Southeastern Archaeology Exam 1

Physiographic Provinince

A region defined by its distinct geological and physical features, including landforms, soils, and climate, which influence the cultural and environmental characteristics of its inhabitants. Each physiographic province has specific character, relief, and environment which contributes to its uniqueness.

Ecoregions

areas defined by ecological characteristics, such as climate, vegetation, and wildlife, that influence the biodiversity and ecosystems within them. Biodiversity ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the proobability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant.

Costal Plain

extends along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, characterized by low elevation and flat terrain. It is divided into the Outer Coastal Plain, the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain, and the Southern Coastal Plain. This region features a variety of wetlands, estuaries, and barrier islands and typically experiences a warm climate conducive to diverse ecosystems, including forests, marshes, and agricultural areas. The soils are often poorly drained, leading to unique habitats that support a wide range of plant and animal species. The Coastal Plain is significant for its biodiversity and is often important for tourism, agriculture, and fisheries.

Piedmont

Considered the nonmountainous portion of the old Appalachians highland by physiographers, the northeast-southwest trending Piedmont ecoregion comprises a transitional area between the mostly mountains ecoregions of the Appalachians to the northwest and the relatively flat coastal plain to the southeast. soils tend to be finer textured than in coastal plain regions. potential natural vegetation here was oak-hickory pine forests; early travelers called it the sea of Oaks.

Sandhills

The ecoregion consists of a unique landscape characterized by rolling hills and sandy soils. This region is primarily found in the central part of the United States, notably in North Carolina and Nebraska. The topography features well-drained, sandy soils that support a varied flora, including longleaf pine forests, wiregrass, and an understory of diverse plants adapted to dry conditions. The Sandhills region is significant for its biodiversity, especially in terms of specialized species that thrive in its sandy substrates. The climate is generally warm, making it conducive for diverse ecosystems, while the sandy soils can retain moisture during droughts but dry out quickly during hotter periods.

Outter Coastal Plain

An ecoregion that features a low-lying landscape along the Atlantic Ocean, primarily characterized by its flat terrain and a mix of wetland and maritime ecosystems. This region includes coastal marshes, estuarine systems, barrier islands, and is influenced by tidal movements. The Outer Coastal Plain is known for its biodiversity, hosting various plant and animal species adapted to saline and brackish environments. The climate is typically warm and humid, conducive to the growth of salt marshes, and supports important habitats for migratory birds and aquatic species, making it vital for both ecological balance and recreational activities like fishing and birdwatching.

Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain

Ecoregion that stretches from Delaware to the South Carolina/Georgia border and consists of low elevation flat plains, with many swamps, marshes, and estuaries. Its low terraces, marshes, dunes, barrier islands, and beaches are underlain by unconsolidated sediments. Poorly drained soils are common, and the region has a mix of coarse and finer textured soils.

Southern Coastal Plain

This ecoregion is lower in elevation with less relied and wetter soils than the Southeastern Plains. It is warmer, more heterogeneous, and has a longer growing season and coarser texture than the middle Atlantic coastal plain. It features diverse ecosystems, including wetlands, forests, and agricultural areas, and supports a variety of plant and animal species. it consists mostly of flat plains, but it is a heterogeneous region containing barrier islands, coastal lagoons, marshes, and swampy lowlands along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Southeastern Plains( Inner Coastal Plain)

These irregular plains have a mosaic of cropland, pasture, woodland, and forest. elevations and relied are greater than in the Southern Coastal Plain, but generally less than most of the Piedmon. Streams in this area are relatively low-gradient and sandy-bottomed.

The Fall Line

a geological boundary, forming a gently sloping region that rapidly loses elevation from the north to the south. creating a series of waterfalls, the geologic regions to the north of the __ __ include the Appalachian plateau, the valley and ridge, the blue ridge, and the piedmont. The upper coastal plain and lower coastal plain regions occur south of the __ __.

The Blue Ridge Physiographic Province

extends from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, varying from narrow ridges to hilly plateaus to more massive mountainous areas(with high peaks reaching over 6600 feet), annual precipitation of over 100 inches can occur in the wettest area while dry basins can average as little as 40 inches.

