ARCN 112 Midterm Dates

NAGPRA

1990

Kelp Highway hypothesis

16,000 years ago

White Sands footprints

20,000 years ago

Cahokia site

1020-1200 CE (Mississippian Era)

estimated 10,000–20,000 people and features include Monks Mound, a Grand Plaza, a wooden palisade, and Mound 72 (rich burials, including likely sacrifices).

Moundville (Alabama)

1020-1200 CE (Mississippian Era)

showed the transition to Mississippian from Late Woodland groups via platform mounts, shells in construction, and changes in housing. There were 29 platform mounds surrounding a central plaza.

Toltec Site

Clovis

13,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene)

Fluted stone projectile points found at Blackwater Draw

Folsom - Hanson site (Wyoming)

13-12,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene)

they are more fluted and longer than Clovis points and were found embedded in giant bison, which proved humans were in the Americas and hunting during the Pleistocene.

Indian Knoll Site (Kentucky)

3000-2000 BCE

has over 1000 burials and was evidence for social hierarchy b/c different groups of people buried had varying status-related grave goods

Old Copper Complex

7500-2500 BCE (Archaic culture)

Made from native copper from the Great Lakes region, people cold-hammered and then annealed the metal. Spear points, celts, fishing implements, awls, drills, beads, and bracelets were created and moved through long-distance exchange networks. This is some of the earliest metalworking in the Americas and was important b/c people were living above the terrestrial plant threshold — limits on land-based vegetation

Eastern Agricultural Complex

2000-1000 BCE (Woodland Period)

Crops include goosefoot, squash, and knotweed. Maize arrived later (about 200–900 CE and intensified after 900–1000 CE), and the Eastern Woodlands is one of the world's independent centers of plant domestication.

Ramah Chert

7000-3500 BCE (Maritime Archaic groups)

Maritime Archaic groups

7,500–3,500 BCE

Marine-adapted hunter-gatherers, they hunted seals, swordfish, and walrus, and built longhouses in Labrador - indicating a social hierarchy.

Olsen-Chubbuck site (Colorado)

8500-6000 BCE (Plano tradition)

Danger Cave Site (Utah)

7000-5000 BCE

The site provided evidence for changing diets - transition from megafauna to small seed and plant foraging (pickleweed). Evidence comes from preserved plant remains.

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

1000–1600 CE (Mississippian Period)

Shared religious iconography and ritual objects across Mississippian societies found at Cahokia and Moundville. It reflects shared cosmology and elite exchange networks.

American Dark Ages

400-900CE (Late Woodland-Mississippian transition)

resulted in a retraction of the long-distance relationships and decrease in ritual events. However, moundbuilding was still occurring. 

Itasca Bison Kill

6500 to 3800 BCE

Hunters killed bison at the edge of the prairie-forest transition. Site contains two separate areas: one with extinct bison species and processing tools, the other area is a small campsite. Supported the idea that people would hunt and process food and then leave.

Oneota (Blue Earth Phase)

1250-1500 CE

Thought to be the “bridging culture” between the upper Mississippian transition and local Woodland groups. Distinctive ceramics: shell-tempered, globular jar with decorations, handles. No known mound burials.

Oneota (Orr Phase)

1625-1700 CE

Beginning of contact with Europeans with cemeteries and burial mounds

Psinomani

1100 CE

Characterized by Sandy Lake pottery, they were semi-nomadic — believed that MN was home since time immemorial with Bdote having particular importance

Ojibwe

Came to MN in 17th century

Hunting, fishing, gathering → similar lifeways to the Dakota ● Lived in wigwams and used birch bark canoes ● Importance of wild rice ● Accounts of conflict with the Dakota, but times of peace as well