First published in 1992 and now updated with a new preface by the author and a foreword by Thomas R. Hester, "The Caddo Nation" investigates the early contacts between the Caddoan peoples of the present-day Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas region and Europeans, including the Spanish, French, and some Euro-Americans.

Perttula's study explores Caddoan cultural change from the perspectives of both archaeological data and historical, ethnographic, and archival records. The work focuses on changes from A.D. 1520 to ca. A.D. 1800 and challenges many long-standing assumptions about the nature of these changes.

• Foreword by Thomas R. Hester
• Preface to the Paperback Edition
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Contact and Theoretical Issues
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. European Contact with the Caddo Nation: An Overview
  • 3. Archaeology and the Contact Era: Theory and Methodology
• Part 2. Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Issues
  • 4. The Archaeological Record in the Caddoan Area, 1520-1685
  • 5. The Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Record in the Caddoan Area, 1685-1800
  • 6. Special Aspects of the Eighteenth-Century Caddoan Archaeological Record
• Part 3. Summary
• Conclusions and Future Prospects
• Appendix
• The Chronological Sequence in the Titus Phase of Northeast Texas
• Notes
• References
• Index