Ridge and Valley

This northeast-southwest tending, relatively low-lying, but diverse ecoregion is sandwiched between generally higher, more rugged mountainous regions with greater forest cover. Springs and caves are relatively numerous. present-day forest voer about 50% of the region. the ecoregion has a great diversity of aquatic habitats and species of fish.

Cumberland Plateau( appalachain plateaus)

stretching from Kentucky to Alabama, these open low mountains contain a mosaic of forest and woodland with some cropland and pasture. The eastern boundary of the ecoregion is relatively smooth, only slightly notched by eastward flowing streams. The western boundary next to the interior plateau has a rougher escarpment that is more deeply incised.

Interior Low Plateaus

diverse ecoregion extending from southern India and Ohio to northern Alabama. The natural vegetation is primarily oak-hickory forest, with some areas of blue stem prairie and cedar glades.

• diverse fish fauna

Mississippi Valley loess Plains

This ecoregion stretches from near the Ohio River in western Kentucky to Louisiana.

• Western soils are deep, steep, silty, and erosive

• flatter topography is found to the east, and streams are less gradient

Mississippi Alluvial Plain

extends along the Mississippi river from the confluence of the Ohio river and Mississippi river southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The ecoregion provides important habitats for fish and wildlife and includes the largest continuous system of wetlands in North America. It is also a major bird migration corridor used in fall and spring migrations, known as the Mississippial natural vege flyway. Potentitation is largely southern floodplain forest.

Ozark Highlands

Ecoregion has a more irregular physiography and is generally more forested than adjacent regions, with the exception of Boston mountains to the south.

Southeastern Plant and animal recources

• white-tailed deer

• elk(wapiti)

• bison

• black bear(high fat content)

• red wolf

• cougar, pumas, and mountain lion

• racoon, opossum, striped skunk, spotted skunk, and gray fox

• gray squirrel, fox squirrel, red squirrel, and chipmunk

• cardinal, common crow, chickadee, and woodpecker

• passenger pigeon

• turkey, ruffled goose, and bobwhite quail

• Southern and northern flying squirrel, muskrat, beaver, otter, and mink

• Fisher aka black catamount

• turtles, fish, snakes, alligator

Mississippian Culture

• starting around A.D. 800

• Cahokia became the largest community along the Mississippi and in other fertile river valleys

Caddon Family

• Caddo

• Oklahoma

• Arkansas

• Louisiana

• east Texas

Iroquoian Family

• Cherokee(southern appalachian Mountains)

• nottoway/meherrin(southeastern virginia)

• tuscarora(northeastern north carolina)

Muskogean family

• Alabama(central)

• Apalachee (Tallahassee area)

• Chickasaw(northern Mississippi and western Tennessee)

• Choctaw(central Mississippi)

• creek(central Alabama and Georgia)

• Hitchiti(central Georgia)

• Koasati(Northern Alabama)

• mikasuki(southern georgia)

• Seminole(Florida)

Siouan-catawba family

• biloxi( gulf of mexico)

• catawba( south carolina)

• ofo( western mississippi)

• quapaw( west virginia)

• tutelo( western virginia)

• woccon( tiwdewater north carolina)

Timucua

• Northern Florida

• in 1540 population 200,000+

• 1700 less than 1,000

• by 1800 population was 0

None of the above languages

• Atakapa( Texas and Louisiana coasts)

• chitimacha( Mississippi delta and Louisiana)

• Natchez(western Mississippi)

• tunica( northwest Mississippi)

• yuchi

Social and political organization

Southeastern societies were kin-based, with organization and roles at multiple scales referring to kinship

individuals

• maintain strong personal autonomy but are governed by corporate norms of behavioral expectations

• kinship roles and obligations

• Community roles and reciprocity

• Personal identity and roles are strongly linked to corporate identity, age, gendered practice, and lineage

gendered relations

• individual identity and societal roles were strongly conditioned by gender

• encoded into cosmology, worldview, religious belief, and ritual practice.

