North American Archaeology Final Exam Review

Southwest subregions

• Colorado Plateau

• Sonoran Desert

• Chihuahuan Desert

• Rocky Mountains

Southwest important themes

• Agriculture in the desert (irrigation)

• Development of large stone & adobe villages

• Religious traditions that continue to the present

• Rich pottery traditions

• Interaction with Mesoamerica

• How do people thrive in the desert?

Dendrochronology

Dating sites based on tree-rings

Southwest Periodization

• Archaic (10,500-2,000 BP)

• Formative (2,000-150 BP)

  • Hohokam

  • Ancestral Pueblo

  • Mogollon

Southwest Archaic subsistence

• foraging (grasses & nuts, mesquite, yucca, cacti)

• hunt (rabbit, deer, mountain sheep)

Southwest Archaic toolkit

• manos & metates

• spears & atlatls

• woven basketry

Southwest Archaic dwellings

Change over time

• brush houses (mesquite wood domes over shallow pits, mobile architecture)

• pit houses (5,000 BP, semi-subterranean structures, semi-permanent villages)

• Keystone Dam Site

Keystone Dam Site

• 4,500-3.800 BP

• One of the first semi-sedentary villages in the Southwest

• 23-41 brush houses

Southwest Archaic agriculture

• 4,100 BP = earliest evidence of maize (Arizona)

• Quickly spread through the region

• Adopted slowly, joining the suite of hunting & foraging staples

Southwest Archaic technology: irrigation

• 3,200 BP = evidence of irrigation canals

• Larger agricultural fields & permanent villages

• Las Capas Site

Las Capas Site

• 3,200-2,800 BP

• First evidence of irrigation canals

• Large-scale maize farming

• Large village —> 53 pit houses, 50 large storage pits, 490 roasting pits

Southwest Archaic technology: pottery

• 2,800-2,000 BP = adoption of pottery in the Sonoran Desert

• 2,000 BP = common technology/material culture throughout much of the Southwest

• Coincides with widespread settlement into permanent villages

Distinct regional cultural traditions by the end of the Southwest Archaic period

Ancestral Sonoran Desert People (Hohokam)

Mogollon

Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi)

Ancestral Sonoran Desert People (Hohokam)

• 2,000-350 BP = development of Hohokam Culture of the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People

• Sonoran Desert along with Gila & Salt rivers

• Large-scale irrigation

• red pottery

• monumental architecture

Hohokam subperiods

• Pioneer (2,000-1,250 BP)

• Colonial/Pre-Classic (1,250-850 BP)

• Classic (850-550 BP)

Hohokam Pioneer Period

• Small permanent pit house villages along the Gila & Salt rivers

• riverine irrigation canals

• Agriculture (food crops: maize, beans, squash - non-food crops: cotton, tobacco, agave)

• Irrigation

  • 1,500 BP

  • Most developed irrigation system in SW

  • Eventually reached 600 miles, used over 1,500 years

• Communities: canal sharing require administration, social organization - at the head of each canal line there was a larger village whose leaders influenced the entire community of smaller villages linked by that canal

• Pottery

  • 1,700 BP = pottery widespread across Hohokam sites

  • Decorated only with red slip

  • Used for storing food in pits under houses

• Valencia Vieja Site

Valencia Vieja Site

• 1,950-1,300 BP

• 10-20 large square pit houses oriented around an open plaza

Hohokam Colonial/Pre-Class Period

• 1,250-850 BP

• Spread across Southern Arizona

• Population boom

• Trade & influence from Mesoamerica

  • Long distance trade networks (Gulf Coast, Central Mexico)

  • Import: macaw, marine shells, copper bells, & iron pyrite mirrors

  • Export: turquoise, turquoise jewelry, & cotton textiles

• Settlements

  • towns along river floodplains

  • villages following canals into desert land

  • large pit houses

• Ballcourts

  • 1,250 BP

  • Mesoamerican influence

  • over 225 courts

  • Ceremonial sport

• Artistry & Craft Specialization

  • Red painted pottery

  • Turquoise jewelry

  • Carved stone palettes

• Snaketown

Snaketown

• Large village (1,000 people)

