The Cowboy exhibits ancient artifacts from Spiro Mounds

Vicki Clark Gourley
An artifact displayed a the Spiro Mounds exhibit.
Oklahoma’s Spiro Mounds is one of America’s most important ancient cultural and religious centers.
Now an exhibition at The Cowboy and Western Heritage Hall of Fame brings this to life.

An artifact displayed a the Spiro Mounds exhibit.


“American history should not be just who the Europeans encountered. This culture goes back thousands of years,” Dr. Eric Singleton, Curator of Ethnology, said.
However, what makes Spiro Mounds genuinely unique, is that it contained the largest assemblage of engraved, embossed, and carved objects of any presently known Mississippian site.
Containing 12 mounds and a population of several thousand, it was physically unremarkable.
But the contents, thousands of objects, created in various mediums, bear images of people, deities, deity impersonators, familiar animals and mysterious composite creatures.
Until 1400 AD, the Mississippian culture spread throughout the southeastern area of the United States, from the Florida Keys to Oklahoma.
Then the beginning of a new ice age brought the Mississippians together at Spiro. They believed by a “recreating” action; they could restart the weather.
In 1350, they built the Spiro Spirit Lodge, an earthen lodge built on a mound. They had different languages and architecture but shared a common religious ideology.
The ice age continued to worsen, and in 1400 the Spirit Lodge dwellers broke off into smaller groups.
These groups became separate tribes and are the probably the forerunners of the tribes we know today, including the Five Civilized Tribes.
“The quality, quantity, and variety of works found at Spiro are staggering,” Singleton said.
The site started to be looted, and, in 1933, the WPA took it over.
The Gilcrease Museum is the largest lender to the exhibition.
“The largest holder of Spiro Mounds artifacts is the University of Oklahoma likely,” said Singleton, the former Historical Curator of Anthropology at Gilcrease.
This exhibition is the first time these Spiroan artifacts have come together.
Singleton received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and several big-name private national endowments.
All known engraved shell and ritual artifacts come from this single site; specifically, Craig Mound, believes James Brown.
“We are incredibly pleased to announce this unparalleled exhibition, which will give proper honor and representation to the culture and historical impact of the Spiro people,” said Natalie Shirley, The Cowboy president and CEO. “Our staff has worked for years to create a world-class, exciting and collaborative presentation of a people who have been overlooked for too long.”