Households

• tend to be extended

• multigenerational coresidential units associated with lineage( usually matrilineage)

• roles conditioned by lineage, age, and gender

Clans

• Macrolineages, either real or fictive, crosscut society and communities

• primary organizational feature of Southeastern societies

• Membership in society is based on clan membership

• moieties: some societies divided clans into moieties, (usually red and white) that parallel binary dualistic models of cosmovision

Towns and communities

• multi-household coresidential and economic units, typically comprising multiple clan segments

• interconnected kinship lineages

• In some societies, each town is divided by moiety with specific assigned ritual roles and privileges

• autonomous and self contained but often ranked

tribes and nations

• largest level of kinship network

• considered to be “ closed,” but kinship networks often crosscut these amorphous units

• tend to be multi-town associations linked by common language, shared culture, and shared decent

women gendered roles

• ancient division of roles is embedded in a cosmovision defined by dualism and balanced by opposition

• regarded as nonhierarchical; complementary dualistic

• Women’s domain was the plant world, production, reproduction, and controlled farming

• Women’s roles are directly associated with life, fertility, food production, order, and ritual cleanliness

Men’s traditional roles

• centered around hunting of deer, bison, bear, and small game

• animals were viewed as the domain of men

• Undertook war and diplomacy

• management, disorder, and participation in chaotic affairs and “bloodiness ritually dirty”

• Men led the public ceremonies and conducted government functions but ultimately deferred to women's control of town and household

Basic Social Unitt

a small village or, in some instances, a larger town, that were sometimes nucleated settlements protected by palisades. were also often social groups composed of dispersed households, families, or hamlets united around a common and ceremonial center.

council house or temple and an associated square ground

• typical manifestations of public architecture

• towns were often autonomous

• political status of local communities varied greatly in time and space

caddo village 1870’s

• settlement pattern with domestic space, public space, and ritual space all ordered within the confines of a village

• has been maintained among some southeast groups up to the modern era

• in this settlement pattern local houses varied considerably but a community often had a common area where political and ceremonial activities took place

town in the southeastern native sense

• social and political organization similar to our contemporary concept of church congregation rather than a simply voluntary residential organization

• You are born into your mother’s town, and your affiliation and allegiance to that group of people continue throughout your life

• Your town is your primary identity

political organization

• complex chiefdoms of the Mississippian and early contact period encompassed wide regions and numerous ethnic groups within an integrated and political and ideological sphere

• Social stratification also varied widely between groups and through time

• apical chiefdoms and totally egalitarian bands existed simultaneously across the southeast

Cosmovision

a general perception of the world including ideas about structure, origin and relation of human life to those concepts

Axis Mundi

• world axis

• center intergrative link

• connection of human to supernatural

Above world

• place of order and harmony

• sun, thunders, and morning star

this world

flat plan floating on sea

beneath world

• place of chaos and death but also rebirth and fertility

• underwater panther, snakes, and horned serpent

• the night sky with the stars and the moon

path of souls

journey of dead through sky vault along milky way to portal to enter world of the dead

Dualism, balance, and cyclicity as pervasive principles

• ritual intended to rebalance world forces; observances and events occur in varied cycles

• humans viewed as weak, flawed actors; not human-centric system

presence of embodied supernaturals

• immortals

• little people

• horned serpents

• transgress layered domains via portals

• ability to interact with humans to bestow special knowledge or abilities or to correct transgressions

“medicine” as mediation

• restore balance

• connection to supernaturals

• health of individuals and community closely linked to religious practice

• knowledge based rather than power based

“medicine” knowledge widely shared

• ritual knowledge as currency

• shared across cultural groups and identities

• constitutes integrative tool

maize based economies and societies

• important to the southeast for the last 1000 years

• surplus production of maize and control and direction of surpluses were the bases for increasing political complexity and residential stability among southeast native societies

• observance of green corn ceremony( 4-7 day long festival of ritual dances that mark the high point of the annual ritual cycles)

Indigenious origin traditions

cite in both emergence from caves and/or migrations from unknown lands

Thomas Jefferson

• hypothesized where the inhabitants of America came from

  said people might have passed from Asia into America over these straits

• resemblances between Indigenous peoples of America and those of Siberia Eastern Asia would suggest then that the former indigenous American are descendants of the latter

Ales Hrdicka

• the Czech-born father of American physical anthropology

• affirmed human colonization of the American continent from east Asia via migration across the bearing strait

