Archaeologists describe the Washita River Phase of Wichita occupation from 1250 to 1450, when local populations grewand villages of up to twenty houses were spaced every two or so miles along the rivers. These farmers may have had contact with the Panhandle culture villages in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, farming villages along the Canadian River. The Panhandle villagers showed signs of adopting cultural characteristics of the Pueblo peoples of the Rio Grande Valley, with whom they interacted. In the late fifteenth century, most of these Washita River villages were abandoned for reasons that are not known today.