Anth 3511 Professor Gibbon

Early Woodland and the Adena Complex

The Early Woodland period (c. 1000 BC-AD1) is an elaboration of Archaic trends. A greatly increased use of earthen burial mounds and pottery making make Early Woodland sites more visible to the archaeologist than most Archaic sites.

A. Archaic-Woodland trends include:

(1) More intensive exploitation of diverse food sources in highly localized environments (part of'primary forest efficiency'). (2) More sedentary living.

(3) More clearly recognizable territorial boundaries. (4) More intensive exchange of scarce materials. (5) More complex social orders.

(6) Increasing cultivation of native and foreign plants. (7) Larger populations living in more geographically and socially circumscribed territories.

B. Traditionally, the Early Woodland was separated fiom the Late Archaic by the association with Early Woodland sites of pottery containers, earthen burial mounds, and cultivated plant foods. But, as we have seen, these innovations have deep roots in the Archaic in some areas. The difference between Archaic and Woodland cultures, then, is more a matter ofconvention. C. Woodland pottery is generally grit-tempered and cord-marked. In general, it becomes thinner through time.

(1) Although the origins of Woodland pottery remain unclear, it does closely resemble some northern Eurasian pottery.

(2) The widespread appearance of pottery is thought to be related to a "container revolution" associated with an increased exploitation of wild and domesticated seed crops.

D. Many native and foreign plants were cultivated by the Early Woodland period (with some appearing in the Middle Archaic period).

(1) Most forms of gourds, pumpkins, and squashes (and later tobacco, maize, and beans) are southern plants introduced through Mexico after c.2500 BC.

(2) Indigenous cultigens include sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke, sumpweed, goosefoot, knotweed, maygrass, and little barley. These form both oily and starchy seed complexes. They are recovered through water flotation. (3) Cultivated plants remained a supplementary food in the Eastern Woodlands until after AD 800.

E. Two Early Woodland characteristics that separate it from the Archaic are an elaboration of archaeologically visible burial customs and an intensification of local and inter-regional exchange.

The Adena complex (c. 1000 BC-AD 100) was a mortuary-ceremonial complex centered in the central Ohio Valley that was shared by many local cultures.

A. Earlier Adena burial centers are marked by a basically egalitarian burial program, utilitarian grave goods, and smaller earthen burial mounds. B. Later (aRer c.AD 1) Adena mortuary-ceremonial centers have more elaborate, special burials; exotic grave goods; and much larger mounds often associated with circular enclosures ("sacred circles") thought to be ceremonial gathering places. Many grave items are very finely made. Examples of centers are the Robbins Mound in Kentucky and the Grave Creek Mound in West Virginia.

Early Woodland Life in Northern Sections of the Eastern Woodlands: A. Adena is only one, if the most spectacular, of a series of northern mortuaryceremonial complexes. Others are the Red Paint in the Northeast and Glacial Kame in the western Great Lakes. What's going on?

B. A popular model for Early Woodland subsistence, exchange, and burial ceremony suggests that population growth led by the Early Woodland in northern parts of the Eastern Woodlands to better defined and more circumscribed local territories, more visible "stylistic boundary markers" (e.g., projectile point and pottery styles), and more formal exchange mechanisms that structured the bartering of essentials and prestigious luxuries from one area to another in a web of reciprocal obligations and formal giftgiving.

(1) Exotic items may have served as 'systemic regulators. (2) A similar elaboration of stylistic boundary markers didn't appear to the south because seasonal contrasts were much less marked, and food resources were not so highly localized and short-lived throughout the

year.

C. It' s possible that membership in lineages, clans, and other social groups was becoming more important, for it was the group that controlled access to food and other resources, and group leaders who organized work efforts and secured exchange with neighboring groups. A growing sense of corporate identity was reinforced by regular burial ceremonies at earthworks, where important social leaders had been buried for many generations. D. Exchange helped maintain rights of access to outside resources, and to resources, in general, during times of stress.

E. This model contains mechanisms for fostering inter-group relationships and for ameliorating food shortages. It shows how the system could have provided increasing social and economic stability, reinforced sedentary living and the specialized exploitation of local resources, and population increases. (1) A main question: Is the model true? Were social or ideological factors more important?

