1.
Ancestral Puebloans
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The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture. They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, the Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture, the kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient peoples community structure. In contemporary times, the people and their culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term, reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean ancient enemies. Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term used, archaeologists continue to debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current agreement, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence around the 12th century BC, beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers identified Ancestral Puebloans as the forerunners of contemporary Pueblo peoples. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United States are credited to the Pueblos, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo. Pueblo, which means village in Spanish, was a term originating with the Spanish explorers who used it to refer to the particular style of dwelling. The Navajo now use the term in the sense of referring to ancient people or ancient ones, Hopi people used the term Hisatsinom, meaning ancient people, to describe the Ancestral Puebloans. The Ancestral Puebloans were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest and this area is sometimes referred to as Oasisamerica in the region defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. The others are the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Patayan, in relation to neighboring cultures, the Ancestral Puebloans occupied the northeast quadrant of the area. The Ancestral Puebloan homeland centers on the Colorado Plateau, but extends from central New Mexico on the east to southern Nevada on the west. Structures and other evidence of Ancestral Puebloan culture has been found extending east onto the American Great Plains, in areas near the Cimarron and Pecos Rivers, terrain and resources within this large region vary greatly. The plateau regions have high elevations ranging from 4,500 to 8,500 feet, extensive horizontal mesas are capped by sedimentary formations and support woodlands of junipers, pinon, and ponderosa pines, each favoring different elevations. Wind and water erosion have created steep-walled canyons, and sculpted windows, in areas where resistant strata, such as sandstone or limestone, overlie more easily eroded strata such as shale, rock overhangs formed. The Ancestral Puebloans favored building under such overhangs for shelters and defensive building sites, all areas of the Ancestral Puebloan homeland suffered from periods of drought, and wind and water erosion. Summer rains could be unreliable and often arrived as destructive thunderstorms, while the amount of winter snowfall varied greatly, the Ancestral Puebloans depended on the snow for most of their water
2.
Mesa Verde National Park
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Mesa Verde National Park is a National Park and World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. It protects some of the best preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States, created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52,485 acres near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. With more than 4,300 sites, including 600 cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde is best known for structures such as Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. Starting c. 7500 BCE, Mesa Verde was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex. The variety of points found in the region indicates they were influenced by surrounding areas, including the Great Basin, the San Juan Basin. Later, Archaic people established semi-permanent rockshelters in and around the mesa, by 1000 BCE, the Basketmaker culture emerged from the local Archaic population, and by 750 CE the Ancestral Puebloans had developed from the Basketmaker culture. The Mesa Verdeans survived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming of crops such as corn, beans, and squash. They built the mesas first pueblos sometime after 650, and by the end of the 12th century, the first occupants of the Mesa Verde region, which spans from southeastern Utah to northwestern New Mexico, were nomadic Paleo-Indians who arrived in the area c. 9500 BCE. They followed herds of big game and camped near rivers and streams, the earliest Paleo-Indians were the Clovis culture and Folsom tradition, defined largely by the way in which they fashioned projectile points. Although they left evidence of their presence throughout the region, there is indication that they lived in central Mesa Verde during this time. After 9600 BCE, the environment grew warmer and drier, a change that brought to central Mesa Verde pine forests. Paleo-Indians began inhabiting the mesa in increasing numbers c. 7500, development of the atlatl during this period made it easier for them to hunt smaller game, a crucial advance at a time when most of the regions big game had disappeared from the landscape. 6000 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic period in North America, the Archaic people probably developed locally, but were also influenced by contact, trade, and intermarriage with immigrants from these outlying areas. The early Archaic people living near Mesa Verde utilized the atlatl and harvested a variety of plants and animals than the Paleo-Indians had. Environmental stability during the period drove population expansion and migration, by the late Archaic, more people were living in semi-permanent rockshelters that preserved perishable goods such as baskets, sandals, and mats. They started to make a variety of figurines that usually resembled sheep or deer. The late Archaic is marked by increased trade in materials such as obsidian. Marine shells and abalone from the Pacific coast made their way to Mesa Verde from Arizona, Rock art flourished, and people lived in rudimentary houses made of mud and wood
3.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
4.
