Chapter 8-Q-A.docx

Adena: an archaeological mound building tradition that first appears during the Early Woodland period in Eastern North America, about 1000 cal BC. The conical mounds contain burials that accumulated over many years, with the size of the mounds growing as basket-carried earth was added to cover new b...

Adena: an archaeological mound building tradition that first appears during the Early Woodland period in Eastern North America, about 1000 cal BC. The conical mounds contain burials that accumulated over many years, with the size of the mounds growing as basket-carried earth was added to cover new burials in the same place. Cahokia: an Early Mississippian period site in Illinois (Eastern North America). Cahokia was one of the most important political and ritual centers of the Mississippian period. Its “downtown” area contained Monk’s Mound, the Great Plaza, a Woodhenge, sub-Mound 51, and a wooden palisade, as well as several other earthen mounds (such as Mound 72) and plazas. It was associated with the complexes at the East St. Louis Site and the Mound City Site. Hopewell: an Eastern North America tradition of mound building, burial complexes, and long-distance exchange networks that appears during the Middle Woodland period, starting about 200 cal BC; there are several regional groups, including the Ohio Hopewell. Hopewell Interaction Sphere: a Middle Woodland “phenomenon” in which certain aspects of ritual and ceremony were shared across a wide region in Eastern North America among Hopewell-affiliated groups. They also participated to varying extents in long-distance trade and exchange networks and in constructing earthen mounds used for burials and for other ceremonies. Hopewell Site: a Middle Woodland period site in Ohio that contains earthen works, including burial mounds with tens of thousands of exotic materials as grave goods and as ceremonial deposits within mounds. It is a mound complex site associated with the Hopewell tradition. Indian Knoll: a Late Archaic period site in Kentucky dating between 3000 and 2500 cal BC. It has a shell midden (mound) and a cemetery with more than 1100 individual burials. Some burials have exotic materials such as copper and marine shell, perhaps indicating differences in status, while others suggest that people were buried with probable gender-related objects such as axes and fishhooks with males and nutting stones and bone beads with females. Monk’s Mound: an Early Mississippian period earthen truncated pyramid at Cahokia in Eastern North America; it is the largest, pre-Columbian man-made construction north of Mexico. Mound 72: an Early Mississippian period burial mound at Cahokia, Illinois. It contains evidence for elaborate burial rituals for elite male individuals, as well as probable sacrifice burials (usually of numerous females) and offerings of exotic goods such as mica, copper, and shell beads. Moundville: a Late Mississippian period site in Alabama with 29 earthen mounds, a plaza, and a palisade. It became a significant center around AD 1200, but most of its residents moved away about AD 1250, except for elite families and their retainers. Poverty Point: a Late Archaic period site in Louisiana with complex earthworks called mounds. It dates from 1750 to 1350 cal BC and represents a highly organized construction of concentric, segmented ridge mounds associated with several high mounds such as Mound A. There is a large open plaza area inside the inner ridge. People living on the inner ridge likely had greater social rank or standing than those living on other ridges, which had no direct line of sight into the plaza. Very high-status individuals and families may have lived on the taller mounds such as Mound A. Sapelo Island Shell Ring Complex: a Late Archaic period site in Georgia, it has evidence for three shell rings. Rings II and III are very low and appear to be habitation areas where dwellings were placed inside the ring and shared the open plaza area there. Ring I is more substantial and seasonality evidence suggests that parts of it may have been rapidly deposited, perhaps indicating ritual feasting events. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: artistic motifs that were carved onto shell cups and gorgets, as well as hammered onto copper, during the Late Mississippian period in the North American East. Images include males wearing costumes, snakes, weapons, decapitations, chunkey players, and raptors. Sub-Mound 51: this Early Mississippian period feature was originally a borrow pit from which sediment was removed to construct earthen works at Cahokia and perhaps to level the Great Plaza. It was later filled in by several very large debris deposition events including feasting remains. This chapter focuses on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers, and surrounding areas of the North American Midwest and Southeast (Fig. 8.2). People occupied these lush river valleys in the Paleoamerican and Archaic periods, domesticating native seed plants in the Late Archaic period. In later times, maize and beans were adopted from Mexico. Inhabitants of this region built mounds from the Late Archaic through the Mississippian, to the extent that they are often