• 70,000 irrigated areas

• pit houses of differing sizes

  • Social inequality

• 2 ballcourts

• 1 large plaza

Hohokam Classic Period

• 850-500 BP

• Above-ground adobe structures

  • Influence from

• Population of roughly 80,000

  • Densest in SW

• Architecture

  • Caliche architecture

  • Large compounds surrounded by walls

  • Compounds enclosed large platform mounds and/or multistory buildings

  • Platform mounds

    • Ballcourts —> platform mounds

    • Rectangular mounds of earth lined with plaster

    • Elite structures at the apex

• Casa Grande Site

• Decline:

  • 700-550 BP

  • Combination of factors (pressures from Puebloan groups, environmental stress)

  • Descendants of the Sonoran Desert Peoples (O’odham Nations) continued to use the irrigation system historically & today as well

Mogollon

• Chihuahua Desert & Rocky Mountains

• Maize agriculturalists

• Material culture signatures:

  • Black on white pottery

  • Elaborate mortuary rituals

  • Largest settlement in southwest

Mogollon subperiods

• Early Mogollon (Early Pit house) - 1,800-1,450 BP

• Middle Mogollon (Late Pit house) - 1,450-1,000 BP

• Late Mogollon (Mogollon Classic/Pueblo) - 1,000-600 BP

Early Mogollon (Early Pit House)

• 1,800-1,450 BP

• Hunter-gatherers began small-scale maize cultivation

• Semi-sedentary pit house villages

• Early settlement characteristics

  • Small villages

  • Small, circular pit houses

  • Hilltop locations

  • Communal spaces

• Pottery

  • 1,800 BP

  • Simple but well-made

  • Functional uses (cooking, storage)

Middle Mogollon (Late Pit house)

• 1,450-1,000 BP

• Increased maize agriculture

• Population boom

• River valley settlements

• Large permanent villages

• Architecture

  • Large, square pit houses

  • Housing is oriented around communal courtyards

• Pottery

  • Decoration

  • Different styles & patterns

  • Suggests contact with Hohokam & Ancestral Puebloan

Late Mogollon (Mogollon Classic/Pueblo)

• 1,000-600 BP

• Significant shifts in architecture & artistry

• Increasing influence from other SW groups

• Changing ceremonial activities & mortuary practices

• Settlement

  • Pit houses —> above ground stone & adobe structures

  • Kivas

    • Large circular structures, communal centers of ritual life

    • Ancestral Puebloan Influence

• Pottery

  • Ceremonial/ritual uses (funerary practices)

  • Figural decorations (animals, humans, mythical figures/stories/scenes)

  • Mimbres Pottery

• Paquime

• Decline

  • Linked to regional drought (ca. 600 BP), possible absorption into Ancestral Puebloan society, cultural links to Zuni, Hopi, & Acoma contemporary Indigenous communities

Mimbres Pottery

• 1,000-800 BP

• Distinctive black on white style

• Wide range of humans, animals, & mythical figures/scenes/stories

• Funerary contexts

  • Grave goods, place on head of individual, burials include a single Mimbres vessel, bowls were ceremonially killed before being interred

Paquime

• 800-550 BP

• Rio Casas Grande floodplain

• largest Mogollon center, largest center in the SW at its pinnacle

  • Center of SW cultural world, trade hub

• Urban dwelling

  • Mud & gravel “concrete'“ pueblo construction

  • Population = 2,500

  • Advanced water infrastructure, courtyards, plazas, platform mounds, ball courts

• Ritual life

  • Regional center for religious activity

    • Sacrificial practices (evidence of human sacrifice, hundreds of macaw & turkey sacrificial burials)

  • Significant elite population (elite burials with rich grave goods = clear social inequalities)

• Trade network

  • Center of an extensive trade network with the SW & Mesoamerica

  • Import: seashells, macaws

  • Export: turquoise, pottery

  • Interconnected to the Aztec Empire trading network?

Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi)

• 2,000-700 BP

• Agriculturalists in the 4 Corners Region (maize, squash, & beans)

• Pueblo architecture

• Kiva ceremonialism

• Great Houses

• Ancestors of modern Puebloan people

Ancestral Puebloan subperiods

• Early (pit houses) - 1,800-1,250 BP

  • Basketmaker II (2,000-1,500 BP)

  • Basketmaker III (1,500-1,250 BP)

• Middle (Puebloan Architecture & the rise of Chaco Canyon) - 1,250-700 BP

  • Pueblo I (1,250-1,100 BP)

  • Pueblo II (1,100-850 BP)

  • Pueblo III (850-700 BP)

• Late (Decline of Classic Pueblo & development of Modern Pueblo cultures) - 700 BP-present

  • Pueblo IV (700-400 BP)

  • Pueblo V (400-present)

Ancestral Puebloan Early period

• 1,800-1,250 BP

• Maize becomes increasingly important part of diet

• Increasing size of villages, as well as size of pit houses

• Material Culture: woven reed baskets, limited pottery

• Turkeys

  • Evidence Puebloans had domesticated the turkey by 2,100 BP

  • Source of food & feathers

  • Might have come up from Mesoamerica, might have been domesticated locally

• Pit houses

  • large pit houses up to 1m deep

  • Single family dwellings

• Villages

  • near agricultural fields & rivers

  • 3-5 pit houses per village

  • crop storage (small rock-lined pits called cists) & above ground huts)

• Shabik’eschee Site

Shabik’eschee Site

• 1,500-1,300 BP

• Located in Chaco Canyon

• Large village with over 64 pit houses

• Large communal pit house at the village center

• Kivas

  • 1,500 BP

  • Meeting places, ceremonial sites

  • Ubiquitous in large villages by 1,250 BP

  • Remain the center of Puebloan spiritual life up to the present

Ancestral Puebloan Middle Period

• Maize agriculture became more dominant

• Shift in architecture: above-ground houses of stone, wood & mud

• 6-7 houses built together in groups = Pueblo

• Central kivas

• 1,100 BP = population boom

• Pueblos became larger & more numerous (stone & mortar, up to 10 rooms, multistory)

• Chaco Canyon

• Great Houses

  • Pueblo Bonito

Chaco Canyon

• 1,100 BP —> massive construction projects in Chaco Canyon, NW New Mexico

• Massive Pueblos = “Great Houses”

• Center of Puebloan life

• Regional system

  • 200 Great Houses in the broader Four Corners region

  • 1,500 miles of road connecting Chaco across the region

• Decline

  • 850 BP

  • Deforestation & drought = environmental degradation —> abandonment

  • Repercussions

    • Abandonment of villages

    • People across the Four Corners area consolidate in larger settlements

    • Causes? —> decrease in rainfall & increased agricultural intensity

  • Cliff dwellings

    • Groups begin to build Pueblos in highly defensible locations

    • Increase in warfare

      • 850-700 BP

      • Defensive architecture

      • Weapons

      • Skeletal evidence

    • Maximization of arable land

    • Cliff Palace

Pueblo Bonito

• 1,150-850 BP

• largest Great House in Chaco Canyon (3 acres)

• Highly planned & engineered

• Likely the most important, central place in the Puebloan world

• 600-800 rooms, 32 kivas, & 3 great kivas

• Buildings up to 4 stories in height

• Either a significant population (over 1,000 individuals) or much smaller population (70 individuals residing in 12 elite households)

• Great Kivas

  • 3 massive kivas over 20m in diameter (host hundreds of people, evidence of feasting)

  • Centers of Puebloan ritual life, communal activity (kiva ceremonialism)

• Social hierarchy: Mortuary Material Culture

  • 200 burials recovered at Pueblo Bonito, 14 with rich grave goods (turquoise beads, jewelry, imported luxury items - macaws, copper bells, shell jewelry)

• Cacao

  • Evidence of cacao found in drinking vessels (1,000-875 BP)

    • Up to 75% of all drinking vessels recovered from Pueblo Bonito show evidence of cacao

Cliff Palace

• 810-740 BP

• Large village occupied along a cliff face in Mesa Verde

• 150 rooms, 23 kivas

• Important regional center

• Population estimated at 100 people

Ancestral Puebloan Late period

• 700-present

• Extreme drought —> breakdown in agriculture & social order

• 700 BP = abandonment of Mesa Verde region

• Ancestral Puebloan groups moved in Northern Arizona & New Mexico

• 450 BP = arrival of the Spanish

  • Encounter vast populations of people from different Puebloan nations who were subjected to colonial force & rule