Dendrochronology
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Dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating tree rings to the exact year they were formed in order to analyze atmospheric conditions during different periods in history. Dendrochronology is useful for determining the timing of events and rates of change in the environment and also in works of art and architecture, such as old panel paintings on wood, buildings and it is also used in radiocarbon dating to calibrate radiocarbon ages. New growth in trees occurs in a layer of cells near the bark, a trees growth rate changes in a predictable pattern throughout the year in response to seasonal climate changes, resulting in visible growth rings. Each ring marks a complete cycle of seasons, or one year, as of 2013, the oldest tree-ring measurements in the Northern Hemisphere extend back 13,900 years. Dendrochronology derives from Ancient Greek, δένδρον, meaning tree limb, χρόνος, meaning time, and -λογία, the Greek botanist Theophrastus first mentioned that the wood of trees has rings. In his Trattato della Pittura, Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to mention that trees form rings annually, in 1737, French investigators Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon examined the effect of growing conditions on the shape of tree rings. They found that in 1709, a severe winter produced a distinctly dark tree ring, the English polymath Charles Babbage proposed using dendrochronology to date the remains of trees in peat bogs or even in geological strata. During the latter half of the century, the scientific study of tree rings. In 1859, the German-American Jacob Kuechler used crossdating to examine oaks in order to study the record of climate in western Texas, in 1866, the German botanist, entomologist, and forester Julius Ratzeburg observed the effects on tree rings of defoliation caused by insect infestations. By 1882, this observation was already appearing in forestry textbooks, in the 1870s, the Dutch astronomer Jacobus C. Kapteyn was using crossdating to reconstruct the climates of the Netherlands, in 1881, the Swiss-Austrian forester Arthur von Seckendorff-Gudent was using crossdating. From 1869 to 1901, Robert Hartig, a German professor of forest pathology, wrote a series of papers on the anatomy, in 1892, the Russian physicist Fedor Nikiforovich Shvedov wrote that he had used patterns found in tree rings to predict droughts in 1882 and 1891. During the first half of the 20th century, the astronomer A. E. Douglass founded the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Growth rings, also referred to as tree rings or annual rings, growth rings are the result of new growth in the vascular cambium, a layer of cells near the bark that is classified as a lateral meristem, this growth in diameter is known as secondary growth. Visible rings result from the change in speed through the seasons of the year, thus, critical for the title method. If the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings are more visible in temperate zones, where the seasons differ more markedly. The inner portion of a ring is formed early in the growing season, when growth is comparatively rapid and is known as early wood. Many trees in temperate zones make one growth ring each year, hence, for the entire period of a trees life, a year-by-year record or ring pattern is formed that reflects the age of the tree and the climatic conditions in which the tree grew
5.
