Caddo Canoe Discovered
14th Century Caddo Canoe, 34 feet in length with seating at each end.
Seating at each end of the 14th Century Caddo Canoe.
CADDO PARISH, LA - A Caddo Parish couple say they stumbled on a rare piece of history while riding around near Red River.
Jeanna Bradley posted the find to her Facebook page June 9.
It immediately gained traction with many people amazed by the discovery.
An archaeologist came to assess the watercraft and determined it was a real Caddo Indian canoe, Bradley said.
The canoe measures 34 feet long and has benches on each end.
It belongs to ancestors of the Caddo Nation if the canoe dates to 12 A.D. or 11 A.D. as archaeologists think it does.
"Canoes are made out of wood; and wood generally does not preserve in acidic soils found in Louisiana," archaeologist Jeffrey Girard said.
"It was similar to a canoe found in 1983 that's now on exhibit at the (Louisiana State) Fair Grounds" in Shreveport.
Girard thinks the latest discovery is the largest prehistoric watercraft to have been found in North America.
The canoe was removed Wednesday.
More than a dozen people helped. The couple say it really was a community effort.
Now the canoe is en route to Texas A&M University to be preserved.
The university's campus in College Station, Texas, is home to the Conservation Research Laboratory, one of the oldest continuously operated conservation laboratories that deals primarily with archaeological material from shipwrecks and other underwater sites worldwide.
Preservation of the canoe means removing moisture from the wood and replacing it with a chemical that will keep the wood's cell structure intact, Girard said.
"I was pretty amazed. First one was quite amazing 30 years ago. So to find two was neat. And it's something that was very important, something that just had to be preserved."
The plan is to bring the canoe back to the ArkLaTex once it is preserved.
Officials are not yet sure where it will be displayed but say they are going to fight for it to stay here.
Bradley's post has drawn more than 1,100 comments and almost 3,600 likes and has been shared more than 3,000 times.
That makes sense for a find of this magnitude, Girard said.
"It draws so much attention because it is so rare. People can relate to it. It's something that a lot of people are interested in.
"People like fishing and riding out on the river," Girard continued. "And to see something about how they did that so long ago is just naturally of interest to people. They didn't have any nails or saws or anything like that. That's pretty cool."
Canoeing on the Red River
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