Pre-Columbian Art of North
America
Archaic
Eastern Woodland
Adena
Hopewell
Mississippian
Algonquian and Iroquoian
Pre-Columbian refers to art before Native
American made contact with Europeans—
literally “before Columbus.”
Archaeologists refer to several overlapping periods of pre-Columbian cultures of the
East Coast:
Archaic 6000 BCE – 500 BCE
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE
Adena 1000 BCE – 100 BCE
Hopewell 200 BCE – 500 CE
Mississippian 800 CE – 1600 CE
Algonquian and Iroquoian 1000 CE – 1600 CE
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan: Archaic
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, aerial view. The site has been known by Europeans since the early 19th
century, but was not studied in depth until the 1950s.
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Mound A, Poverty Point, Louisiana, built with 238,000 cubic meters of fill deposited in just three
months sometime between 1450 and 1250 BCE (based on carbon dating of a burn layer at bottom
of the mound).
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
The White Temple and Ziggurat, above, from Uruk (Warka), Iraq, 3200 -3000 B.C, was
built more than two thousand years before Mound A at Poverty Point, to elevate a temple
dedicated to Ur, the Sumerian god of the sky. It was placed in the center of Uruk, which
was one of the world’s first cities.
The people who used Poverty Point were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, and did not
build a city there.
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
The Great Pyramids, above, from Giza, Egypt, were built as burial tombs in Egypt, c. 2500 BCE,
about a thousand years before Poverty Point.
There is no evidence that Mound A was used as a burial mound.
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
The Olmec civilization, in the Yucatan Peninsula, was
the first culture to create permanent settlements in the
Americas—around 1000 BCE. Poverty Point was
created by nomadic people a few hundred years earlier,
sometime between 1450 and 1250 BCE.
North and Central American
Civilizations, c. 1000 BCE
The Great Pyramid at La Venta, 900-600 BCE, Tabasco, Mexico (Olmec
Civilization). One of the earliest pyramids known in Mesoamerica, the Great
Pyramid is 110 ft (33 m) high and contains an estimated 100,000,000 cubic meters
of earth fill. The current shape of the pyramid was once thought to represent
nearby volcanoes or mountains, but recent work by Rebecca Gonzalez-Lauck has
shown that the pyramid was in fact a rectangular pyramid with stepped sides and
inset corners, and the current shape is most likely due to 2500 years of erosion.
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaeologists have discovered clay cooking balls, small female figurines, stone
gorgets (for protecting the neck in battle), fishing weights and bars, and tiny
sculptures and beads depicting animals at Poverty Point that date to c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point clay figurines, c. 1500 BCE
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Poverty Point stone gorgets (for protecting the neck in battle), fishing weights
and bars, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(2000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point miniature stone owl and a penny, c. 1500 BCE.
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of the stones used to
create these beads originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes,
attesting to their wide-reaching culture of trade.
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of the stones used to
create these beads originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes,
attesting to their wide-reaching culture of trade.
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
Was this mound created to resemble a bird? If so, what does this say
about the archaic culture of Poverty Point?
Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE
Archaic 6000 BCE – 1000 BCE
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE
Adena 1000 BCE – 100 BCE
Hopewell 200 BCE – 500 CE
Mississippian 800 CE – 1600 CE
Algonquian and Iroquoian 1000 CE – 1600 CE
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE
Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE,
from Mound City, Ohio
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE
Archaic 6000 BCE – 1000 BCE
Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE,
from Mound City, Ohio
Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of their possessions
originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes, attesting to the extent of
complex culture of trade.
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE
Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE
– 1 CE, from Mound City, Ohio
Raven Effigy Tobacco Pipe, Woodland Culture, Rutherford Mound, Illinois, c. 200 BCE to 200 CE, 2 3/8 x 4
¾ inches
The left end of the platform is the mouthpiece.
Even today, many Native Americans believe that fire and smoke to be sacred because they move
upward toward the heavens.
