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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 variationRegional 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.) •Archaic tradition (8000 - 1000 B.C.)•Paleoindian tradition (9500-8000 B.C.)

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.

Bowhead whale skull over the entrance of a Thule winter house

See the Arctic Archaeology in North America Web Site for extraordinary materials on environment, artifacts, and excavations.

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

Thule culture, 1000-1600 AD

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

Hunting Tools Used by Maritime Archaic Indians in Newfoundland

Clay cooking balls, Louisiana

Fabric from Windover, Florida, 8,000 BP

Sandals, Texas

A steatite vessel recovered from the Flint River Creek Site, Alabama

Ground stone ax, South Dakota

Gorgets

Atlatl weights, Illinois

Ground and pecked stone objects were widespread

Net weight

Metal Working of the Old Copper Culture, 3000 BP - 5000

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

Poverty Point Earthworks, 3,800 BP

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 MidwestAll objects tended to be smeared with red ocher

Bear teeth, real & copper

Pottery was a major technological advance.

Turtle shell bowl, Illinois Engraved plaqueEffigy Platform

Pipes

Adena and Hopewell Produced a Wide Range of Exotic Artifacts

Sheet mica carvings

The Hopewell Interaction Sphere Trade Network

The expanded use of cultivars

Sunflowers

Marsh elder/iva/ sumpweed

Human impact on iva seed growth

Maize (late)

Origin of cultigens

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 PlainsIn 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 Head-Smashed-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