North American Prehistory
Lesson Objectives: Compare models of the peopling of the Americas; understand the Archaic and early food production; late prehistoric societies.
We will spend more time on North American prehistory since we live here and want to know about how the same land we live on now was used in the past. We will especially emphasize the southeastern U.S. and Florida. None of the color photos in your book document archaeology from this area, even though students in the eastern U.S. might be very likely to use this textbook!
When did the first people arrive in America and what were they doing? The peopling of the Americas is a hot topic in archaeology. We can go back to the Pleistocene and the article on the land bridge between northeast Asia and North America, called Beringia, that was exposed when the sea level was lower due to water being taken up into the ice of the glaciers. Did people need a land bridge to cross into North America? No, they could have traveled on water or even on ice. How early did they get here? At least 12,000-15,000 years ago, according to most estimates. Note the picture of the extent of the glacier (p. 144). There was an ice-free corridor extending down into the heart of North America, which they could have used to populate the continent. But they could also have come by a coastal route, hugging the shoreline, which would be more sheltered, perhaps more moderate in climate because of the proximity of water, and perhaps more abundant in resources from both land and sea. Archaeologists debate these routes and timing constantly, and the evidence is tricky since sea level rise would have drowned all the early sites.
What is Paleoindian culture, and how do we
recognize the diagnostic artifacts? The photo in your book of Paleoindian
projectile points is mislabeled (p. 146); the two larger ones are called
Clovis and the smaller are Folsom points. They are types that show a
large flute or channel flake running up the middle of the point. This
is very clearly diagnostic of a cultural tradition seen in the New World
only, mostly North America. For a long time it was thought that the
people who made fluted points were the first Americans, and they used
these artifacts for big-game hunting. Slightly later Paleoindians made
other finely shaped lanceolate (long, thin) points. The discussion in
the book (p. 152) of the Lindenmeier site in Colorado is one of these
classic sites, showing a bison kill out on the plains. Though some recent
evidence supports this view, the picture is far more complex. Many of
the sites yielding the oldest dates are in South America, which appears
counterintuitive, since it would take longer for people to reach there.
What is preserved at the Monte Verde site in Chile?
Since it is a wet site, preservation is excellent, but the archaeologist,
Tom Dillehay, has had a hard time getting it accepted because the dates
are so early and there are no chipped stone points. He did find evidence
of wooden structures in a row with common walls, hearths, wooden tools,
bones of large and small animals such as mastodon and llama, and 42
plant species, including wild potato and medicinal plants. The radiocarbon
date of 13,000 B.P. was not believed by many of the famous scientists
specializing in Paleoindian archaeology. Dillehay had to get funds to
bring a bunch of them to northern Chile and show them the site to get
professional approval! Two big reports have been questioned, despite
their detail, because of the confusion of stratigraphic layers and other
missing data. When you challenge the accepted wisdom you have a huge
burden of proof to come up with. But there has been a gradual change
toward expanding the view of what the earliest Americans were doing.
There were many different kinds of adaptations in different regions.
Anna Roosevelt is an archaeologist who has found that the earliest people
in the Amazon, contemporaneous with Paleoindian folks elsewhere, were
making small stemmed projectile points, fishing and eating nuts from
the jungle, even manipulating the forest for human needs.
There have been more Clovis points found in the eastern U.S.
than in the west, where the bison and mammoth kill sites are. Some exciting
newer finds in Florida have come from underwater. Years of diving and
working with amateur archaeologists in north Florida’s clear,
spring-fed rivers have produced Paleo points with bison and elephant
remains, such as tusks with cut marks on them, and dates a little older
than 12,000 years ago. An exciting new find is a fluted point underwater
out in the Gulf of Mexico, several miles offshore. Under some conditions,
those drowned sites can be found! This work is being done by Florida
State University (check out their anthropology department's underwater
archaeology website).
