Between 1500 and 1000 BC, people began using sand to temper the clay and pottery-making became much more common and widely distributed. The earliest pottery included some that were made from plant fibers that were more typical of the Archaic period. Woodland Period The Woodland period is a label used by archaeologists to designate pre-Columbian Native American occupations dating between roughly 600 BC and AD 1000 … Important advances of the later Archaic period include earthworks at sites such as Poverty Point and Watson Brake (both in Louisiana), and the first pottery in the Americas, a fiber-tempered ware named after Stallings Island South Carolina were an important invention. – A.D. 1000)", List of archaeological periods (North America), Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital, Pawnee Mission and Burnt Village Archeological Site, Little Maquoketa River Mounds State Preserve, University of Tennessee Agriculture Farm Mound, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Woodland_period&oldid=998230384, 10th-century disestablishments in North America, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 4 January 2021, at 11:49. Adena Culture – 1000 BC to 1 AD. Although pottery, horticulture, and earthen mounds were familiar to some people who lived during the Archaic period, after about 1000 BC such innovations became widespread across Eastern North America. Period of North American pre-Columbian cultures, Middle Woodland period (200 BCE – 500 CE). Woodland Periods in North America. (Last Privacy Policy Update July 2020), Byways & Historic Trails – Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Alva Gould – Discoverer of the Famous Gould and Curry Mine, Honest Miner To a Poker-Playing Politician, Old Tom – A Typical Mining Camp Character, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado. Shellfish formed an important part of the diet, attested to by numerous shell middens along the coast and interior rivers. This type included a round body, and lines of decoration with cross-etching on rim. Late Woodland settlements became more numerous, but the size of each one (with exceptions) was smaller than their middle Woodland counterparts. Intensive agriculture characterizes the Mississippian period from c. 1000–1400 CE and may have continued up to European contact, around 500 years ago.[4]. Many of the groups of North America became agriculturalists, relying primarily on the Mesoamerican triad of corn, beans, and squash. Seasonal foraging also characterized the strategies of many interior populations, with groups moving strategically among dense resource areas. And, in some regions, pottery predates the onset of Woodland cultures by over 1000 years. in eastern North America at 3800 B.P. and cooking containers. Coastal peoples practiced seasonal mobility, moving to the coast during the summer to take advantage of numerous marine resources such as sea mammals and shellfish, then moved to interior locations during the winter where access to deer, bear, and anadromous fish such as salmon could see them through the winter. Among the traded materials were copper from the Lake Superior deposits; silver from Lake Superior and especially Ontario; galena from Missouri and Illinois; mica from the southern Appalachians; chert from various places including Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; pipestone from Ohio and Illinois; alligator teeth from the lower Mississippi Valley eastward to Florida; marine shells, especially whelks, from the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts; Knife River chalcedony from North Dakota; and obsidian from Yellowstone in Wyoming. People tended to settle along rivers and lakes in both coastal and interior regions for maximum access to food resources. The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the Eastern United States, along to the Gulf of Mexico.[2]. However, an increase of exotic artifacts at Middle Woodland sites indicates that there was more interaction between different regions than there had been during the Early Woodland. Woodland period. Clan heads would then be buried along with goods received from their trading partners to symbolize the relationships they had established. This archaeological designation is often mistakenly conflated with the eco-cultural delineation of the continent’s eastern culture areas: the term Eastern Woodland cultures refers to the early … Examples include the Armstrong culture, Copena culture, Crab Orchard culture, Fourche Maline culture, the Goodall Focus, the Havana Hopewell culture, the Kansas City Hopewell, the Marksville culture, and the Swift Creek culture. (1992). Woodland Period by Dean Quigley, National Park Service. By this point, the people were tending gardens and gathering shellfish from the local rivers, which enabled them to live in one place for long periods of time without having to hunt for food as often. Woodland collection in the Robbins Museum‎ (3 C) Media in category "Woodland period in North America" The following 4 files are in this category, out of 4 total. This period was also characterized by a lack of the non-local artifacts and materials