History of Texas - Pre-Columbian History

Pre-Columbian History

Texas lies at the juncture of two major cultural spheres of Pre-Columbian North America, the Southwestern and the Plains areas. The area now covered by Texas comprised three major indigenous cultures which had reached their developmental peak prior to the arrival of European explorers and are known from archaeology. These are

• the Pueblo from the upper Rio Grande region, centered west of Texas;
• the Mound Builder culture of the Mississippi Valley region, centered east of Texas, ancestral to the Caddo nation;
• the civilizations of Mesoamerica, centered south of Texas. Influence of Teotihuacan in northern Mexico peaked around AD 500 and declined over the 8th to 10th centuries.

The Paleo-Indians that lived in Texas between 9200 – 6000 BC may have links to Clovis and Folsom cultures; these nomadic people hunted mammoths and bison latifrons using atlatls. They extracted Alibates flint from quarries in the panhandle region.

Beginning during the 4th millennium BC, the population of Texas increased despite experiencing a changing climate and the extinction of giant mammals. Many pictograms drawn on the walls of caves or on rocks are visible in the state, including at Hueco Tanks and Seminole Canyon.

Native Americans in East Texas began to settle in villages shortly after 500 BC, farming and building the first burial mounds. They were influenced by the Mound Builder civilizations that lived in the Mississippi basin. In the Trans-Pecos area, populations were influenced by Mogollon culture.

From the 8th century, the bow and arrow appeared in the region, manufacture of pottery developed and Native Americans increasingly depended on bison for survival. Obsidian objects found in various Texan sites attest of trade with cultures in present day Mexico and the Rocky Mountains.

No one culture was dominant in the present-day Texas region and many different peoples inhabited the area. Native American tribes that lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include the Alabama, Apache, Atakapan, Bidai, Caddo, Coahuiltecan, Comanche, Cherokee, Choctaw, Coushatta, Hasinai, Jumano, Karankawa, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Tonkawa, and Wichita. The name Texas derives from táyshaʼ, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies."

Native Americans determined the fate of European explorers and settlers depending on whether a tribe was kind or warlike. Friendly tribes taught newcomers how to grow indigenous crops, prepare foods, and hunting methods for wild game. Warlike tribes made life unpleasant, difficult and dangerous for explorers and settlers through their attacks and resistance to European conquest.

A remnant of the Choctaw tribe in East Texas still lives in the Mt. Tabor Community near Amberly, Texas. Currently, there are three federally-recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas.