Antelope Creek Phase

The Antelope Creek Phase was an American Indian culture in the Texas Panhandle and adjacent Oklahoma dating from 1200 to 1450 AD. The two most important areas where the Antelope Creek people lived were in the Canadian River valley centered on present-day Lake Meredith near the city of Borger, Texas and the Buried City complex in Wolf Creek valley near the town of Perryton, Texas. Settlements are also found in Oklahoma near the town of Guymon and the Beaver River. The Antelope Creek People were bison hunters, maize farmers, and foragers. They are best known for building large stone multi-family dwellings, unique on the Great Plains. Their culture blended Southwestern Pueblo and Great Plains characteristics.

The Antelope Creek Phase is also called the Antelope Creek Focus, the Panhandle Phase, the Optima Focus, and the Upper Canark Variant.

The origin of the Antelope Creek people is unknown. They were the most southwestern of the cultures making up the Plains Village Tradition which stretched from North Dakota to Texas and extended westward in river valleys from the eastern woodland into the Great Plains. The Plains Villagers adopted the cultivation of corn (maize) and by 900 AD they were living in semi-permanent villages along the watercourses traversing the plains, including, for example, the Washita and Canadian rivers in Oklahoma. By 1250 AD, these river valleys were heavily populated with villages of up to 20 houses situated about every two miles.

Most authorities believe that the Antelope Creek Phase was a western expansion of farming communities from Oklahoma into the Texas panhandle or an extension southward of similar farming communities from further north. Although farming was difficult in the dry climate of the Texas panhandle, other food resources such as bison were abundant. Bison or American buffalo are believed to have been uncommon on the southern Great Plains before 1000 AD. As the bison population expanded thereafter due to climatic conditions, they became the principal source of protein for people on the southern Plains and their abundance stimulated a growth in population and complexity of the hunting-gathering societies that had inhabited the region for thousands of years. Archaeological sites confirm increased exploitation of bison after 1200 AD.

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