F. Whatever the answer, the trends described above were intensified even fUrther in the following Middle Woodland period.

from big-game hunting to a more diversified subsistence economy as groups of other cultural traditions entered the Canadian Plateau from adjacent regions.

Further Readings

Cybulski, J. S., D. E. Hones. J. C. Haggarty, and M. Eldridge. 1981. An Early Human Skeleton from South-Central British Columbia: Dating and Bioarchaeological Inference. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 5:~~--j~.

Chisholm, B. S., and D. E. Nelson. 1983. An Early Human Skeleton from South-Central British Columbia: Dietal? Inference from Carbon Isotopic Evidence. Canadian Journal ofArchaeology 7:85--86.

Rousseau, Mike K. 1993. Early Prehistoric Occupation of South-Central British Columbia: A Review of the Evidence and Recommendations for Future Research. BC Studies 99:140--183.

Stryd, Arnoud H., and Michael Rousseau. The Early Prehistory of the Mid Fraser-Thompson River Area of British Columbia. In Early Human Occupation ofBritish Columbia, edited byR Carlson and L. Dalla Bona. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, in press.

Early Woodland

David Pokotylo, University of British Columbia

The first period or s~ilge of the Woodland tradition in the Eastern Woodlands. Its beginning was thought at one time to be marked by the contemporaneous appearance of pottery vessels, earthen burial mounds, and horticulture. Subsecluent investigations demonstrated, however, that these traits are present in some areas in earlier Archaic complexes. Today, the period's inception in any region is more commonly defined by the lil-st appenrance of \Voodland pottery, and to a lesser e;utent by the presence of burial mounds.

Early Woodland pottery consists mainly of heavy, thick jars that have a wide mouth and a flat to rounded base. Unlike earlier Late Archaic "fiber-tempered" vessels in some more southern regions, these coil-built and poorly fired \cssels are grit tempered. Resembling flower pots in shape, they were paddled on the inner and outer surfilces with a cord-wrapped instrument to consolidate the paste and thin the walls. Vessels gradually became thinner and more skillfully made in some areas, perhaps because manufacturing skills implo\ed or vessel function changed. Woodland pottery appears throughout the Eastern Woodlands betn-ccn :Ibout 1000 and -100 B.C. The end of the period is generally marked by the first appearance of Middle Woodland pottery between about 400 B.C. and A.D. 1.

Archaeologists find tile pieces of ceramic vessels that survive in sites very useful taxonomic tools. Their comparison allows tl~ern to identify regional "cultural" complexes on the basis of variation in style or technology. The origin allcl significance of Woodland pottery remain speculative. Similar appearing vessels entered the Servard Pellinsula of Alaska from Asia by 1000 B.C., and a stimulus from

northwestern Europe remaj ns a remote possibility. Many archaeologists believe it has indigenous origins from steatite prototypes. Decisi~e evidence confirming one of these or some other origin is lacking. In some areas, the adoption or- invention of ceramic vessels may have been a response to the growing need for a durable, easy to make \\-aterproof container within which large numbers of hickory nuts or other seeds could be efficientl~ plocessed. However, the spread of Woodland pottery into areas where these plant resources were absent i Ildicates that the vessels served a variety of purposes.

Distinguishing ch;llacteristics of the Early Woodland period are in general the product of interrelated processes whose origins extend back into the Middle Archaic period if not earlier. Among these are: gradually increasing population densities; the "packing" of regions by larger numbers of bands through fissioning of larger grol~ps and migration; a trend toward smaller, better defined, and more circumscribed group territnlics: more sedentary lifeways; the increasingly specialized and intensive exploitation of diverse food I-csources in more highly localized environments; an increasing emphasis on the gathering and gardening of seed-bearing plants; a growing sense of corporate identity; emergence of more complex societies; the development of mechanisms to assure increasing social and economic stability; intensification of local and often inter-regional exchange and of formal exchange mechanisms; increasing numbers of boulldaly Illarkers (such as mounds and projectile point style differences); and elaboration of burial rites. These processes are visible archaeologically in the presence, for example, of greater numbers of substantial habitation sites with extensive middens in resource rich areas; more diverse food procurement and proccssi ng tool kits that now include ceramic vessels; denser remains of diverse food resources, such as deer. raccoon, turkey, fish, turtle, waterfowl, shellfish, acorns, hickory nuts, and some cultigensl earthen burial nlounds; and artifact style variations that are confined to more limited environmental zones. Tollclhcr. these traits make Early Woodland sites more visible archaeologically than are most earlier Arch;lic sites.

