Confederate salt manufacture there, where eleven kettles were destroyed by Union forces. It is no wonder that the de Soto expedition traveled to Pacaha, but first detoured to Casqui to make an alliance to augment the European army. One archaeologist cannot hope to cope with the enormity of the task of adequately recording such a population. To date, no university program, with the exception of the Arkansas Archeological Survey, has focused attention on this important region. Treasure hunting and site destruction on a scale unheard of in other regions of the United States are rapidly destroying even these huge sites. The Parkin site has been purchased by the Arkansas State Park system and Northeast Arkansas I 133 the Archaeological Conservancy, and its development as an archaeological research center began in July 1990. A resident archaeologist, assistant, and crew began excavations then. It is hoped that this will be the start of a program to preserve other sites in the area. A few sites existed into the seventeenth century. Two clusters of sites, both end points of the Nodena phase, are emerging as seventeenth-century survivals: Campbell and nearby sites in southeast Missouri and the sites on Bradley Ridge. We are attempting to get at least measurements of sites and grab samples for showing relationships between sites to salvage some record of this period (Morse 1989). The Historic Connection Who were the seventeenth-century survivors of European disease and Indian warfare? We still think that the Quapaw had their immediate antecedents in northeast Arkansas. The usual interpretation of Quapaw genesis is that they emerged mysteriously from outside Arkansas just in time to meet Marquette and Jolliet in 1673 near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Arkansas derives its name from the Algonquian name for the Quapaw, the Akansea, but the non-Indian population of Arkansas has never really accepted the Quapaw as Arkansas Indians . The Nodena phase lasted in...

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