that had been seen in the previous 500 years. Other items included projectile points, natural pigments like ocher, or a few special trade items. Woodland cultures, prehistoric cultures of eastern North America dating from the 1st millennium bc. This period is variously considered a developmental stage, a time period, a suite of technological adaptations or "traits", and a "family tree" of cultures related to earlier Archaic cultures. We use cookies. Woodland period. This is especially true for the middle woodland period and perhaps beyond. Required fields are marked *. The most conclusive evidence suggests that native copper was utilized to produce a wide variety of tools beginning in the Middle Archaic period circa 4,000 BC. The Paleoindian Period refers to a time approximately 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age when humans first … This was the last major prehistoric culture in North America prior to … "Patterns of Wild Plant Utilization in the Prehistoric Eastern Woodlands". EVIDENCE FOR STEPPED PYRAMIDS OF SHELL IN THE WOODLAND PERIOD OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA Thomas J. Pluckhahn, Victor D. Thompson, and W. Jack Rink Antiquarians of the nineteenth century referred to the largest monumental constructions in eastern North America as pyramids, but this usage faded among archaeologists by the mid-twentieth century. in parts of the region.[12]. And these changes set the stage for the developments that would take place in the Mississippian period. The Woodland period is a label used by archaeologists to designate pre-Columbian Native American occupations dating between roughly 500 BC and AD 1100 … These were quite large and corner-notched. Stage classification. [1] The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures. By the beginning of the Woodland period, climatic conditions had reached an approximation of the modern-day climate. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Early Woodland Period (1000–1 BCE) The archaeological record suggests that humans in the Eastern Woodlands of North America were collecting plants from the wild by 6,000 BCE and gradually modifying them by selective collection and cultivation. Archaic Period – 8000 BC to 3000 BC. Cambridge University Press. Early Woodland Period 1,000 BCE to 1 CE This period was marked by the creation of extensive mound-building, burial complexes, the trade goods across a large area of North America. [3] It can be characterized as a chronological and cultural manifestation without any massive changes in a short time but instead having a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leather crafting, textile manufacture, cultivation, and shelter construction. 106, no. Intensive cultivation of native food crops such as chenopodium, sunflowers, and gourds was widespread by 1000 BC. The Adena culture built conical mounds in which single- or multiple-event burials, often cremated, were interred along with rich grave goods including copper bracelets, beads, and gorgets, art objects made from mica, novaculite, hematite, banded slate, and other kinds of stone, shell beads and cups, and leaf-shaped "cache blades". The Early Woodland period began in the southern and midwestern part of North America about 1200 BC. Although the 1000 CE ending of the Late Woodland period is traditional, in practice many regions of the Eastern Woodlands adopted the full Mississippian culture much later than that. Some groups in the north and northeast of the current United States, such as the Iroquois, retained a way of life that was technologically identical to the Late Woodland until the arrival of Europeans. Small amounts of exotic items still occurred in Late Woodland graves, but they seemed not to have been part of an elaborate mortuary complex. As such, researchers are now redefining the period to begin with not only pottery, but the appearance of permanent settlements, elaborate burial practices, intensive collection and/or horticulture of starchy seed plants (see Eastern Agricultural Complex), differentiation in social organization, and specialized activities, among other factors. The term “Woodland Period” was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures. These included Archaic, and Woodland period, and Mississippian period … Neusius, Sarah W. and G. Timothy Gross (2014). (1955). People began making stone projectile points that were shorter, thinner, and more triangular so they could be attached to arrows. United States Department of Agriculture Mississippian. "Seeking Our Past: An Introduction to North American Archaeology". Recently evidence has accumulated a greater reliance on woodland peoples on cultivation in this period, at least in some localities, than has historically been recognized. The term "Woodland Period" was … Until quite recently, the onset of the Woodland period was assumed to have been the time of the initial appearance of pottery vessels, the beginnings of mound ceremonialism, the emergence of sedentary village life with well-defined structures and settlements, and intensive cultivation of crops. [13] The most archaeologically certifiable sites of burial