SPIRO, Okla — Starting May 13, the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center invites the public to observe on-site excavations performed by the University of Oklahoma (OU) and the Oklahoma Archeological Survey (OAS) this month.
"It's just so rare," Director of the Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center Anna Vincent said. "It's not something that you get to see every day, so it really presents a unique opportunity not just for the public, but for me as well."
Under the guidance of OU and OAS faculty, students of OU's Archaeological Field School will be conducting the excavation for an undergraduate credit.
According to Anthropology Professor at the University of Oklahoma Patrick Livingood, 24 undergraduate and three graduate students will be joining three professors in this project.
"We don't know a whole lot about the buildings that were in here at the site off of the mountains, and so we're hoping to learn more about that this summer," Livingood said.
Before excavating, Livingood said the group used remote sensing equipment to look for disturbances and anomalies in the ground. Livingood added they located three sites where there could have potentially been structures.
Livingood said soil removal is deliberate, controlled, and meticulous to best preserve the land.
With a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and authorization from the Caddo Nation and Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, the center says the goal of this project is to preserve and understand the region's cultural heritage.
"Spiro is a famous site archaeologist have been doing work here for over 110 years, but for the most part, that attention has all been on the earthen mounds," Livingood said. " We don't know a whole lot about what daily life was like here at the site, and so I'm hoping our work this summer will help contribute, especially in the area right around 1200 A.D."
Livingood added that research like this is not just important for the site, but for this history of those who lived there as well.
"I'm hoping that folks like you who are visiting this kind of project will bring more attention to Spiro and get more people interested in it," Livingood said. "Hopefully people get more interested in the descendants of this site, the Caddo and Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, who deserve more attention and more people to know about what things they've accomplished."
The Spiro Mounds — located in present-day LeFlore County — is one of Oklahoma's most significant Indigenous sites and the only Pre-European Contact Indigenous archaeological site in the state to be open to the public.
While the excavation is underway this month, the public is invited to view the process firsthand. Until June 14, the public can come to the site from Tuesday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. as long as weather permits.
"The goal is to shed light on the daily lives of ancient inhabitants, providing invaluable insights into the history and culture of Spiro," the center says.
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