DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker in Wood County tells it, here's the story as I know it. It starts the way so many old secrets do — not with a scholar or an explorer, but with a road crew. November 1966, somebody's out there building a road, turning up earth that hadn't been turned in a long, long time, and what they found got reported right away.
That was the right call. Come January 1967, researchers moved in and studied eight graves. Eight.
And here's where the story gets its weight — those bone fragments were so old, so deep in time, that the moment they touched open air, they crumbled. Just gone. The earth had been holding them together all those centuries, and the light of day was too much.
Pieces of pottery survived the unearthing, though. Found in the cemetery itself, and in six villages spread out through the vicinity. Six villages.
This wasn't a waystation or a campsite. People lived here. The artifacts they left behind — grindstones, water jugs, skinning stones, and a jar still holding red paint — suggest the area may have been inhabited somewhere around 1200 to 1500 A.D.
Possibly even earlier than that. The Caddo Indians, the marker tells us, an agricultural people with a highly advanced culture. And if you think one cemetery is something, the marker notes there are others nearby, still out there, still waiting.
Wood County keeps its secrets well — but every now and then, a road crew asks the right question.
What the marker says
Found during road-building operations and reported Nov. 1966. In Jan. 1967, eight graves were studied, but the bone fragments unearthed were so old that they crumbled upon exposure to air. Pieces of pottery were also found in the cemetery and in six villages in the vicinity. Grindstones, a jar with red paint, water jugs, and skinning stones suggest that the area may have been inhabited about 1200 to 1500 A.D., and possibly at an earlier time, by the Caddo Indians, an agricultural people with a highly advanced culture. Other cemeteries exist nearby. (1968)