How do Archaic period sites show changing
adaptations after the Pleistocene? At Carrier Mills in southern Illinois,
found during cultural resources survey before the area was strip-mined,
the black earth stains in aerial photos showed where Archaic middens
contained remains of modern animal species, especially fish, turtles.
and deer. Plant remains were dominated by hickory nuts, but that may
be just because nutshells preserve well. Grave goods with only 25 percent
of the burials showed no real social differences except in male and
female tools and the lack of decorative items with females. The Desert
Archaic is represented at Gatecliff rockshelter in Nevada. Here mountain
sheep bones dominate the midden, suggesting it was hunted the most.
Dry conditions preserved cordage and basketry, but only a few food remains
such as seeds and nuts. A different kind of Archaic adaptation, to the
wet northwest coast, is seen at the Ozette site in Washington State,
where mudslides covered and preserved a late prehistoric settlement
complete with fancy fishing gear and beautiful wood and fiber craftwork.
What might you expect to find at Florida Archaic sites?
In much of the eastern U.S., the Archaic is marked by the switch from
lanceolate points to stemmed and notched points as diagnostic artifacts,
and this is true in Florida. We also have here and in all coastal and
riverine areas the emergence of shell middens, some of them very large
and mounded. In south Florida they were found to contain evidence of
year-round settlement as early as the Middle Archaic, some 5,000 or
more years ago. Fish, shellfish, and turtles dominate at coastal sites,
with deer and turkey more predominant inland.
One amazing site from the Early Archaic has been excavated near Cape Canaveral at Titusville. Named the Windover site, it was discovered during construction of a housing development when workers hit skeletons in a pond they were trying to drain. The developer halted operations and even gave money for excavation. This was astounding because the development was too small to require any prior archaeology. A book will be out on this soon; the work was done by archaeologist Glen Doran and others. The developer was given a Stewards of Heritage Award by the Florida Archaeological Council during Preservation Week. The site was a pond in which people buried their dead some 7,000-8,000 years ago. Because everything stayed wet, organic remains were preserved, including sophisticated basketry and woven grass mats, wooden and bone artifacts, and even the skeletons of the dead, whose bodies were held down with wooden stakes and whose brains were still preserved inside the skulls. Working with communities of other scientists and medical professionals, Native Americans, developers and planners, and other interested parties, the archaeologists drained the pond and excavated part of the cemetery, then let the water come back in to preserve the rest. All kinds of interesting studies are going on with these materials, including DNA work. Meanwhile, the stone tool assemblage of the site consisted of just a few items. If it had not preserved any organic remains, the few bits of stone would not even have been enough to deem it significant and worth saving.
What are the circumstances of food production in the
New World? The movie Corn and the Origins of Settled Life showed
the classic investigation in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico by Richard
("Scotty") MacNeish, who died in 2001 and joined the archaeological
record. His work documented the yearly seasonal movements of Archaic
foragers, into which changes began to be introduced beginning around
8000 B.C., such as wild squash giving way to domesticated versions,
and the earliest, tiny, nearly wild ears of corn appearing. Bone chemistry
study is lately indicating more corn or other grasses were eaten than
we would think, given the record of animal bone at the site. Meanwhile,
the people were still moving around the landscape, not settling down
at all as they domesticated corn, in fact not until thousands of years
later. So in this case sedentism comes after food production, whereas
elsewhere, such as southeast Asia or south Florida, it comes before.
The sites of Guilá Naquitz cave in Mexico and
Guitarrero Cave in the Peruvian Andes also document Archaic foraging
lifestyles on the verge of domesticating plants and have produced, among
other things, notable examples of fiber artifacts such as nets and basketry.
What is the evidence for elaborate ceremonialism and more complex society during the Archaic? The Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana was once considered an anomaly, a bunch of mounds and parallel earthworks that would have needed great coordination and leadership to construct, but dating to 1200 B.C., too early for food production. Can mobile hunter-gatherers settle in one place and build such monuments? Possibly the dependable resources of the Mississippi River floodplain allowed permanent, long-term settlement. Evidence for long-distance trade is seen in the distribution of other artifacts manufactured in this region of Louisiana. A complex lapidary industry produced fancy polished stone beads in the shape of owls and other birds. Some of these have been found as far away as north Florida, as have other associated items, such as weirdly shaped clay balls and microlithic tools. The clay balls may have been for cooking, since this was before the time of widespread pottery use.