during this time were in Illinois and Ohio. Middle Woodland people in central and western Iowa retained the pattern of small, temporary settlements that had developed during the Archaic period. [11] Smith and Yarnell refer to an "indigenous crop complex" as early as 3800 B.P. The Archaic and Woodland periods, the archaeological periods following the Paleo-Indian, are characterized by the development of plant domestication and the beginnings of organized agricultural activities. Due to the similarity of earthworks and burial goods, researchers assume a common body of religious practice and cultural interaction existed throughout the entire region (referred to as the "Hopewellian Interaction Sphere"). The Late Woodland period began about AD 500 and lasted about 500 years, until AD 1000. The late Woodland period was a time of apparent population dispersal, although populations do not appear to have decreased. Native American - Native American - Eastern Woodland cultures: Outside of the Southwest, Northern America’s early agriculturists are typically referred to as Woodland cultures. Archaic Advances . People continued to make stemmed points with broad blades, but they were slightly smaller. "Initial formation of an indigenous crop complex The Early Woodland lasted from about 3000 BC to 200 BC. There is evidence that many small groups occasionally gathered together to build mounds and maintain long-range ties. Likely as a result of these regional gatherings, pottery from different places developed widespread similarities in form and decoration. The Woodland period is marked by the manufacture of ceramic vessels, construction of mounds, the rise and fall of a vast exchange network, unequal distribution of exotic raw materials and finished goods, and horticultural activity. One of the major tools unique to this era was Snyders Points. Exclusive to cultures in Eastern North America, the woodland period refers to the large sites between the Archaic periods and the Mississippian cultures. In some areas, like South Carolina and coastal Georgia, Deptford culture pottery manufacture ceased after c. 700 CE. The name we use comes from Mordecai Hopewell, a Chillicothe landowner on whose property mounds were excavated in the 1800s. The Far Northeast, the Sub-Arctic, and the Northwest/Plains regions widely adopted pottery somewhat later, about 200 BCE. The decline in ceremonialism may indicate the development of a new form of religion that focused on a reverence for the ancestors of certain lineages. in … Despite the apparent reduction of inter-regional exchange, the Late Woodland period was a time of important cultural changes, including the appearance of the bow and arrow in about around AD 700. The University of the State of New York, Albany. Various types of pottery were made including bowls, jars, and serving, storage. As the Woodland period progressed, local and inter-regional trade of exotic materials greatly increased to the point where a trade network covered most of the Eastern Woodlands. The Woodland period is divided into Early (3,000 to 2,200 years ago), Middle (2,200 to 1,800 years ago) and Late (1,800 to 1,250 years ago) sub-periods. But there were changes which definitely distinguish the Woodland era from the earlier period. The Center for American Archeology specializes in Middle Woodland culture. Our cookies are delicious. 2000 B.C. In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologists distinguishing the Mississippian period, from 1000 CE to European contact as a separate period. This culture is believed to have been core to the Meadowood Interaction Sphere, in which cultures in the Great Lakes region, the St. Lawrence region, the Far Northeast, and the Atlantic region interacted. The most cited technological distinction of this period was the widespread use of pottery (although pottery manufacture had arisen during the Archaic period in some places), and the diversification of pottery forms, decorations, and manufacturing practices. Your email address will not be published. In fact, it appears that hunting and gathering continued as the basic subsistence economy and that subsistence horticulture/agriculture did not occur in much of the Southeast for a couple of thousand years after the introduction of pottery, and in parts of the Northeast, horticulture was never practiced. Another result of people not moving around as much was that the various bands did not see each other and share ideas as often, so styles of making pottery and tools became very distinct from region to region. Each contribution explores neighboring areas to llustrate the complexity of North … Mason, Ronald J. Oxford University Press. "Recent Discoveries Suggesting an Early Woodland Burial Cult in the Northeast". Most groups relied heavily on white-tailed deer, but a variety of other small and large mammals were hunted also, including beaver, raccoon, and bear. Because they now grew food that could be stored, people developed large, rounded jars used for storage. Middle Woodland Period - The Hopewell Culture The Middle Woodland period, which lasted from roughly 100 B.C. [10] Nuts were processed in large amounts, including