Which pairing correctly matches a Native Texan group with a described cultural feature?

• A. Apache — farming villages; Karankawa — nomadic hunters
• B. Caddo — hunter-gatherer bands; Coahuiltecan — mound-building farmers
• C. Comanche — ceremonial mounds; Wichita — settled farming communities
• D. Caddo — civilian farming communities with ceremonial mounds; Coahuiltecan — hunter-gatherer people with nomadic bands

Answer: (D)

This question tests how Native Texan groups lived: where they settled and how they gained food. The Caddo in East Texas were settled farmers who built villages and used ceremonial mounds as central gathering and ritual spaces. That combination of farming communities with ceremonial mounds fits what we know about their towns and cultural life.

The Coahuiltecan in southern Texas were largely hunter-gatherers who moved in small, nomadic bands, following seasons and available game and plants. This nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle matches their environmental setting and mobility.

The other pairings mix lifestyles that don’t align with those groups: for example, Apache and Karankawa are associated more with nomadic or coastal hunter-gatherer patterns, Comanche with a highly mobile, horse-based lifestyle, and Wichita with Plains-era farming villages rather than ceremonial mound centers.

So the pairing that aligns best with historical descriptions is Caddo as civilian farming communities with ceremonial mounds, and Coahuiltecan as hunter-gatherer people with nomadic bands.