There are always other stories:
At Least 15,000 Years of Habitation in
North America, Part 2
Arctic,Eastern Woodlands & Plains
Adaptation to varied local environments
caused lots of cultural variation
Regional examples of cultural periods
East of the Rockies
Regional examples of cultural periods
•Mississippian tradition (900 - 1550
A.D.)
•Woodland tradition(1000 B.C. - 900
A.D.)
By 8,000 years ago, the Archaic tradition
replaces the PaleoIndian
•A more settled life
•Larger populations
•Wider variety of tools
•A broad subsistence base in hunting
and gathering
Archaic cultures were extremely
stable, and in some areas of North
America lasted until after European
Contact.
The Arctic
Not just snow and ice, but a rich environment
High Arctic Stability: A Perpetual
Archaic
Primarily seal, walrus, and whale hunters
elaborate and beautiful harpoon heads, carved
pendants and toys of stone, bone, ivory, and
antler.
Winter houses were small (10 x 8 feet or so) oval or
subrectangular sod huts excavated partly into the ground and built
of whale bone.
Populations in winter house up to about 50
Dog sleds and kayaks were the main transportation.
See the Arctic Archaeology in North
America Web Site for extraordinary
materials on environment, artifacts,
and excavations.
Bowhead whale skull
over the entrance of a
Thule winter house
Thule culture,
1000-1600 AD
Dorset Culture of the
Eastern Arctic (c.
550 BC-AD 1100)
Dorset is famous for its elaborate and highly
evolved artistic tradition that includes carved
wood, bone, and ivory depictions of humans,
spirit monsters, and animals; objects are of a
magico-religious nature
Inuvialuit culture
The Thule tradition didn't so much end as become
transformed.
Around 500 years ago, the climate chilled
throughout the northwest
Iniut peoples abandoned the islands of the High
Arctic
Moved to inland waterways and developed inland
living strategies such as fishing with nets and
communal hunting.
The people maintained this new lifestyle until the
Europeans invaded at the beginning of the last
century
Eastern Woodlands
Eastern North America
Archaic peoples used a wide variety of tools
Sandals, Texas
Clay cooking balls,
Louisiana
Hunting Tools Used by
Maritime Archaic
Indians in Newfoundland
Fabric from Windover, Florida, 8,000
BP
Ground and pecked stone objects were widespread
Ground stone ax,
South Dakota
A steatite vessel recovered from the Flint
River Creek Site, Alabama
Gorgets
Net weight
Atlatl weights, Illinois
Metal Working of the Old Copper
Culture, 3000 BP - 5000 BP
Poverty Point Earthworks, 3,800 BP
6 concentric artificial earth embankments. They are separated by
ditches, or swales, where dirt was removed to build the ridges. The
ends of the outermost ridge are 1,204 meters apart (nearly 3/4 of a
mile). The ends of the interior embankment are 594 meters apart
See the major web site on Poverty Point, including videos.
Foraging provided subsistence that
was diverse and stable
Shell Midden in CA,
with artifacts from a
similar midden in
Canada
Woodland Tradition: 2500 BP- 1000 BP
Archaic with pottery and burial mounds?
But oh so much more!
Environmental Riches
Near the Scoville site on the lower Illinois (late Hopewellian
from 450 AD)
•Four ecozones within a half hour's walk from site-1.8 mile
radius, about 10 square miles would produce each year:
•182k-426k bushels of acorns,
•100- 840 deer,
•10k-20k squirrels,
•200 turkeys with
•6 million mallards in whole Illinois River valley
•Other materials not measured but vast
At Scoville, 92% of meat was from deer, 4% from turkey;
72% of nuts were hickory and walnuts 27%.
Site was not occupied from spring to mid-spring and mid-late
autumn, coinciding with waterfowl migration, indicating they
left site to harvest them
Dietary Protein at Scoville
•92% of meat was from deer
•4% from turkey;
•72% of nuts were hickory
•27% were walnuts
Site was not occupied from spring to mid-spring and
mid-late autumn, coinciding with waterfowl migration,
indicating they left site to harvest them
Effigy Mounds, 2,500 years BP to 400 years
BP
Effigy Mounds were usually not burial mounds, but clan
territory markers.
Burial Mounds, Social Structure, & Belief
Systems
Exotic Materials in the Burial Mounds
•Mica sheets cutout into geometric or zoomorphic forms
•Copper used for ear spools, headdresses, masks, bracelets,
beads, chest ornaments celts, panpipes
•Busycon (giant sea snail) shells from the Gulf Coast used for
cups with central whorl cut into beads
•Freshwater pearls used as beads for anklets or armlets or
sewn onto garments
•Figurines carved from stone or modeled from clay were very
realistic
•Special class of mortuary pottery-deep bowls with
expanding or globular base
•Platform pipes with realistic effigies of birds, animals and
people
•Huge ceremonial bifaces of obsidian imported from
Yellowstone National Park
•Bear teeth strung as beads or pendants, as were cut wolf
or bear jaws
•Alligator teeth and skulls, baracuda jaws and shark teeth
22 different types of exotic materials, 16 of them minerals,
only two or three local to Midwest
All objects tended to be smeared with red ocher
Bear
teeth,
real &
copper
Pottery was a major technological advance.
Adena and Hopewell Produced a Wide Range
of Exotic Artifacts
Sheet mica carvings
Turtle shell bowl, Illinois
Effigy Platform
Pipes
Engraved plaque
The Hopewell Interaction Sphere Trade
Network
The expanded use of cultivars
Marsh elder/iva/ sumpweed
Maize
(late)
Origin of cultigens
Human impact
on iva seed
growth
Mississippian Splendor
1200 BP- 500 BP
The Three Sisters Provided Life…
…and vast surpluses
Cahokia: America’s First Urban Center
Perhaps 30,000 people at 800 BP, larger than any
European city of the times
Monks Mound was the core of a
large ceremonial complex
The contents of Mound 72
Moundville, Alabama
Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma
Mississippian Artifacts from the
Mississippi River Valley
The Great Plains
In many ways, an extension of the Eastern
Woodlands
In others, the Plains have many unique features
primarily aimed at adjustments to the
environmental extremes.
After the Paleo-Indian adaptations of Clovis,
Folsom and Plano, the Archaic continues in many
areas until European Contact.
Some cultures take on Woodland and maintain
them until Contact while others take on
Mississippian characteristics.
A region of major population movements and
interactions.
At the core of Plains cultures?
Bison
Click on the HeadSmashed-In logo
for virtual tours
Subsistence staple and ritual focus
Horticulture after about AD 800 formed
the Core of Subsistence for Plains
Villagers
The Plains Earthlodge
Village
An extraordinary adaptation to Plains climate
Shapes change from square and rectangular to fully
round through time.
Village populations ranged from a few hundred to more
than a thousand.
Plains Village Life