Investigations at the Big Eddy site are quite recent, having been first excavated in 1997, and this area of the state has seen very little previous investigation. The only other extensive study of the region took place in the 1960s and 1970s in the neighboring lower Pomme de Terre Valley (Missouri State University's Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) 2006; Lopinot et al. 1998:39; Ray et al. 1998:73-74). These studies provided a geologic history for the region reaching back some 100,000 years. A long sequence of human occupation was also found, but no evidence of Paleoindian sites.