A post from the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center:
Happy Birthday to the Spiro Mounds! 43 years ago today, the grounds and facility of the Spiro Mounds Archaeological State Park were dedicated and officially opened to the public. At the time the Spiro Mounds site was to be the first of 4 or 5 facilities dedicated to Oklahoma pre-European history. Proto historic (roughly between 1492 and 1800), Woodland Period (roughly A.D. 1 – 700), Archaic (7,000 BC – A.D. 1), Paleo-Indian 15,000 B.C. – 7,000 B.C.) and Pre-Paleo-Indian (before 15,000 B.C.). Because of funding difficulties (Oklahoma and the nation when into a recession) and some other issues, only Spiro Mounds was created to tell the story before the removal in Indian Territory or Oklahoma. We have an incredible past in this region and most of the Spiro Mounds story gets told very well. Maybe in the future we can tell more? That is not to say that many museums in Oklahoma don’t display artifacts and information about their regions and the people there before the historic period but seeing the geography and the artifacts in place is very different. (From a Facebook post by Dennis Petersen.)