generalized as “moundbuilders.” Chapter 8 focuses on the Early Mississippian period when the Cahokia site was at its peak of regional influence. In the Contact Period Mississippian, Spanish and French explorers arrived with diseases that Native Americans had not previously been exposed to, causing epidemics and a massive death toll. Modern Apalachee, Coosa, and Natchez peoples are descendants of these earliest inhabitants of the Eastern United States. Early Food Production In the river basins of the East, Late Archaic (Fig. 8.1) hunter-gatherer-foragers domesticated wild goosefoot, sunflower, marsh elder, may grass, and knot weed. These seeds were rich in starch and oils but were not a large part of their diet. Importantly, the domestication of these local plants set the stage for more developed food production economies when maize and beans were imported in the Woodland period. Middle and Late Archaic period peoples collected many plants including wild goosefoot, sunflower, maygrass, little barley, sumpweed, and erect knotweed. Some of these underwent changes related to local domestication. Late Archaic peoples became sedentary, formed villages and towns, established trade networks, created complex burials and mounds, and used pottery—all while acquiring most of their subsistence needs by hunting and gathering. Gathering may have been facilitated by increases in family size. In contrast, their contemporaries in the Southwest (see Chapter 7) lived in more marginal environments and relied more on food production. Beginning around 3000 BC, burials with exotic materials, including native copper from Michigan and marine shells from the Gulf of Mexico, become more frequent in burials—possibly reflecting social distinctions between these individuals and everyone else. Indian Knoll in Kentucky (3000 – 2500 BC, Figure 8.2) included 1100 burials with gender-patterned grave goods: Male graves have bone awls, axes, and shell disk beads. Female graves had nutting stones and bone beads. Parts of atlatls and ritual objects were associated with both sexes. The fact that most burials contained no grave goods suggests social stratification. The monumental architecture (mounds and shell ring complexes) of the Late Archaic reflects coordinated labor. Poverty Point Culture The mounds at Poverty Point in Louisiana are some of the largest prehistoric constructions north of Mexico (see Fig. 8.3). Beginning around 1750 cal BC, their creation involved moving 26,486,000 cubic feet of dirt using digging sticks and baskets. The mound structure eventually covered 1.9 square miles. People lived at Poverty Point, and the spatial arrangement of houses suggests social ranking. Higher ranking people probably lived on top of the mounds and along the innermost of the sites concentric circles, nearest the plaza (Fig. 8.3). People who shared the same material culture as Poverty Point lived up to 25 miles away. Trade networks brought stone, minerals, and copper into the Poverty Point Culture area. Significantly, all of this sedentism, social complexity, and monumental architecture occurred among people who were still primarily hunter-gatherer-foragers. Shell Ring Complexes Late Archaic peoples along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina built large rings of oyster and clam shells (some up to 20 feet tall and 820 feet across). Early analyses identified these rings as accumulated trash midden deposits. More recently, some have interpreted the rings as the result of feasting and intentional monument building. The large middens would be a constant visual reminder of prosperity and perhaps the higher social ranking of people in select locations. Georgia’s Sapelo Island Shell Ring Complex has three shell rings. Ring I (the largest) is composed mostly of oyster shells harvested in the winter, suggesting feasting. Rings II and III were smaller, gradual accumulations containing shellfish gathered in all four seasons, suggesting year-round occupation. Woodland Period Global climate changes in the Late Archaic period affected resource abundance and increased flooding in the lower Mississippi Valley, causing habitation sites like Poverty Point to be abandoned. Agency theory helps us understand how the actions of people led to changes in settlement, subsistence, and social traditions that mark the beginning of the Woodland period, about 1000 cal BC. Early Woodland During the Early Woodland period, pottery becomes widespread and people invest much more energy in cultivating local sunflower, goosefoot, and marsh elder. The exchange of exotic materials is even more extensive than in the Late Archaic period. In addition to Great Lakes copper and Gulf of Mexico shell, obsidian imported from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming enters the Eastern archaeological record. “During the Early Woodland, the Adena tradition emerged in the central part of the Ohio Valley and surrounding areas” (Olszewski 2019:248). The Adena are known for their burial mound complexes. Burial mounds often contained multiple individuals and graves were gradually added, increasing the size and height of the mounds. Middle Woodland The Hopewell tradition, also centered in the Ohio River Valley, began