Journal Article

Baffles and Stockades: Entryway Construction at Southern Plains Fortifications, A.D. 1500-1850

Drass, Richard R., Perkins, Stephen M., Vehik, Susan C.

2019

Overview

Southern Plains archaeologists have for years reported piecemeal data suggesting that ancestors of the Wichita Indians periodically built fortifications. Since 2003, we have conducted archaeological and geophysical investigations at multiple Late Prehistoric and European contact era fortified Wichita sites occupied between about a.d. 1500 and a.d. 1811. We seek to better understand the areal extent, timing, and structural changes associated with facilities that appear to have functioned as redoubts (Drass, Perkins, and Vehik 2018). In this article, we focus on how the Wichita constructed and secured fortification entryways. Given the inherent vulnerability of entryways, architects across the globe have designed a variety of defensive configurations to confound attackers. For the Wichita, the introduction of horses and guns beginning in the 1600s magnified these challenges. Our findings indicate that baffled gates, often paired with fenced extended entryways, facilitated quick entry by defenders and dependents while serving as impediments to hostile intruders.

• Publisher: Routledge,Taylor & Francis, Ltd
• Subject: ancestral Wichita sites / baffled gates / Fortification entryway construction / geophysics / southern Plains