Now even earlier large-scale constructions have become
known in the Southeast. I already mentioned the large shell middens
in south Florida. In northeast Louisiana a complex of 11 mounds and
connecting earthworks known as Watson Brake has been dated to earlier
than 3000 B.C. This is far earlier than anything so complex in Mesoamerica.
Does it mean complex society? Can you design and build such monuments
without hierarchy or central leadership? I think so, but many do not.
How can we characterize North America after the Archaic period? In many parts of Canada and the western U.S., California, and northern Mexico, an essentially Archaic adaptation meant that foragers were still moving across the landscape when Europeans and other outsiders arrived to change history. But in the eastern U.S., the Southwest, and Mesoamerica, intensification of food production led to Neolithic-style adaptations and, in Mesoamerica, true civilization.
What is the Woodland period in the eastern U.S.? Beginning around 4,000 years ago, the earliest pottery is developed during the Late Archaic the vessels being made of clay mixed with plant fibers. By 3,000 years ago, the beginning of the Woodland, we see more refined-looking pottery and burial mound construction as indications of some changing lifestyles, as well as a few domesticated indigenous weedy plants. Early Woodland mounds contained graves of people who were buried with a few artifacts, suggesting little social difference. By the Middle Woodland, described in your book as the Hopewell culture of the Midwestern region, there are large differences between grave offerings, suggesting a few people are vastly more important. Principal burials typically occur in log tombs below the center of the mound, to be covered over as the mound grows and other skeletons or cremated bones are interred. There is also evidence of long-distance origins of ceremonial items such as obsidian from the West and Florida conch shells ending up in Ohio and Kentucky mounds. Besides burial mounds, earthworks in many geometric and animal shapes were constructed with baskets or bags of soil. The Serpent Mound, a snake-shaped Ohio earthwork shown in the Hopewell chapter of the book (p.264), is now thought to have originated later in time.
In the Southeast there are just as many burial mounds, if not more, but different
cultural names. The map (p. 266) showing Hopewell sites in the mid-continent
only should be redrawn to include at least the northwest portion of Florida
down to Tampa Bay. We have not only the famous Weeden Island site in the bay
that gave our Middle Woodland culture its name, but also the Crystal River site,
where we are going on our field trip, with many of the same kinds of exotic
artifacts as are found in Ohio Hopewell. Some of the fancier raw materials buried
in these mounds included mica, a shiny flat flaky stone obtained from the mountains,
cold-hammered copper, all kinds of exotic, shiny stone, soapstone or steatite,
sharks’ teeth, and bear teeth. The Middle Woodland burial mound people
were thought certainly to have been agriculturalists since they would have needed
to settle down to do such monumental construction. But we have evidence only
of small gardens, and hardly any maize at all.
How and when does maize get to the eastern U.S.? We
are not sure of this at all, since the earliest domesticates were indigenous
plants such as sunflower and chenopodium, but maize had to have come
from Mexico. Somehow it got here, and by the Late Woodland, between
A.D. 600-900, we see it increasingly in midden sites. Burial mound construction
diminishes or disappears during this time—maybe everyone is too
busy farming? The maize-beans-squash complex was the foundation of southeastern
(and southwestern) chiefdoms that were beginning to develop around 1,000
years ago.
What is Mississippian culture? We use this term to refer to the late prehistoric chiefdoms that developed all over the Southeast and Midwest, originally thought to have been earliest in the Mississippi Valley. The Cahokia site in East St. Louis, Illinois, is the largest Mississippian site, with some 100 mounds including Monk’s Mound, the largest earthen mound in the whole hemisphere. See the photo of this mound (p. 275) dwarfing a car on the highway next to it. Mississippians built platform mounds, flat-topped pyramids with ramps leading up to the top, where the temple apparently stood. They look very much like earthen versions of Mesoamerican pyramids. Not only do we have many postmold patterns of structures, but also historic documentation from early colonial observers, who recorded the last remnants of the native chiefdoms in the eastern U.S. before they became extinct or were changed by this outside influence.