Eastern Woodlands

• Agricultural societies based on EAC; later, maize

• Densely populated sedentary villages & cities

• highly stratified societies: hereditary elites, paramount chiefs

• Complex ceremonial life tied to mound building, artwork, burial, sporting activities

• Mound Building

  • Long regional tradition with wide variety of forms & functions (ceremonial, residential, mortuary; domed, flat-topped, serpentine)

• Regional integration

  • Hopewell (2,200-1,600 BP)

  • Mississippian (1,000-400 BP)

• Technology/material culture

  • Metal working technology, pottery

Eastern Woodlands subregions

• Mississippi River Valley

• Ohio River Valley

• Southeast

• Northeast

• Great Lakes

Eastern Woodlands Periodization

• Early Archaic - 9,500-8,00 BP

• Middle Archaic - 8,000-5,000 BP

• Late Archaic - 5,000-3,000 BP

• Early Woodland - 3,000-1,900 BP

• Middle Woodland - 2,200-1,600 BP

• Mississippian (Late Woodland) - 1,600-450 BP

Eastern Woodlands Early Archaic

• 9,500-8,000 BP

• Small, mobile populations, regional sites

• More mobile in NE vs. larger & more sedentary populations in the south

• Toolkit

  • Array of lithic points, bone tools, atlatls

  • Kirk Corner Notched Toolkit

• Subsistence

  • Significant regional variation, diverse hunting & foraging diet (deer, possum, fish, shellfish)

  • Array of botanical resources (hickory nuts)

• Windover Site

Kirk Corner Notched Toolkit

• ca. 9,000 BP

• Kirk Corner Notch Point & standard toolkit of lithic scrappers & choppers

• Style starts in the SE but spread across the whole region, suggesting interaction, trade or migration

Windover Site

• 8,200-7,200 BP

• Florida

• Peatbog cemetery

• Used over 1,000 years

Eastern Woodlands Middle Archaic

• Changing environment —> population increase & increased sedentism

• More specialized toolkit: fishing, hunting, building

• Settlements

  • Small seasonal villages/basecamps

  • River valley & coastal locations

  • Multiple, sizable houses, storage pits

• Mortuary sites & practices

  • Graveyards found throughout the middle archaic, graves associated with regional ceremonies

  • Few grave goods

  • Increasing community ties to place

• Toolkit

  • Changing toolkit, wide variety of lithics (ground stone axes, woodworking tools, grinding stones, lithic flaked tools, net weights, fishhooks)

• Foodways

  • Diversification, aquatic resources, botanical resources (wide array of seeds, nuts, & fruits)

• Shell Middens & Mounds

  • Shell debris from subsistence practices —> construction

• Old Copper Culture: 7,000-6,000 BP

  • Great Lakes region, large-scale mining operations

  • Cold hammered adzes, axes, etc.

  • Trade networks

• Watson Brake Site

Watson Brake Site

• 5,400 BP

• Northern Louisiana

• 11 earthwork mounds from 3-25 ft tall arranged in a circle next to the village

• Hunter/forager basecamp village adjacent

• Construction of monumental mounds took place over 500 years, significant labor & planning

• Ceremonial use

Eastern Woodlands Late Archaic

• 5,000-3,000 BP

• Cooler climate, increasing populations, regionalization & sedentism

• Rising social inequality, organization

• Trade networks

• EAC domestication

• Settlements & housing

  • Larger villages, more villages clustered in river valleys

  • single-family oval dwellings & larger rectangular wattle & daub houses

• Soapstone bowls

  • 4,500 BP

  • Cooking & holding liquids

  • Produced out of a few soapstone quarries in Virginia, traded widely across the Southeast & beyond

• Stallings Island Site

• Pottery

  • allows cooking of liquids over a fire

  • Secure means for food storage (vs. pits)

  • Traveling technology

    • Pottery spread across the SE, arriving in Florida by 4,000 BP & in NE by 3,000 BP

  • Almost all Eastern Woodland groups were using pottery by end of Late Archaic

• Mortuary Practices

  • Larger cemeteries, rich grave goods (show clear social hierarchy)

    • Rich child burials, differentiation between female/male burials

    • Red Ochre burials (5,000-3,800 BP)

      • Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes

      • Red ochre & exotic grave goods

      • Regionally-shared belief system & interregional trade network

    • Green River Valley Cemeteries

• Earth mound complexes

• Poverty Point

Green River Valley Cemeteries

• 5,000-3,000 BP

• Kentucky

• A small fraction of bodies buried with exotic offerings (copper ornaments, marine shell items from the Gulf of Mexico)

• Differently gendered grave goods, hereditary status (elite children)

Earth Mound Complexes

• 60+ mound complexes in the southern Mississippi Valley

• Required large-scale organized communal labor

• Central gathering places & ritual locations

Poverty Point

• 3,600-3,100 BP

• Largest village site of the period (4,00-5,000 people)

• Most elaborate mound complex of the period

  • large open plaza, 6 semi-circular rings of mounded earth, 6 mounds outside the semi-circle

• Subsistence & technology

  • no domestication or pottery, hunter-gatherer society reliant on riverine sources

  • Major trade center (stone & stone objects, seashells, copper, quartz, polished stone)

    • Carved & polished stone beads & pendants (ritual use)

• Culture

  • Surrounded by series of smaller satellite sites (share exact same material culture, style of art, & mound tradition)

  • cultural/religious center with influence over a considerable area

Eastern Woodlands Early Woodland

• 3,000-2,200 BP

• Agriculture becomes more important

• Widespread production of pottery

  • 3,000 BP = pottery technology throughout region

  • Local potting materials, used for cooking & storing food

  • The Container Revolution

• Large permanent villages, extensive mound building, elaborate burials

• Agriculture

  • EAC → increases in importance (squash, sunflower, marshelder/sumpweed & chenopodium/goosefoot)

  • Garden plots

  • Tobacco

    • 2,300 BP = ceramic tobacco pipes

    • 2,000 BP = wild tobacco cultivated

    • Increasingly important trade good throughout the region

• Mound Building

  • Spanning from Florida to Iowa, concentration in Ohio River Valley

  • Ceremonial mounds, burial mounds, effigy mounds

• Settlements

  • Sedentary villages, oriented around garden plots & mounds

• Adena Culture

The Container Revolution

• Widespread adoption of ceramic containers facilitated:

  • EAC cultivation, seed processing & cooking

• Linked to sedentism

Adena Culture

• 2,500 BP

• Large burial mound complexes in Ohio River Valley

• Similar cultural traits across the area, focused on shared burial mound ceremonies

• Burial mounds

  • 100s of large conical burial mounds, some over 60 ft tall, single or group (lineage) burials, elaborate burial rituals (rich grave goods, differentiation in mortuary treatment → inequality?)

  • Gathering places & ceremonial sites

  • Grave goods

    • Exotic materials = evidence of trade

      • Stone tablets, copper objects, mice objects, obsidian tools, carved stone pipes

    • Bird motif → distinctive artistic tradition

  • Strictly non-residential

  • Indicate organization of labor, complex ritual life, potentially socially stratified society

  • In the landscape, part of larger complexes of raised earthworks

    • Large raised-earth circles may be site of important mortuary rituals?

• Influence

  • Trade network across Great Lakes & NE

  • Concentration of motifs & artifacts

  • Some evidence of influence beyond

Eastern Woodlands Middle Woodland

• Population growth

• Hopewell Culture spreads out from Ohio

• shared ceremonial traditions, extensive trade networks

Hopewell Culture

• 2,200-1,600 BP

• Developed from the Adena Culture

• Unique earthwork construction & ceremonies

• Material culture elements to consider: pottery style & broader artistic tradition

Hopewell Earthworks & Burial mounds

• larger mounds & more complex earthworks (raised embankments in geometric shapes, ceremonial & astronomical purposes)

• Newark Earthworks Site

• Burial mounds

  • Large rounded burial mounds near earthen embankments

  • Multiple & single burials in different mounds

  • Evidence of inequality

  • Grave goods

    • Some graves contain rich grave goods: exotic materials (mica, copper, stone pipes, silver, bone, obsidian blades, shell bowls), animal motifs (especially otters & birds)

Newark Earthworks Site

• 2,100-1,500 BP

• 3,000 acres

• geometric raised earthworks: circles & squares

• Lines up with astronomical events (calendar? lunar observatory?)

