The Smithport Landing Site is in the eastern edge of De Soto Parish,
about eight miles east of Mansfield, the Parish seat (Fig. 1). It is a
relatively large village site situated on eroded and dissected hills
which project in an expanded tongue of land fronting on Old Smithport or
Clear Lake (Bayou Pierre Lake). The former lake bed is now dry in the
summer, swampy during the rainy season. Buffalo Bayou courses through
this low area to join the outflow of present Smithport Lake about one
mile northeast of the site. Further eastward this drainage flows into
Bayou Pierre which continues some 20 miles down the southwestern margin
of the Red River flood plain until it empties into this river near
Natchitoches.
The hills on which the site is located (Fig. 2) are 10 to 20 feet above
the lake bed; where dissected by small drainages the slope is gentle,
but in several places is abrupt. Most of the site was formerly in
cultivation and the topsoil, a grayish sand with liberal mixture of
humus, is three to four feet thick and apparently fertile. The subsoil
is a rather dense, reddish or orange sandy clay. The trees around the
site are oak, persimmon, gum, and many smaller hawthorns and sassafras.
The uplands have heavy growths of pine and the lake bed has the usual
cypress, willows, and some hardwoods. The nearby lakes still have
abundant fish—bass, crappie, “bream” and other small perches, as well as
the “rough” varieties like gar, carp, catfish, shad, and
“gasper-gou”—and turtles, eels, bullfrogs, snakes, and an occasional
alligator are present. Bird species are abundant and in former years
migratory waterfowl came in tremendous numbers. Edible wild fruits and
nuts in the area are persimmons, haws, crab apples, plums, muscadines
and other wild grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, pecans, chinquapins (dwarf
chestnuts), yoncapins (seed of _Nelumbo lutea_, a water lily), and many
others. Deer were present until the early part of the 20th century and
are now returning; squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and opossums are the
more prevalent of the edible animals. Mussels and snails are available
in moderate numbers. In aboriginal and early historic times this
vicinity afforded, undoubtedly, an abundance of natural resources, with
good soil and adequate rainfall for domestic crops.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Map of northwestern Louisiana and adjoining
portion of eastern Texas. Listed sites have Alto Focus or related
components. Note route of the early historic road, El Camino Real,
which probably followed prehistoric trails through this area.]