Kiva
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A kiva is a room used by Puebloans for religious rituals and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, kivas are square-walled and underground, similar subterranean rooms are found among ruins in the American Southwest, indicating uses by the ancient peoples of the region including the Ancestral Puebloans, the Mogollon, and the Hohokam. Those used by the ancient Pueblos of the Pueblo I Era and following, designated by the Pecos Classification system developed by archaeologists, were usually round and evolved from simpler pithouses. For the Ancestral Puebloans, these rooms are believed to have had a variety of functions, during the late eighth century, Mesa Verdeans started building square pit structures that archeologists call protokivas. They were typically 3 or 4 feet deep and 12 to 20 feet in diameter, by the mid-10th and early 11th centuries, these had evolved into smaller circular structures called kivas, which were usually 12 to 15 feet across. When designating an ancient room as a kiva, archaeologists make assumptions about the original functions. The kachina belief system appears to have emerged in the Southwest around AD1250 and this suggests that the rooms older functions may have been changed or adapted to suit the new religious practice. As cultural changes occurred, particularly during the Pueblo III period between 1150 and 1300 AD, kivas continued to have a prominent place in the community, however, some kivas were built above ground. Kiva architecture became more elaborate, with tower kivas and great kivas incorporating specialized floor features, for example, kivas found in Mesa Verde were generally keyhole-shaped. In most larger communities, it was normal to find one kiva for each five or six rooms, Kiva destruction, primarily by burning, has been seen as a strong archaeological indicator of conflict and warfare among people of the Southwest during this period. Fifteen top rooms encircle the central chamber of the vast Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins National Monument, each had an exterior doorway to the plaza. Four massive pillars of alternating masonry and horizontal poles held up the ceiling beams, each pillar rested on four shaped-stone disks, weighing about 355 pounds apiece. These discs are of limestone, which came from mountains at least 40 miles away, after 1325 or 1350, except in the Hopi and Pueblo region, the ratio changed from 60 to 90 rooms for each kiva. This may indicate a religious or organizational change within the society, perhaps affecting the status, Great kivas differ from regular kivas, which archeologists call Chaco-style kivas, in several ways, first and foremost, great kivas are always much larger and deeper than Chaco-style kivas. Whereas the walls of great kivas always extend above the landscape, the walls of Chaco-style kivas do not. Chaco-style kivas are often incorporated into the central room blocks of great houses. Great kivas almost always have a bench that encircles the inner space, Great kivas also tend to include floor vaults, which might have served as foot drums for ceremonial dancers, but Chaco-style kivas do not. Great kivas are believed to be the first public buildings constructed in the Mesa Verde region, brave New World by Aldous Huxley page 58
6.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
7.
Ansel Adams
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Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist. His black and white photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure, the resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images, Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston. Adams was born in the Western Addition of San Francisco, California and he was named after his uncle, Ansel Easton. His mothers family came from Baltimore, where his grandfather had a successful freight-hauling business but lost his wealth investing in failed mining. The Adams family came from New England, having migrated from Northern Ireland in the early 18th century and his paternal grandfather founded and built a prosperous lumber business which his father later ran, though his fathers natural talents lay more with sciences than with business. Later in life, Adams condemned that very same industry for cutting many of the great redwood forests. In 1907, his family moved 2 miles west to a new home near the Seacliff neighbourhood, the home had a splendid view of the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. San Francisco was devastated by the April 18,1906 San Francisco earthquake, the four year-old Ansel Adams was uninjured in the initial shaking but was tossed face-first into a garden wall during an aftershock three hours later, breaking and scarring his nose. Among his earliest memories was watching the smoke from the fire that destroyed much of the city a few miles to the east. A doctor recommended that his nose be reset once he reached maturity, Adams was a hyperactive child and prone to frequent sickness and hypochondria. He had few friends, but his home and surroundings on the heights facing the Golden Gate provided ample childhood activities. His father bought a telescope, and they enthusiastically shared the hobby of amateur astronomy. His father went on to serve as the paid secretary-treasurer of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1925 to 1950, Ansels fathers business suffered great financial losses after the death of Ansels grandfather and the aftermath of the Panic of 1907. By 1912, the standard of living had dropped sharply. Ansel was dismissed from several schools for being restless and inattentive. Adams was then educated by tutors, his aunt Mary
8.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
9.
