It is significant as “the only prehistoric pyramidal mound center known south of Benton in the middle of the Saline River valley, and the only known late prehistoric mound center in the Saline River basin north of the Felsenthal region.” The site was an center of society and religion on the northeastern edge of the Caddoan civilization, and was possibly the closest Caddoan center to the prehistoric Quapaw centers in the Arkansas River valley.
In the 19th century, Robert Latham suggested that the Siouan languages are related to the Caddoan and Iroquoian languages.
The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeastern Texas, and northwestern Louisiana.
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Major sites such as Spiro and the Battle Mound Site are in the Arkansas River and Red River Valleys, the largest and most fertile of the waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive.