There are always other stories:
At Least 15,000 Years of Habitation in
North America, Part 1
Today’s archaeologists understand that
human migration to the Americas occurred
by many different means and over a vast
period of time.
Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pennsylvania, 19,000
B.P.?
Some radiocarbon (C14) dates are even older.
Monte Verde, Chile, 30,000
B.P.?
Very much older…
Pedra Furada in Brazil is
extremely controversial and
has dates and rock art as
much as 50,000 years B.P.
Most of the early dates are
extremely controversial, and should
be.
Why? Extraordinary claims demand
extraordinary proof!
So what do we really know with
reasonable certainty?
That the ancestors of contemporary
Indians were here by at least 12,000
years ago.
Even that used to be controversial…
Left: first Folsom
point, found with
extinct bison rib
Aleš
Hrdlička
…until the Folsom, New
Mexico find in 1926-27.
Folsom points
According to the archaeological stories,
how did the first people get here?
The migrations began during the last glaciation, that is, the
Wisconsin advance of the Pleistocene epoch, some 100,000 years
ago.
Massive ice sheets as much as 1.5 kilometers
thick covered much of the northern
hemisphere.
There were profound changes in
climate including compression of the
earth’s climate zones toward the
equator.
With so much of the earth’s water locked up in the
glaciers, sea levels dropped nearly 100 meters.
Lowered sea levels exposed vast areas of the
continental self, including Beringia, an unglaciated
“land bridge” nearly 1500 miles wide.
One route allowed early hunters to pass through
an ice-free corridor from Siberia into the rest
of the North American continent.
There may have been as many as three “waves” of people
starting about 15-16,000 years ago.
The migrations were slow, with people following
herds of game, the Pleistocene “megafauna” such
as mammoth, most now extinct.
They probably didn’t know they were
entering a new land.
We know now that they also followed the
coastlines in boats, which have been used by
modern humans for 40,000 years.
Evidence that some people used boats has recently been found on
several of the islands off the NW coast and Alaska.
The PaleoIndian Tradition: Was Clovis first?
By 12,000 years ago, Clovis peoples were
hunting mammoth and other megafauna.
The hunting weapons of choice were the
speathrower (atlatl) and dart or spear.
Rock art images of atlatls are
common
As populations grew and people settled into their
environments, the range of projectile points
expanded.
Clovis, Folsom and Plano points
While the earlier Clovis peoples hunted mammoth, Folsom
and Plano cultures were extraordinary bison hunters from
around 10,000 years ago until around 8,000 years ago.
Pleistocene Extinctions?
Did PaleoIndian overkill contribute to the demise of the megafauna?
More realistically it probably
was a combination of:
•Hunting pressure
•Climatic change
•Diseases
•Shifting breeding seasons
As the glaciers melted…
…the seas approached contemporary levels, closing off the
land route to North America.
For all we now know, we still have lots of questions, and
recent discoveries still have us asking…
Major controversy began in 1996 with the discovery of the
‘Ancient One,’ Kennewick Man.
Kennewick Man, or the Ancient One, as the
Umatilla nation of Washington calls him
Unfortunately James Chatters’s descriptions of him
as “Caucasoid” got confused with “Caucasian.”
Is repatriating such remains a ‘crime against science’? Is
not repatriating them an echo of the 1890s Moundbuilder
myth?
Spirit Cave Man
Found: 1940, in Spirit Cave near Fallon, Nev.
Age: 9,400 years
His mummified remains are very similar to Kennewick in
physical features
Luzia
Found: 1975, in Lapa Vermelha, Brazil
Age: 11,500 years
Luzia died in her early 20s. Although flint tools were
found nearby, hers are the only human remains in
Vermelha Cave.
The anatomy of her skull and teeth - including a narrow,
oval cranium, projecting face and pronounced chin likens Luzia to Africans and Australasians. Brazilian
anthropologists propose that Luzia traveled across the
Bering Strait, perhaps following the coastline by boat,
from northeast Asia, where her ancestors had lived for
tens of thousands of years since exiting Africa.
A direct European connection?
Archaeologists Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley have
suggested that there might be a link between Clovis and
the Solutrean culture in Europe.
Archaeologists have suggested many possible routes for
the early inhabitants of the Americas.
The controversy has lead to a wide range of books…
Even
novels...
So who are these anomalies and why did
they disappear?
They could be statistical
anomalies, and just extremes
in a highly diverse Indian
population.
They may have been
different, but here in such
small numbers that they
didn’t affect the gene pool—
traders, explorers, wandering
hunters.
They were here in sufficient
numbers, but died out before
becoming part of the gene
pool.
Adaptation to varied local environments
caused lots of cultural variation
Regional examples of cultural periods
East of the Rockies
•Mississippian tradition (900 - 1550 A.D.)
•Woodland tradition(1000 B.C. - 900
A.D.)
•Archaic tradition (8000 - 1000 B.C.)
•Paleoindian tradition(9500 - 8000 B.C.)
Southwest Region
Extreme regional variation 1100-1500
AD
•Pueblo, 700 -1100 AD
•Basketmaker 500 BC-700 AD
•Archaic tradition 8,000 - 1,800 BP
•Paleoindian tradition 11,500 - 8,000 BP
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.