hickory and acorns, and many wild berries, including palm berries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, were eaten, as well as wild grapes and persimmon. Historic Occupation II. However, they would leave as needed to hunt or fish in the surrounding areas. Many Woodland peoples used spears and atlatls until the end of the period, when they were replaced by bows and arrows; however, Southeastern Woodland peoples also used blowguns. Wikipedia, Your email address will not be published. This era is considered a developmental stage that was characterized by increasing cultural complexity and population growth. The reasons for this are unknown, but it has been theorized that populations increased so much that trade alone could no longer support the communities and some clans resorted to raiding others for resources. The stone tools of this period were similar to those made during the Archaic. Early Woodland Period – 3000 BC to 200 BC. New York State Museum and Science Service Circular 40. During Hernando de Soto's travels through the Southeastern Woodlands around 1543, the groups at the mouth of the Mississippi river still preferentially used the spear. Throughout the Southeast and north of the Ohio River, burial mounds of important people were very elaborate and contained a variety of mortuary gifts, many of which were not local. Furthermore, despite the widespread adoption of the bow and arrow during this time, the peoples of a few areas appear never to have made the change. The Woodland Period began about 3,000 years ago. Within this era, the classification is further divided into three more periods based on changes in the way people lived, including their settlement patterns, trading activities, subsistence, the tools they used, and mortuary practices. During the Altithermal, Archaic peoples dug wells to stay alive in the … Middle Woodland Period – 200 BC to 500 AD. In North America, recognition of the ecological benefits of prescribed burning was slow in coming and varied geographically. 549 Words2 Pages. As a result, the long-distance exchange networks that developed during the Late Archaic broke down. In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologists distinguishing the Mississippian period, from 1000 CE to European contact as a separate period. Though this practice seems to have originated in the Archaic Period in what is now, Louisiana, by about 1000 BC the tradition was adopted by people all over eastern North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-g… Alternatively, the efficiency of bows and arrows in hunting may have decimated the large game animals, forcing the tribes to break apart into smaller clans to better use local resources, thus limiting the trade potential of each group. The Middle Woodland period in eastern North America witnessed a florescence of monumental architecture and material exchange linked to widespread networks … In north-central Iowa, settlements were placed near the shores of natural lakes, where native … Pots were usually made in a conoidal or conical jar with rounded shoulders, slightly constricted necks, and flaring rims. Although many of the Middle Woodland cultures are called "Hopewellian", and groups shared ceremonial practices, archeologists have identified the development of distinctly separate cultures during the Middle Woodland period. People continued to live in base camps, but their increased numbers led to competition for resources and an increase in warfare. The elaborate tombs are especially important because they indicate that the person buried there had a higher and/or special status. The Early Woodland period continued many trends that began during the Late Archaic period, including extensive mound-building, regional distinctive burial complexes, the trade of exotic goods across a large area of North America, the reliance on both wild and domesticated plant foods, and a mobile subsistence strategy in which small groups took advantage of seasonally available resources such as nuts, fish, shellfish, and wild plants. Hopewell Culture – 100 BC – 500 AD. University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. During this time, populations increased and settlements filled up the landscape, spreading northward up small streams. The term “Woodland Period” was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures. Archaeologists have defined several cultures within the Woodland Period. A third possibility is a colder climate may have affected food yields, possibly affected by Northern Hemisphere extreme weather events of 535–536, also limiting trade possibilities. Pots were coiled and paddled entirely by hand without the use of fast rotation such as a pottery wheel. Compiled by Kathy Weiser-Alexander, March 2020. North America was a land of quite diversities from the east to the south. to 400 A.D., is perhaps best known in the Ohio River Valley as the era during which the Hopewell culture flourished. Under this scenario, permanent settlements would be likely to develop, leading to increased agricultural production and a population increase. 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