The Early Woodland la ndscape was occupied by a mosaic of highly localized complexes that include the Adena culture in Ihe central Ohio Valley, the Morton complex in Illinois, the Tchefuncte culture in the lower Missi~sippi Valley. the Deptford complex in Georgia, the Meadowood in the eastern Great Lakes region, and ~ricidlescs in parts of New England and adjacent areas. This diversity is most likely a result of the pla~:ing out of the processes listed above in a very large and environmentally heterogeneous area. Some archaeologists have identified significant organizational differences between northern and southern E;lrl! Woodland groups. According to their argument, these differences were based on 1) the degree of scvcl-icv of seasonal weather contrasts, 2) the impact of these contrasts on the year-round availability of food energy, and on 3) the degree to which food resources were localized or

evenly dispersed. In more northern portions of the Eastern Woodlands, where seasonal contrasts were more marked and food resources more highly localized, local territories tended to be better defined and exchange relationships mole formally structured. Similar elaborations are not found in more southern woodlands, where seasonal contrasts are less marked and food abundance less restricted in time and space. It is not surprising within this contest, then, that the most spectacular evidence of elaborate mortuary ceremonialism occurs in the northern tier and is associated with the Adena culture in resource rich sections of Ohio. Indiana. E;entuc~k~. West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Copper, mica, ocean shell, and other exotic materials flo\\ ctl illlo central Ohio at this time.

In broad perspecri\.e. rile Early Woodland is a continuation and gradual intensification of earlier Archaic trends. Life was not dran~atically different than in the earlier Late Archaic in most areas. People still lived by gathering and Ilullting wild foods. While the domestication process continued within the Eastern Agricultural comples. cultigens and semi-cultigens remained a dietary supplement. For the most part, groups of less than 50 people continued to aggregate and disperse throughout the year, and to live in small communities of less rh;ln ;1 Iralf dozen loosely clustered houses. The most visible change from an archaeological perspecti\e n.as the appearance of Woodland pottery and of simple, conical burial mounds in most regions of the Eastern Woodlands.

See also Adena, Deptford Culture, Tchefuncte Culture Further Readings

Braun, David P. 1983. Pocs ;Is Tools. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories, edited by James Moore and Arthur Keene. pp. 107--134. Academic Press, New York.

Farnsworth, Kenneth B.. allcl Thomas E. Emerson(editors). 1986. Early WoodlandArcheology. Kampsville Seminals in Archeology, Vol. 2. Center for American Archeology, Kampsville, Illinois.

Keegan, William F. (editor). 1')87. Emergent Horticultural Economies of the Eastern Woodlands. Center for Archaeological T1~\estigations, Carbondale, Illinois.

Smith, B. D. 1986. The Alch;leology of the Southeastern United States. Advances in WorldArchaeology 5:1--92

19')2. Rivers oS('lrrr,7ge.- I~says on Early .ilgriculture in Eastern North America. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washil~gtonl D.C.

Steponaitis. V. 1')86. Prcllislol-ic Archaeolog~v in the Southeastern United States 1970--1985. Annual Review of,4nthropoli!~,~~ 15:363--404.

Taladay. L. and others. I~S~. Hickory Nets, Walnuts, Butternuts, and Hazelnuts: Observations and Experiments Rclc\ alll to Their Aboriginal Exploitation in Eastern North America. In Experiments and Obsewatiol?.\ (~,7 . I hor~inal Wild Plant Food I/tilization in Eastern North America, edited by P. J. Munson. pp, j3S--i5~. Indiana Historical Society Prehistoric Research Series 6(2).