in the Middle Woodland period about 200 cal BC. Hopewell groups lived in dispersed hamlets of a few families instead of larger villages. They were hunter-gatherer-foragers, while simultaneously intensifying their use of domesticated crops (sunflower, marsh elder, may grass, knotweed, and goosefoot). Maize was introduced to Eastern North America around AD 1, but it was not a major crop in the Middle Woodland period. The mound building, long-distance exchange, and burial complexes of earlier periods continued among the Hopewell. Hopewell Interaction Sphere The widespread exchange network in Eastern North America during the Middle Woodland period is called the Hopewell Interaction Sphere (see Fig. 8.4). Groups within this sphere shared many aspects of material culture but likely did not identify as members of one cohesive Hopewell culture. There was variation between, and even within, regional traditions like the Ohio Hopewell. “The Hopewell tradition was not a highly integrated and politically complex entity on the scale of early civilizations or states (see Part 4)” (Olszewski 2019:249). What sets the Hopewell Interaction Sphere apart from earlier trade networks is the range of materials exchanged and its geographical extent (Fig. 8.5). Hopewell groups lived in small dispersed communities, but they were socially integrated by the communal building of mound structures. These mounds were places where people could aggregate, perform rituals, and interact with the sacred landscape. Particularly large mound complexes, such as the Hopewell Site, contained hundreds of burials, vast amounts of exotic objects, and combinations of grave goods that may reflect the social roles of their occupants. Deposits at the Hopewell Site included everything from copper ear spools, to obsidian arrowheads, to perforated carnivore teeth (bear, fox, wolf, raccoon). Late Woodland Hopewell social organization and landscape use shifted around AD 400, the beginning of the Late Woodland period. The bow and arrow was introduced around AD 600, populations increased, and storage pits became common. This reflects the creation of food surpluses and possibly feasting and/or hoarding behaviors. Some groups became more reliant on maize (e.g., lower Mississippi Valley), while others focused on hunting-gathering and locally domesticated plants. The Late Woodland is a period of settlement diversity in Eastern North America; small hamlets, villages, and ceremonial complexes have been identified in different areas. In the American Bottom region, the end of the Late Woodland period featured villages of permanent dwellings circling central courtyards. Based on ethnographic analogies to later Native American groups, and the presence of stone disks called chunkey stones (Fig. 8.8), these courtyards may have been used to play this sport. Cahokia and the Early Mississippian Period At the beginning of the Early Mississippian period, around AD 1050, Cahokia began its rise toward being an influential ritual and political center. It was part of a larger administrative center, called Greater Cahokia, which included the East St. Louis and Mound City Sites. Unfortunately, the mounds of the East St. Louis Site and Mound City Site were destroyed in the AD 1900s. Archaeological evidence shows that East St. Louis had 50 truncated pyramids, and Mound City had 26. Cahokia was better-preserved and its size and scale are still astonishing today (see Fig. 8.6). Cahokia’s “downtown” featured several large plazas, temples on truncated pyramids, a Woodhenge, burial mounds, a wooden palisade, and the largest pyramid in North America (Monk’s Mound). Monk’s Mound was built in terraced stages, eventually reaching 98 feet tall. This is significantly shorter than the largest Giza Pyramid (Cahokians were building with dirt, not stone), but Monk’s Mound is larger at its base than the great pyramid. The Woodhenge structure at Cahokia was used to observe the solstices, equinoxes, and other days associated with the agricultural cycle. In a manner reminiscent of Chaco Canyon (Chapter 7), Greater Cahokia linked together the social, political, and ceremonial lives of many people. However, people at Cahokia clearly shared an ideological system, greater and more coordinated labor was required to build the mounds, and Cahokia had the luxury of food surpluses (probably managed by elites) that Chaco often did not. The floodplains of Eastern North America were particularly fertile for intensive maize agriculture. Surpluses were sufficient to feed the estimated 10,000–15,000 people who lived at Cahokia (not counting the other mound centers and peripheral farming populations). Resource Networks, Trade, and Exchange Many items appear to have been locally produced in the Cahokia region. “Evidence at Cahokia, and in its surrounding region, of long-distant transport of exotic materials is abundant for its earliest phase (AD 1050 to 1100)” (Olszewski 2019,257). Interestingly, after AD 1100 Cahokia appears to become more self-sufficient, with luxury items produced from local materials (e.g., stone palettes; Fig. 8.7). See Peopling the Past: Resources, Trade, and Exchange at Cahokia Social Life Ethnohistoric records and images created at