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 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
Tribes at the time of Contact
Distribution at time of Contact
reflects population movements
and the relative fluidity of
Native American cultures.
Cheyenne example
The Southwest
Desert Archaic, 8,500 BP – 1,500? BP
“The Great Drought”—hotter, dryer climate at
the end of Pleistocene
Shift to generalized foraging of desert
resources
Late Desert Archaic and the Origins of
Agriculture
By Middle Archaic, a shift toward more settled village life
A tripling of population
Tehuacan Valley, Mexico—the El Reigo (The Irrigation) people
developed domesticated corn as well as squash, chili peppers and
amaranth some 7000 years ago.
Rock Art—Evidence of Shamanic Practice?
Hohokam
Centered on middle Gila River and lower Salt
River drainage areas
A Mesoamerican periphery?
Hohokam culture can be divided into several phases, a division
which has found considerable favor in recent years.
The fluid nature of Hohokam culture makes it difficult to
pinpoint exact dates, but clearly there were distinguishable
differences between these phases.
Colonial Phase
AD 500 to 900
Sedentary Phase
AD 900 to 1200
Classic Phase
AD 1200 to 1450
Characteristics:
Platform mounds and ballcourts for ritual activities are
characteristic features of Central American cultures at this
time.
Family groups lived along the river drainages, and were
pioneers in the use of extensive irrigation systems.
The Hohokam grew corn, beans and squash, as did other
Southwestern cultures, as well as cotton, agave, and other
native plants.
They supplemented this diet by hunting deer and rabbits and
by gathering local plants.
The Hohokam were the first and only Southwestern group to
regularly cremate their dead.
Platform Mound
Ball court (left)
and game
Hohokam Irrigation Systems
Excavated
pithouses
Houses and Communities:
Hohokam sites consist of shallow pithouses arranged in groups
around a common plaza.
The pithouses were constructed of jacal, a type of wattleand-daub construction.
The plaza grouping probably housed lineages, groups of people
with common ancestors.
Reconstructions of Hohokam structures at the Pueblo Grande
Museum, Phoenix
A Sample of Hohokam Artifacts
Shells were covered with an acidresistant material, probably pitch or
sap, in which a design was scratched.
The shell was then soaked in an acidic
liquid, probably fermented fruit juice,
until the design was lightly etched in
the shell.
Etched Shells
Some etched shells were then painted
with mineral pigments made from
hematite (red) and copper carbonates
or copper silicates (green).
Hohokam Artistry
Anasazi/Ancestral Puebloans
Characteristics:
The Anasazi seem to have developed from an earlier
culture, the Oshara, an archaic culture of small nomadic
bands who lived in the more mountainous parts of the
territory.
The introduction of pottery, probably from the south,
signals the beginnings of the culture we call Anasazi,
but which recently was changed to Ancestral Puebloan.
The people grew corn and beans, and were also hunters
and gatherers.
Villages consisted of small pithouse or pueblo groupings,
and usually had a large ceremonial structure known as a
kiva.
A variety of burial practices were used, most often
bodies were flexed in shallow pit-graves in the refuse
heaps surrounding the villages.
Settlements:
Virtual Reality Models of Chetro Ketl
The Anasazi, like the Mogollon lived in pithouses arranged in
groups around a larger ceremonial room called a kiva.
The kiva may have served some religious function, but more
likely its initial function was as a council chamber, where the
elders of a settlement could discuss issues relevant to their
survival.
The pithouses were constructed of jacal, a type of wattle-anddaub construction.
In some areas, surface structures were made of masonry, then
surrounded by additional surface dwellings of wattle-and -daub.
These groupings would lead ultimately to the modern pueblo.
The Great Kiva at Chetro
Ketl
Pueblo Bonito
Pueblo Bonito/Chaco Canyon
Anasazi Petroglyphs from
the New Well Site, AZ
Anasazi Pottery
Anasazi Artifacts
Mogollon
Characteristics:
The Mogollon seem to have developed from an earlier culture,
the Cochise, an archaic culture of small nomadic bands who lived
in the more mountainous parts of the territory.
The introduction of pottery, probably from the south, signals
the beginnings of the culture we call Mogollon.
The people grew corn and beans, and were also hunters and
gatherers.
Houses and Settlement:
Early Mogollon pithouses were quite deep and usually
round or oval.
During the middle of the period, houses became
rectangular with rounded corners, and were generally
not as deep.
By the end of the period, surface pueblos had been
adopted, presumably under the influence of the
Anasazi to the north.
Villages consisted of small pithouse or pueblo
groupings, and usually had a large ceremonial structure
known as a kiva.
A variety of burial practices were used, most often in
shallow pit-graves either intramurally, (inside the
dwellings), or in the refuse heaps surrounding the
villages.
Mogollon Pottery
Northwest Coast
Culture history and map of the NW Coast
NW Coast Plank Houses
Reconstruction of a Chinookan Plank
House at the Meier Site
A wide range of artifacts of bone,
stone, & clay
Ozette Site