Hopewell Pottery

• Higher quality than earlier periods

• Utilitarian (crosshatch)

• Ceremonial pottery

  • Figural (bird) motifs

  • Grave goods

Hopewell Subsistence

• Combined strategy

  • Small-scale agriculture centered on the EAC (some evidence of maize)

  • Strong focus on hunting & gathering (fish, deer, & nuts)

Hopewell Settlements & Elites

• Population increase compared to Adena period, but group sizes remain small

• People live in small permanent villages, remain mobile for part of the year

• Do not live near burial mounds or earthworks

• Debate over Hopewell social structure

  • Material evidence of complexity, little village-based evidence of social stratification

    • ritual stratification rather than political?

Hopewell Interaction Sphere

• 2,000 BP

• Widespread adoption of 3 defining aspects of Hopewell Culture

  • Earthworks & mounds

  • Pottery

  • Exotic ornaments & raw materials

• Marksville Hopewell

• Trempealeau Hopewell

• Trans-continental trade/pilgrimage network

• Decline

  • Stopped building burial mounds & earthen works & stopped using Hopewell styles (Outside Ohio)

  • Decrease in trade

Marksville Hopewell

• 2,100-1,600 BP

• Louisiana, similar to Ohio Hopewell

  • Earthworks & burial mounds, locally-made bird motif pottery, similar stone pipe styles

• Non-agricultural society

Trempealeau Hopewell

• Eastern Wisconsin

• Burial mound built over a log tomb in Hopewell style

• Bird motif pottery, exotic grave goods (copper, obsidian, stone pipes)

Interaction sphere

An array of different cultures all influenced by a single dominant culture via a long-distance trade network creating corridors of cultural movement

Eastern Woodlands Mississippian (Late Woodland)

• Widespread adoption of maize agriculture

• Large cities, highly stratified socio-political organizations

• Rise of Maize

  • 2,000-1,200 BP: maize was only a minor cultigen

  • 1,200-1,000 BP: maize cultivation takes off (slash-and-burn style agriculture)

• Rise of Mississippian Culture: 1,200 BP

  • Rises in American Bottom area

  • Material culture: thin-walled pottery

  • Subsistence: large-scale maize agriculture

• Spread of Mississippian Culture: 1,000 BP

  • Population boom in American Bottom

  • Cahokia = massive center

  • Spread of Mississippian traits across SE

• Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC)

• Shifts in Cultural/Political Landscape

  • Decline of Cahokia, new centers rise

    • Moundville

    • Etowah

• Mississippian Decline

  • 700 BP = abandonment of American Bottom centers

  • 650 BP = abandonment of many SE centers

• Legacies

  • Many practices associated with Mississippian were still performed at European contact & continue today

  • Many motifs, myths, & heroes seem to have been continued by Indigenous groups throughout contact & to the present day

Mississippian Pottery

• Potters use ground up, burnt mussel shells to temper their clay → thinner & stronger pots

• Wide variety of vessel forms, expanding array of artistic choices

Mississippian Settlements

• Large permanent villages, communal storage facilities

• Platform mounds

  • Earthen platform at the center of major settlements (rectangular, structure on top, staircase access, plaza below)

Cahokia

• 1,200-600 BP

• 900 BP: dominant Mississippian center

• Large population, highly stratified city & religious center

• Salient points

  • 120 mounds (platform & burial)

  • Monks Mound

    • Largest mound in North America

    • Large wooden building on top → ruler’s residence

  • Central Mound Plaza

    • Monks Mound

    • Over 40 acres

    • Large walled compound

    • Elite ‘neighborhoods’ surrounding the plaza

  • Woodhenge

    • Circle of wooden stakes surrounding a central wooden post (solar calendar)

• Large copper workshop

  • Hammered, worked & carved copper into ceremonial objects (masks, earspools, copper plates)

    • Common motif: bird-man

    • Highly valued, worn ornament, used across Mississippian woodlands, likely made in Cahokia

  • Only excavated copper workshop in North America

• Pottery

  • Very finely made vessels, intricate swirl designs, were traded beyond Cahokia

• Sport: Chunkey

  • Invented in Cahokia, played in the large plaza, highly competitive, focus of gambling

