The Caddo people are thought to be an extension of Woodland period peoples, the Fourche Maline and Mossy Grove cultures, whose members were living in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas between 200 BCE and 800 CE.

The Wichita and Pawnee are related to the Caddo, as both tribes speak Caddoan languages.

By 800 CE, this society had begun to coalesce into the Caddoan Mississippian culture.

Some villages begin to gain prominence as ritual centers.

Leaders direct the construction of major earthworks, serving as temple mounds and platforms for residences of the elite.

The flat-topped mounds are arranged around leveled, large, open plazas, which are usually kept swept clean and are often used for ceremonial occasions.

As complex religious and social ideas develop, some people and family lineages gain prominence over others.

A society that is defined by archaeologists as "Caddoan" had emerged by 1000 CE.

By 1200, the many villages, hamlets, and farmsteads established throughout the Caddo world have developed extensive maize agriculture, producing a surplus that allows for greater density of settlement.

Artisans and craftsmen develop specialties in these villages.

The fourteenth century saw significant population movements and cultural changes among Native American peoples across North America, though these occurred within distinct regional and linguistic contexts rather than as part of a unified migration.

Southwestern Pueblo Peoples The Keres people settled along the upper Rio Grande valley in what is now New Mexico. Along with their Tanoan-speaking neighbors and the Zuni and Hopi peoples to the west, these agricultural communities maintained their pueblo settlements during a period when many other Southwestern agricultural societies experienced decline or abandonment. The fourteenth century marked important transitions for Ancestral Pueblo peoples, with many groups migrating from the Four Corners region to areas with more reliable water sources.

Siouan Language Family The Siouan language family encompasses numerous distinct tribal groups across a vast geographic area. While some linguists have proposed connections between Siouan and other language families, including the isolated Yuchi language, these relationships remain unproven and controversial among specialists.

Siouan-speaking peoples include the Catawba of South Carolina and numerous other groups. The Missouri River branch includes the Mandan of the northern Great Plains (primarily in present-day North Dakota), the Absaroke (Crow) and Hidatsa, who share close linguistic and cultural ties. The Mississippi Valley Siouan speakers include the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota (collectively known as the Sioux), the Dhegiha groups (Omaha, Osage, Kansa, Ponca, and Quapaw), and the Chiwere-speaking peoples (including the Ho-Chunk/Winnebago). The southeastern branch included the now-extinct Tutelo, Ofo, and Biloxi languages.

Yuchi The Yuchi people, historically located in the southeastern United States including parts of present-day Tennessee and Georgia, spoke a language that most linguists classify as an isolate, though some researchers have suggested possible distant relationships to Siouan languages.

Caddoan Language Family The Caddoan language family includes the Caddo of the southern Plains and several northern groups. The Caddo proper inhabited areas of present-day Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The northern Caddoan groups include the Pawnee of the central Plains, the Arikara of the northern Plains (particularly along the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota), and the Wichita of the southern Plains.

The artistic skills and earthwork mound-building of the Caddoan Mississippians flourish during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The Spiro Mounds, near the Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Oklahoma, are some of the most elaborate mounds in the United States.

They are made by Mississippian ancestors of the historic Caddo and Wichita tribes, in what is considered the westernmost point of the Mississippian culture.

The Caddo are farmers and enjoy good growing conditions most of the time.

The Piney Woods, the geographic area where they live, is affected by the Great Drought from 1276–1299 CE, which covers an area extending to present-day California and disrupts many Native American cultures.

Archeological evidence has confirmed that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present among these peoples.

The Caddoan Mississippian people are the direct ancestors of the historic Caddo people and related Caddo-language speakers who will encounter the first Europeans, as well as of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.

The Iroquoian language family branches into two sub-families: ...

The Five Nations languages of the Northern branch include the Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga of New York as well as the Susquehannock of Pennsylvania.

Other languages of the Northern Branch are the Tuscarora of the Carolinas and the defunct Huron of southern Ontario.

The Cherokee of the southern Appalachians represent the Southern branch.

A second, minority theory has the proto-Keresiouans arriving by sea at the mouths of the Mississippi, the Savannah, the rivers of the Carolina coast, Chesapeake Bay and the St. Lawrence River, then migrating their way up these rivers, their language diverging over a period of years, decades or centuries into mutually unintelligible dialects.

One problem with this theory is that there are only three known seafaring groups among the Amerinds: the primitive Ciboney, who may have moved from Florida through the Bahamas to the Greater Antilles, the highly organized Arawaks, who island-hopped their way north from Venezuela during the first millennium of the common era, and the opportunistic Caribs, who didn’t start biting the heels of the Antillean Arawaks until the fourteenth century.

The Arawaks accorded their women a relatively high place in society; some even became caciques, or chiefs; many of the Keresiouan-speaking nations also made a place for women in their councils and granted them a number of rights denied to women of Algonquian-speaking nations.

The Algonquian Amerinds think of the Iroquoians as immigrant foreigners, albeit fierce and powerful ones.

The Five Nations tradition places their origin to the East.

Conventional scholarship postulates the development of the Keresiouan group as taking place on the Great Plains, making them possible members of the seventh millennium Plano Point Culture.

This theory has the Keres moving west to become pueblo-dwellers, the Cherokee, Catawba, Tuscarora and Yuchi moving southeast to the Appalachians and the Carolina seaboard, the Caddoans moving south, the Siouans moving east to Lake Michigan and southeast to the Gulf, the Hurons moving to the north of the Ontario-Erie-St. Lawrence complex and the Five Nations and Susquehannocks moving to the south of the Lakes and River.