What is the evidence of social and even economic inequality,
as well as ceremony and religion, in Mississippian culture? At Cahokia,
the walled compound around Monk’s mound separated houses inside
and outside of it. Circles of wooden posts left features we call “woodhenges”
that may have been for astronomical observations. In mound 72 were successive
burials of important individuals with great numbers of wealth items,
caches of stone points and pottery, copper, thousands of shell beads,
mica, and piles of human skeletons suggesting sacrificial victims, perhaps
servants or retainers of the important deceased. Though Cahokia was
apparently abandoned by A.D. 1250, other regional temple mound centers
were common in the eastern U.S. One of these is Moundville, Alabama,
with similar multiple platform mounds and elite burials, plazas, and
large village areas. Again your text does not do it well for the Florida
area. The map of Mississippian sites (p. 277) shows only one in Florida,
right in downtown Tallahassee (Lake Jackson mounds, which had elite
burials with copper plates and huge shell bead necklaces). There are
many others, including the Safety Harbor platform mound and Phillipe
Park mound right on Tampa Bay. It looks like they may have been from
chiefdoms that were NOT supported by intensive maize agriculture, however.
It is hard to grow corn in south Florida, and the bounty of the coastal
resources may have made farming unnecessary anyhow. The early Spanish
accounts described sixteenth-century non-agricultural tributary chiefdoms
among the Calusa and other historic native American groups.
How can we identify economically stratified, hereditary
chiefdoms archaeologically? It is difficult to distinguish between achieved
status, accomplished by the deeds of a lifetime, and ascribed status,
given to a person at birth. Grave goods with different individuals may
tell us some things. Many archaeologists think that children buried
with wealth items must have had ascribed status, but they could be just
beloved of families who had achieved the power to obtain such wealth.
We also must differentiate between differences in social status, esteem,
and rank, which might be indicated by fancy clothing or other grave
goods, and real economic differences, which might be better shown by
nutritional differences seen in bone and teeth.
What about complex society in the rest of the U.S.? Northeastern Native Americans such as the Iroquois had clan-based, stockaded agricultural villages traceable back into prehistoric times at such sites as Draper, in southern Ontario. Early forms of the traditional longhouse can be seen as archaeological features. Interestingly, in the eastern U.S., though many warlike chiefdoms engaged in conflict over resources and power, according to our historic as well as archaeological evidence, most of the societies were matrilineal. This means that clan mothers and women in general had a high social standing and access to political power and abundant economic resources, including ownership of their children, households, and agricultural fields. Many archaeologists are now trying to look for different aspects of gender in the archaeology of the East.
This kind of matrilineal kinship and social organization
was also present in the Southwest, where maize agriculture came in as
early as 1000 B.C. and sedentary villages shortly thereafter. The Hohokam
culture manifested at Snaketown in southern Arizona and northern Mexico
developed irrigation systems and platform mounds associated with large
villages. Anasazi settlements in New Mexico, such as at Chaco Canyon,
included large multi-roomed pueblos and extensive transportation and
exchange systems running over a network of roads; later the shift was
to more defensible cliff dwellings, some of the most spectacular archaeological
ruins in the country.
What happened to Native Americans in the U.S. after contact and colonization by Europeans and others in the sixteenth century? Contact period studies are very popular in contemporary archaeology because they show what happens when cultures clash. British, Spanish, French, and other colonial powers treated natives slightly differently, with the medieval Catholic countries out for gold and souls for the church and the mercantile British moving in with consumer goods and mostly wanting the natives out of the way. In Florida, mission period archaeology is now just as hot as it is in the Southwest, even though there is more standing architecture in the latter region. But models in archaeology can be of different kinds; now we have the reconstructed Spanish mission church and Apalachee Indian chief’s house and council house on their original locations at the Mission San Luis in Tallahassee. Are the reconstructions accurate? As much as possible, based on the postmold patterns and architectural possibilities for high thatched roofs with open ventilation for smoke from the central fire. How native and European changed with contact and colonization is also becoming easier to interpret archaeologically because of the continuing location of historic documents in archives, especially in Spain.