THE EASTERN WOODLANDS:
EARLY WOODLAND THROUGH THE ADENA
(MODULE 12B)
Read: Fagan (2000:403-416)
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A. The Woodland Period:
1. General Woodland Period dates ca. 1000 B.C.-A.D. 700
2. The transformation into the ensuing Early Woodland period while radical in some respects, should not be viewed as
truly revolutionary in rapidity and in change.
3. The initial main archaeologically demonstrable transformation comes in the form of the coming of pottery:
a. Stallings Island Site:
(1) Stallings Island, Georgia
(2) Site excavated by James Stoltman (then of the University of Minnesota—note how he really
wanted to find a preceramic site!)
(3) Earliest pottery in the Eastern Woodlands is dated to around 4200 B.P. (ca. 2250 B.C.)
(4) Significant in that it was fiber tempered
(5) Thus some suggest that it may have had its origin in early northern South American
fiber-tempered ceramics and come up through the Lesser Antilles to Florida and
then up the coast.
b. Other non-South American origins for earliest North American ceramic forms and types
(1) Some have looked for Old World origins for early North American ceramic traditions
(a) Ertebölle in Europe
(b) Siberian Mesolithic
4. General characteristics of the Woodland Period are:
a. Pottery (discussed above)
b. Increasing status differentiation
c. Burial mounds
d. Domesticates:
(1) Sunflower
(2) Squash
(3) Gourds
(4) Marsh Elder
(5) Chenopods
5. The most conspicuous Early Woodland archaeological culture was that of the Adena.
6. Adena Culture:
a. Location of Adena sites:
(1) Ohio River Valley and its tributaries:
(a) Southern Ohio
(b) Southern Indiana
(c) Northern Kentucky
(d) Southwest Pennsylvania
(e) Northwestern West Virginia
(2) Other prehistoric cultures related to the Adena have been found in the Southeast,
the Copena Culture.
b. Adena settlement:
(1) Small hamlet-sized villages of 2-5 houses
(2) "Greater Villages" were composed of aggregates of above small village hamlets
c. Adena domestic structures:
(1) Circular (as indicated by post molds)
(2) 11 meters in diameter
(3) Implications of this size of floor plan for reconstructions of prehistoric Adena social
organization?
d. Adena mounds:
(1) Conspicuous feature of the Adena
(2) Generally located on promontories, not on floodplains
(3) Form:
(a) Conical tumuli of earth with circular enclosures
(b) "Sacred circles" average 100 meters in diameter
(c) Burial mounds often located within sacred circles
(d) Often 20 meters high (i.e., the mound at Grave Creek, West Virginia)
e. Adena mortuary practices:
(1) Important personages were put into log tombs with earthen mounds erected above
(2) Bones often stained with red ochre
(3) Grave goods placed with the bodies (with the exception of pottery, which was virtually
never placed with the dead)
(4) Objects were ritually "killed"
f. Adena characteristic artifacts:
(1) "Reel-shaped" gorgets
(2) "Boatstones"
(3) "Awls"
(4) Tubular pipes (note the outstanding example in the Ohio State Historical Society Museum)
(5) Engraved-stone tablets:
(a) Often with representations of the "Raptorial Bird"
(b) Tablets may have been used as:
i) Stamps for imprinting tattooing designs?
ii) Stamps for making textile patterns?
(6) Woven textiles (all made of local materials with no "Mesoamerican" cotton)
(7) Copper:
(a) Produced through cold hammering
(b) Generally ornamental, being made into:
i) Bracelets
ii) Rings
iii) Beads
iv) Reel-shaped pendants
(c) Note that copper is not locally available and had to have been procured from
areas near and on the Lake Superior Basin.
g. The "Adena Cult"
(1) Adena culture clearly expended a considerable amount of energy in things related to
death:
(a) Burial mounds with offerings
(b) The "Raptorial Bird" is most probably a vulture or a buzzard
(c) "Boatstones" and "awls" may have functioned in ritual bloodletting:
i) Clearly a major part of Maya ritual autosacrifice
ii) Olmec also practiced this and had relatively similar (jade) stone
"boats" and "lancets" (i.e., "perforators")
(2) Cultural cohesiveness implied by :
(a) Consistence of iconography
(b) Consistence of mortuary practices
Both over a large geographic area!
(c) Thus, a clear emergent tradition (what Peruvianists would perhaps call a "Horizon")
is implied
B. Clearly the Early Woodland Adena cultures provided the cultural substrate out of which the subsequent
Middle Woodland Hopewell evolved.
C. Terms related to discussion of THE EASTERN WOODLANDS: EARLY WOODLAND THROUGH THE ADENA:
1. Woodland Period: trends in periodizations?
2. Early Woodland Period (ca. 1000-300 BC):
3. Middle Woodland Period (ca. 300 BC - AD 700):
4. Late Woodland Period and/or Mississippian (ca. AD 700-1700):
5. Woodland period announced by appearance of pottery
6. Stallings Island, Georgia
7. Adena:
8. Adena: location of sites
9. Adena: nature of houses and settlements
10. Adena: first of the "Mound Builders": what kinds? forms? functions?
11. Adena: burial practices and inferences from them?
12. Adena: characteristic artifacts?
13. "Reel-shaped gorgets":
14. "Boatstones" and "awls": possible significances?
15. The "Raptorial Bird" motif
16. Adena tablets: description and possible function?
17. The "Adena Cult": meaning? significance?
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