SITE FORMATION PROCESSES AT CRENSHAW (3MI6), A FOURCHE MALINE/CADDO SITE ALONG THE RED RIVER, SOUTHWEST ARKANSAS

The archaeological site of Crenshaw (3MI6) is a multi-mounded site in southwestern Arkansas in the Great Bend region of the Red River of the South, and it is this stream that dominates the formation processes documented at the site. Several years of coring have produced a record of sediment deposition and soil formation on and around the site. The environmental history preserved in the soil cores documents the natural context within which the Fourche Maline and Caddo occupations existed.

Ancient Fourche Maline and Caddo occupation of the site dates at least between A.D. 900 to A.D. 1400 and is fortuitously preserved within and on older intact sediment in an area surrounded by stream incision to the north, east, and south of the site. The most ancient paleochannel to the west of the site predates or is penecontemporaneous with initial site occupation. This partially filled western paleochannel was used as a borrow pit for mound construction by the site’s occupants. Oxbow lakes to the north and south were formed by channel abandonment shortly before A.D. 1912 and A.D. 1864, respectively. Sediment within the site area was primarily deposited and partially buried the site through vertical accretion when the Red River occupied more distant channel positions, probably during site occupation. Later crevasse splay deposition from the various nearby historic Red River channels further buried the site after it was abandoned.