• asserted 3000 year timeline

George McJunkin

• african american ranch foreman

• discovery of indusputable artifacts with indisputable pleistocene(ice age)faunal remains

Folsom

• broke through the ice age barrier

• overturned the absence of ice age humans in the america’s

Clovis

• culture sites were not chronometrically dated until 1964

• considered element of the Paleoindian period which corresponds with the first peopling of the western hemisphere

• materials in Alaska are sparse and chronologically late

Pre-clovis

• considered element of the Paleoindian period which corresponds with the first peopling of the western hemisphere

Siberia

• presumed region of origin for Paleoindian peoples

• yielded no Clovis culture sites or anything that looks like a direct precursor

Paleogenomics

• advances in extraction and sequencing of DNA

• revolutionized our understanding of the origins and timing of the peopling of Americas

• provides insights into the genetic connections between ancient populations in siberia and native American groups

The late glacial interstadial

when humans spread through the americas

Molecular genetics

Spread from south Siberia

Beringia

Connected Siberia and the americas

Paleoamericans

diverged from ancient PaleoSiberians about 24,000 years ago

Southward expansion

• appears to have been a rapid expasions establishing populations all the way to souther chile 14,500 years ago

mississippi river

Green

tennessee river

Peach

savannah river

Light pink

cumberland river

Blue

chattahoochee river

Dark pink

tombigbee river

Red

oconee river

Brown

red river

Orange

Arkanas river

not marked

Topper SC

green

Dust cave

Dark pink

Gault/Freidkin

Red

Hardway NC

light blue

Icehouse Bottom

Orange

Slaon Site

purple

Haw river

Maroon

Cactus Hill

dark blue

Page-ladson

light pink

Coastal Plain

7

Piedmont

19

Blue ridge

4

Valley and Ridge

24

Appalachain Plateaus

2

interior low plateaus

11

centeral lowlands

6

ozark plateaus

17

ouachita

16

What are the Major objective of archaeology? what are we trying to do?

Major Objectives

• develop temporal sequences of past cultures: employing excavations and analysis based on scientific principals

• reconstruct the lifeways of the past human societies

• understand cultural processes

trying to do

• understand cultural evolution

• connect the past to the present

• preserve and interpret cultural heritage: protection of sites from destruction, excavations take place to find artifacts to try and understand what their everyday life was like

• track climate change effects, recourse use, and land management

What and why are curated technologies give examples.

• tools and artifacts that were designed for long-term use, maintenance, and transport

  why?

• efficiency: reusable and durable

• scarcity of raw materials: helped materials last longer

• versatility: multifunctional and most of the time capable of being adapted

examples:

• Clovis composite spear system: binding and shaft

• blades and knives

• ground stone tools: axes and grinding stones

• bones and antlers: organic tools that were sharpened and repurposed

Discuss models for Early Archaic period settlement organization.

• hunter-gatherer theory: corner notches and side-notched points related to hunting smaller game, serrated edge as a result of resharpening(maximum perseverance of the blade width

• Economic diversity: increased use of local materials

• Changes in mobility

• regionalization: more sites increasing population

• all in the context of climate change toward modern conditions

• residential(whole group moves to follow resources)

• High mobility model

• Residential mobility model: moves during the year, for example, forager

• Logistical mobility model: fewer residential moves, for example, collectors

  • the hunter-gatherer theory emphasizes the use of specialized tools for hunting smaller game, which indicates adaptation to available resources; economic diversity points to a reliance on local materials, reflecting resource management; changes in mobility patterns showcase how human behavior shifted in response to environmental changes; and regionalization indicates growth in population and site numbers due to these adaptations.

what was the “mound builder myth, and what were its effects of the development of southeastern archaeology?

• widely held belief that the large earthen mounds found across the southeast were built by a superior race and that they couldn’t be built by indigenous peoples.

• excavation claims of very tall individual remains

• debunked in the late 1870s when conclusive evidence of no physical difference between the people buried in the mounds and modern Indigenous peoples

• delayed recognition of Indigenous achievements → primitive and incapable of complex society-building

• destruction of sites for looting and supposed evidence of a lost race

• both positive and negative