Cahokia suggest gender-based division of labor during the Mississippian period. Women did most of the field preparation and planting of crops. They collected wild foods, processed and cooked them, and produced pottery, baskets, and textiles. Men did most of the hunting and fishing, building, and woodworking. Images often depict women with agricultural tools and men playing the game of chunkey. Chunkey became an important social event in the Early Mississippian period, and matches at places like Cahokia may have had hundreds or thousands of spectators. Chunkey stones are often found in elite burials, suggesting these elites either played the game, sponsored those who did, or perhaps the game had social symbolism that is unknown to us. Feasting was another social event with the power to draw people together. Cahokia’s sub-Mound 51 began as a borrow pit for the construction of mounds and later became a midden of feast-related refuse: Broken cooking vessels. Bones of deer, swans, wild ducks, prairie chickens, and Canadian geese. Tobacco seeds, may grass, knotweed, sunflower, strawberries, persimmons, grapes, hickory nuts, and squash (curiously, maize was rare, possibly because it was an everyday staple and not feast-worthy). Several lines of evidence converge on the conclusion that Cahokia had a class of powerful elites. For example, Mound 72 included the remains of adult males whose bones reflect a better diet, better physical health, and they were associated with many exotic grave goods. The mound also contained what have been interpreted as female sacrificial victims. These victims showed osteological signs of poor health. See Peopling the Past: High-Status and Sacrificial Burials at Cahokia. Ceremonies and rituals, including human sacrifices, at Cahokia may have been part of a “theater state,” expressions of shared ideology that united people and continually reinforced the existing social order. Warfare and Violence Violence and guerilla-style raiding were part of life at Early Mississippian Cahokia. Elite burials in Mound 72 included sacrificed adult males missing their heads and hands, suggesting these might have been curated elsewhere as “trophies.” Around AD 1150, a wooden palisade was constructed around the “downtown” area of Cahokia, a sign of both warfare and social stratification (“commoners” were left unprotected). Similar fortifications become much more common at Mississippian sites after AD 1200. The Mississippian after Cahokia Cahokia’s economic, political, and religious influence waned after AD 1200, and most of the population had abandoned the site by AD 1300. Scattered populations persisted, but the dramatic public displays ceased. Deforestation and the prolonged drought of the AD 1200s may have hastened the abandonment. Much of the elites’ power derived from their ability to redistribute food surpluses. If surpluses were drastically reduced, they may have lost the allegiance of their people. The Late Mississippian Period Cahokia declined, but many aspects of its symbolism and ideology continue in other Southeastern ritual centers of the Late Mississippian period. The term Southeastern Ceremonial Complex refers to elaborate artistic motifs (Fig. 8.10) found throughout the Southeast in the Late Mississippian period. Some scholars do not accept this categorization because it implies uniformity when there appears to be a lot of local variability in particular styles. See Peopling the Past: Symbols in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Art motifs were hammered into copper and engraved on shell cups and gorgets. Motifs included humans, human-animal figures, raptors, snakes, hands with eyes, decapitation, and winged serpents. Moundville (see Fig. 8.2) in Alabama emerged as a post-Cahokia regional center around AD 1200. Moundville featured 29 mounds and, at its peak, may have had a population of about 1000 people. A mere 50 years later (AD 1250), Moundville was populated by only about 300 elites. The site still served as an integrative ceremonial center, but the populace lived in dispersed hamlets elsewhere. By AD 1300, the elites of Moundville had created their own set of elaborate symbols, and the site was focused on death and burial rituals. Parts of Eastern North America including the lower Ohio Valley (parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee) were depopulated during the mid-AD 1400s. This may have been due to shifts in climate or to shifting power and warfare between Mississippian centers. Remaining populations were devastated by diseases introduced by the Spanish in the mid-1500s. Modern descendants of the Mississippian cultures include the Apalachee, Coosa, and Natchez. Further Reflections: Cahokia: Paramount Chiefdom or State? “…the fact that Cahokia had a large population, shared ideology, community activities and rituals that involved people in the area around Cahokia, a group of elite leaders, and the capacity to undertake community planning and monumental-scale construction efforts might be interpreted by some archaeologists as an example of a paramount chiefdom (several communities integrated under a single set of leaders), while others would characterize it as a state (Olszewski 2019, 264).