Adena culture
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The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex, the Adena lived in an area including parts of present-day Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The importance of the Adena complex comes from its influence on other contemporary. The Adena culture is seen as the precursor to the traditions of the Hopewell culture, the Adena culture was named for the large mound on Thomas Worthingtons early 19th-century estate called Adena, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Lasting traces of Adena culture are seen in their substantial earthworks. At one point, Adena mounds numbered in the hundreds, and these mounds generally ranged in size from 20 feet to 300 feet in diameter and served as burial structures, ceremonial sites, historical markers and possibly gathering places. These mounds were built using hundreds of thousands of full of specially selected and graded earth. According to archaeological investigations, Adena mounds were built as part of burial ritual. These mortuary buildings were intended to keep and maintain the dead until their burial was performed. Before the construction of the mounds, some utilitarian and grave goods would be placed on the floor of the structure, the mound would then be constructed, and often a new mortuary structure would be placed atop the new mound. After a series of repetitions, mound/mortuary/mound/mortuary, a quite prominent earthwork would remain, in the later Adena period, circular ridges of unknown function were sometimes constructed around the burial mounds. Adena mounds stood in isolation from domestic living areas, although the mounds are beautiful artistic achievements themselves, Adena artists created smaller, more personal pieces of art. Art motifs that became important to many later Native Americans began with the Adena, motifs such as the weeping eye and cross and circle design became mainstays in many succeeding cultures. Many pieces of art seemed to revolve around shamanic practices, and this may indicate a belief that the practice imparted the animals qualities to the wearer or holder of the objects. Deer antlers, both real and constructed of copper, wolf, deer and mountain lion jawbones, and many objects were fashioned into costumes, necklaces. Distinctive tubular smoking pipes, with flattened or blocked-end mouthpieces. The objective of pipe smoking may have been altered states of consciousness, all told, Adena was a manifestation of a broad regional increase in the number and kind of artifacts devoted to spiritual needs. The Adena also carved stone tablets, usually 4 or 5 inches by 3 or 4 inches by.5 inches thick
10.
Caborn-Welborn culture
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Caborn-Welborn developed around 1400 and seems to have disappeared around 1700. The Caborn-Welborn culture was the last Native American occupation of southern Indiana before European contact and it remains unclear which historic-era native group, if any, are their descendants. The Caborn-Welborn culture is a cluster of more than 80 sites located mostly on ridges along the Wabash and Ohio rivers from Geneva, most are concentrated near the confluence of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. The sites range in size from 0.6 acres to 35 acres for the larger villages, most sites are located on the higher flood plain ridges, usually situated near sloughs and swamps. The Ohio River floodplain of this region has a system of natural levees which parallel the river, with sloughs. Ashworth Archaeological Site - Located in Posey County, Indiana and placed on the National Historic Register in 1985, bone Bank Site - The site was a large village on the Wabash River in Posey County. It was nicknamed “Bone Bank” for the number of remains of graves washed out of the site in the 19th century. It was established early in the Caborn-Welborn phase, about 1400, hovey Lake-Klein Archeological Site - The site is located on the west bank of a backwater lake near the Ohio River. Murphy Archaeological Site - Located in Posey County, Indiana and placed on the National Historic Register in 1975, also known as the Sullivan Farm Site and the Mouth-of-the-Wabash Site. Slack Farm Site - A large village near the mouth of the Wabash River in Union County, welborn Village Archeological Site, also known as the Murphys Landing Site - Located in Posey County. An internal temporal subdivision for the Caborn-Welborn culture, based on ceramic decorative attributes, common vessel shapes include jars, bowls, pans, plates and funnels. Most jars tend to have rims with rounded necks and strap handles and it was buff colored, contains large fragments of ground mussel shell as a tempering agent, and is not as smooth and polished as other varieties. Certain unique kinds of pottery and decorations define the Caborn-Welborn people as distinct from other cultures, Caborn-Welborn Decorated, Kimmswick Fabric Impressed, and Kimmswick Plain are varieties which are present in greater frequencies in Caborn-Welborn sites, and are hallmarks of the culture. Effigy jars, both of humans and animals, are common in Caborn-Welborn sites. Some have a human or animal head and sometimes a tail attached to the rim, others are shaped into the forms of heads, Caborn-Welborn Decorated, the most commonly found decorated ceramic style, is characterized by incised or punctated lines on the shoulders of the jar forms. The people of Caborn-Welborn were intensely involved in agriculture, as well as other food crops originating in the Americas, such as beans, squash, sunflowers. The addition of beans to their diet came after the demise of the Angel Phase peoples thought to have preceded the Caborn-Welborn and it would have been a valuable source of protein to add to their maize-rich diet. They collected local wild foodstuffs, including a variety of such as hickory, black walnut, pecans
11.