According to the Illinois State Museum’s website, when the smoker faces the head of the effigy,
the smoker may have been in contact with the spirit of the raven. The act of smoking could have
effected a transformation of the smoker into an raven. In Native American cosmology, raven is
often described as a Trickster or a symbol of power
(http://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/nat_amer/pre/htmls/w_beliefs.html).
Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE - 800 CE
Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE
Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE, from
Mound City, Ohio
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE
Castalian Springs Mound Shell Gorget, Castalian
Springs, Sumner County, Tennessee, 1000-1400 CE
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Archaic Pre-Columbian
(6000 to 500 BCE)
According to Professor John Grim of Bucknell University:
“Native American rituals not only bind human communities together
but they invite reciprocal participation of the individual and the
community with the ancestral lineages, and through the many spirits
of the cosmos, back again into the life of the local biological
environment, or bioregion.
...
“…it can be said of indigenous visionary experience that when
spiritual light illumines any one aspect of this indigenous mystical
quaternity, it is as if all four dimensions of the personal, communal,
spiritual, and bioregional are synthesized into a coherent whole.
Such a visionary episteme allows meaning to arise in the
synaesthesia of images, performances and thought rather than
deriving it solely by means of rational analysis, cognitive discourse,
or devotional prayer.”
http://www.brblackburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Cosmolgy-andNative-American-Traditions.pdf
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE
“Uktena” design from a shell engraving found at the Spiro Site in
Oklahoma, c. 1250 CE; according to Cherokee legend, Ukenta was a
man turned into a snake to battle the angry sun.
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
What does this diagram of the Andean cosmology suggest about the world-view of Native
Americans?
Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacut Yamqui Salcamaygua, Andean
cosmological diagram based on the altar of the temple of Koricancha,
Cuzco, Mexico, from Relación de Antigüedades, 1613 CE
Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE
Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300
CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches
Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c.
1066
Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c.
1066
Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c.
1066
Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066
Serpent Mount—Our Ohio, 2008, 5:47
Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200 CE
Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c.
1066
Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200
Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres,
near Saint Louis, Missouri
Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200 CE
Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres
Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200, reconstruction drawing
No tipis! They lived in mud-brick structures with straw roofs.
Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200 CE
Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200, reconstruction drawing
Uxmal Pyramid, Yucatan, Mexico, c. 900 CE
Reconstruction of the great ruler buried in Mound
72, in the Cahokia
Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200 CE
Reconstruction of the great ruler buried in Mound 72, in the Cahokia
Much like the pyramids in Mexico, only a few of the mounds served as burial sites.
Anasazi... (i.e. Ancestors)
(700 to 1300 CE)
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Anasazi... (i.e. Ancestors)
(700 to 1300 CE)
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Pueblo Bonito was the center of turquoise trade.
Turquoise beads from Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon.
Beads were a prestige good as well as a medium of
exchange.
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Anasazi Olla, c. 1150, from Arizona
The Great Kiva. Some kivas were used for ceremonial
or religious purposes. Others were used as domestic
spaces.
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
The Great Kiva
Reconstructed Great Kiva at the Aztec Ruins National Monument. This kiva was
completely restored in the 1930s by Earl Morris after he excavated it a couple of decades
earlier. Like many other examples of rebuilding, however, the Great Kiva is now
generally thought to be inaccurate in some respects, most notably the roof level, which is
almost certainly too high.
The Great Kiva
Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900-1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres
Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850-1150 CE
Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190
to 1260 CE
Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rectangular rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260
CE
Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE
Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins in the Canyon de Chelly, New Mexico,
1873, albumen print from a glass negative
Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE
Mimbres Artist, Bowl with Koshare (clown) figure and “kill
hole,” Pruitt Site, New Mexico, c. 1200 CE, clay and
pigment, 9 inch diameter
Mimbres bowls with kill holes, c. 1100 CE
Mimbres Artist, Bowl with Koshare (clown) figure and “kill
hole,” Pruitt Site, New Mexico, c. 1200 CE, clay and
pigment, 9 inch diameter