• Rulers

  • Single ruler, power likely tied to religious beliefs & ceremonial practices

  • Controlled food surplus & labor

• Elite burials

  • Mound 72

    • Large burial mound within Woodhenge

    • Important ruler, 20,000 beads & 120 sacrificed young women associated

• Region

  • Satellite centers built on the model of Cahokia, clear hierarchy of centers, based on numbers & size of platform mounds

• Decline

  • 800-600 BP

Mississippian Politics & Cultures

• Each settlement ruled by a chief, social hierarchy of settlements

• Size of mound defines the status of a settlement

• All settlements ruled over by a paramount chief, the chief of the major regional center

• Complex chiefdoms → rise of paramount rulers

• Monumental platform mounds & plazas

• Religion centered on maize agriculture

• Shared beliefs, ceremonies, burials, pottery, & artistic motifs

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC)

• 750-450 BP

• Shared artistic & ceremonial tradition, material culture (copper earspools, copper plates, pipes, shell gorgets)

• Iconography: birds

Moundville

• 1,100-350 BP

• 800 BP = a heavily fortified large mound center became one of the paramount centers in the SE (29 mounds)

Etowah

• 700-650 BP

• Northwestern Georgia

• Large mound center, 6 major mounds (2nd largest mound after Cahokia)

• Important ceremonial site, SECC material culture signature

Northeastern Woodlands Periodization

• Early Archaic: 9,500-8,000 BP

• Maritime Archaic: 8,000-3,000 BP

• Early Woodland: 3,000-2,200 BP

• Middle Woodland: 2,200-1,600 BP

• Late Woodland: 1,600-450 BP

Northeastern Woodlands Maritime Archaic

• 8,000-3,000 BP

• Maritime adaptation in NE & Canadian Maritimes

• Seasonal fisher-gatherers, living in small communities in pit houses & longhouses, extensive reliance on marine resources

• Toolkit

  • Open-water & coastal toolkit (fishing nets, barbed-bone harpoons, boats - dug-out canoes, skin canoes)

• Subsistence

  • Marine diet: seals, small whales, shellfish seabirds, & fish

  • in Maine, evidence of the Red Paint people hunting swordfish

  • 5,000 BP: fishing weird & communal labor

Northeastern Woodlands Early Woodland

• 3,000-2,200 BP

• Material Culture (pottery & soapstone containers)

• Mortuary practices (Adena influence)

• Cultivation (limited evidence of EAC & tobacco)

• Pottery & subsistence

  • Extensive use of pottery & soapstone vessels, used for foraging, processing, & cooking, pottery style adapted across the St. Lawrence River, Great Lakes, & New England

• Meadowood Culture

Meadowood Culture

• 2,700-2,300 BP

• Shared belief systen & rituals across Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River Valley & into New England

  • Burials in naturally occurring mounds

  • Grave goods: chipped stone tools (Meadowood Points), ochre

• Augustine Mound

Augustine Mound

• Built earthwork burial mound in New Brunswick

• 13 individuals

• rich burial goods (copper, stone pipe, textiles, basketry)

• Similar to Adena style burials

Northeastern Woodlands Middle Woodland

• 2,200-1,600 BP

• Hopewell Influence across the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence, NONE along the Atlantic Coast

• Increase in pottery usage & sedentism

• Introduction of maize agriculture

• Point Peninsula Culture

• New England & Upstate NY

  • Settlements (larger populations, increased sedentism, villages clustered in valleys & along waterways)

  • Subsistence (mostly hunter-gatherer strategy, some maize cultivation, evidence of food storage pits)

  • Regional interactions (marked decrease in long-distance trade)

Point Peninsula Culture

• 2,200-1,800 BP

• Ontario & Quebec

• Hopewell-influenced mounds

• Unique pottery style (Vinette II) spreads into New England & Mid-Atlantic areas

Northeastern Woodlands Late Woodland

Draper Site

• 600-400 BP

• Major (Huron) Iroquoian village

• 55 longhouses

• 2,000 residents

• 4 hectares

• Multiple rows of palisade fortifications

• Occupied at the same time as the area around it was depopulated

Haudenosaunee Confederacy

• Established around 900 BP

• Iroquoian-speaking groups formed a united confederacy called Haudenosaunee (“people of the longhouse”)

• Known to the Europeans as the Iroquois League or Five Nations