Coles Creek culture
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Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern United States. The period marks a significant change in the history of the area. Population increased dramatically and there is evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity. Although many of the traits of chiefdom societies are not yet manifested. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and it is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture. The Coles Creek culture is a development of the Lower Mississippi Valley that took place between the terminal Woodland period and the later Plaquemine culture period. The culture was defined by the unique decoration on grog-tempered ceramic ware by James A. Ford after his investigations at the Mazique Archeological Site and he had studied both the Mazique and Coles Creek Sites, and almost went with the Mazique culture, but decided on the less historically involved sites name. Although earlier cultures built mounds mainly as a part of customs, by the Coles Creek period these mounds took on a newer shape. Instead of being primarily for burial, mounds were constructed to support temples, pyramidal mounds with flat tops and ramps were constructed, usually over successive years and with many layers. A temple or other structures, usually of wattle and daub construction, a typical Coles Creek site plan consisted of at least two and more commonly three, mounds around a central plaza. This pattern emerged in roughly 800 CE and continued for several hundred years, by late Coles Creek times, the site plans are often enlarged to include up to three more mounds. Sites typical of this period are Mount Nebo, Holly Bluff, Kings Crossing, long distance trade seems to have been negligible at this time, as exotic goods and trade items are rare in Coles Creek sites. There is little evidence of domesticated or cultivated plants until the end of the Coles Creek period, acorns are a dominant food source, supplemented with persimmons, palmetto, and some starchy seeds such as maygrass. Coles Creek populations may have loosely managed certain plant resources in order to promote a better or more consistent food supply, maize is found in very limited quantities, but by 1000-1200 CE had begun to increase, although nowhere near the levels it would reach in later Mississippian times. The bow and arrow was introduced in this period, although the continued to be used. Pottery styles changed during this period, as began to create more durable wares with more diversified uses. Wet clay was tempered with particles of dry clay to prevent cracking during firing, most pots were decorated only on the upper half, usually with designs of incised lines or impressed tool marks
12.
Fort Ancient
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They were a maize-based agricultural society who lived in sedentary villages and built ceremonial platform mounds. The Fort Ancient culture was thought to have been an expansion of the Mississippian cultures. It is now accepted as a developed culture that descended from the Hopewell culture. The Fort Ancient Cultures most famous mound is called the serpent mound, the name of the culture originates from the Fort Ancient, Ohio archeological site. However, the Fort Ancient Site is now thought to have built by Ohio Hopewellian people. It was likely occupied later by the succeeding Fort Ancient culture, the site is located on a hill above the Little Miami River, close to Lebanon, Ohio. Starting in about 1000 CE, terminal Late Woodland groups in the Middle Ohio Valley adopted maize agriculture and they began settling in small, year-round nuclear family households and settlements of no more than 40 to 50 individuals. These small scattered settlements, located along terraces that overlooked rivers and sometimes on flood plains, by 1200 the small villages began to coalesce into larger settlements of up to 300 people. They were occupied for longer periods, possibly up to 25 years, during the Early and Middle Fort Ancient period, the houses were designed as single-family dwellings. Later Fort Ancient buildings are larger multi-family dwellings, settlements were rarely permanent, as the people commonly moved to a new location after one or two generations, when the natural resources surrounding the old village were exhausted. The people laid out the villages around an oval central plaza. The arrangement of buildings in Fort Ancient settlements is thought to have served as a sort of calendar, marking the positions of the solstices. The people began to build low platform mounds for ceremonial purposes, the plaza was the center of village life, the place where ceremonies, games and other social events were held. The Late Fort Ancient period from 1400 to 1750 is the era in the Middle Ohio Valley. During this era, the formerly dispersed populations began to coalesce, the Gist-phase villages became much larger than during the preceding period, with populations as high as 500. This era also showed increased contact with Mississippian peoples, some of whom may have migrated to and these sites were abandoned during this time period. During the Montour phase, the people inhabited their villages year-round and this may indicate that during the winter, family groups and hunting parties may have returned to the regions previously occupied by their ancestors. Such a pattern was observed during historic times, for example, such artifacts appeared and were used in the area before the arrival of European explorers or settlers
