CADDO ARTIFACTS - THE SMOKING GUN: Researchers find a 
smoking gun ... or at least the musket balls ... that connect 
two parks ... we'll explain on Passport to Texas.
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

It's seemed obvious that Mission Tejas SP and Caddoan 
Mounds SHS in east Texas had a shared history, but 
nobody could prove it - until now.

Spanish artifacts dating to the late 17th century, including 
musket balls, trade beads and part of a spur, were 
excavated recently from Mission Tejas. Todd McMakin is 
Cultural Resources Coordinator for the region.

These new excavations will allow us to form a link between 
Caddoan Mounds State Park and Mission Tejas State Park. We 
now have evidence on this state park that the contact period 
Caddo Indians were living in this area, and that they had a 
direct link with the Spanish. It is because of this Caddo Indian 
village that the Mission was established to begin with. And so, 
although we don't have the original mission, we do have the 
village site that the mission was create for. And so this is just 
fascinating stuff. We've got artifacts now that are pointing 
directly to that time period, so we know that we have this 
contact period Nabedache Caddo village site on our state park, 
and we are going to interpret that to the public so that when 
they come to the park they can not only enjoy the natural 
resources, but they can learn something about the Caddo 
Indians that lived in this area as well. :50

Learn more about these parks on the TPWD website.

That's our show. For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia 
Nasti.