Cultures of the Great Plains Environment Culture History.

Cultures of the Great Plains

Environment

Culture History

The Great Plains

The Great Plains, perhaps more than any other area of North America, has come to provide popular imagery of Native American peoples - clichés and erroneous stereotypes.

While it is true that during a large part of the last two centuries there were equestrian, bison-hunting, teepee-dwelling Indians on the Great Plains, this is a relatively recent phenomena - prior to that the cultural scene was very different.

Great Plains Ecology

Present-day ecology is characterized by considerable diversity:

Drier toward the west (as one approaches the Rocky Mountains) with predominantly short grasses

Going east the grasses get taller and are more diverse Local climatic diversity plus topographical variety leads

to ecological diversity as well: Flatlands Tablelands Badlands Detached mountains (i.e. the Black Hills) River Valleys (with accompanying trees, marshes, fish,

alluvial soils, etc.)

Open Grasslands

Black Hills

Badlands

Tablelands

Ancient Great Plains ecological sequence

Shows that conditions were radically different in ancient times: 14000 B.P. (ca. 12,000 B.C.):

DesMoines Lobe (an extension of the Laurentide Ice Sheet) covers portions of the Northeastern Great Plains

Coniferous, boreal forest in the north Periglacial deciduous forest toward the south

12000 B.P. (ca. 10,000 B.C.): Laurentide Ice Sheet begins recession toward the

north Boreal forest moves north and is replaced by

deciduous forest c. 10-8000 B.P. (ca. 8-6000 B.C.): Grasslands replace deciduous forest

Cultural Chronology

The basic cultural chronology of the Great Plains involves the following periods: Paleoindian (ca. 10,000-4000 B.C.) Plains Archaic (ca. 4000-250 B.C.) Plains Woodland (ca. 250 B.C.-A.D. 950 ) Plains Village (ca. A.D. 950-1850)

Paleoindian Period

The Paleoindian Period in the Great Plains: Initial Paleoindian colonization of the Great Plains:

Early populations entered the area of the Great Plains at least by 12,000 B.P. (ca. 10,000 B.C.)

Main Paleoindian cultures to be discussed include: Clovis Culture Folsom Culture Plano Culture

Plano Culture

Dates: 8000-6000 B.P. (ca. 6000-4000 B.C.) This culture Basically represents a continuation of

Paleoindian hunting traditions and becomes ultimately a transition into the Plains Archaic lifeway.

With the extinction of first the mammoth, then Bison antiquus, the Plano hunting focus became the modern American bison - Bison bison.

With the extinction of Bison antiquus we come to the end of the Paleoindian Period and lead into the succeeding Plains Archaic and ultimately later settled village life on the Great Plains

Folsom Projectile Points

Folsom projectile points tend to be smaller, more delicate, and more refined in workmanship than Clovis points. They were either completely fluted or were basally thinned. Basally thinned projectile point has flakes removed from both sides near the base. This makes the base thinner and easier to hat onto a spear.

http://www.csasi.org/2000_july_journal/folsom_culture.htm

Folsom Projectile Points


Plano Points

http://www.civilization.ca/archeo/hnpc/npvol07e.html

Bison Hunting

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/lll/Lubbock%20Lake/nat_resources.htm

Bison antiquis

Bison antiquis was similar to modern bison except that they were larger and had longer horns. Males had horn spreads reaching two meters, and they stood as much as 40 percent taller than today’s bison

http://www.bisoncentre.com/resources/bce170/bce170_natural_history.html

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/manarchnet/chronology/

paleoindian/folsom.html

Bison antiquis

Bison antiquis thrived in very dry and warm grasslands that appeared 11,000 to 9,000 bp. after the glaciers receded north into Canada.

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/manarchnet/chronology/paleoindian/folsom.html

Weaponry

Atlatls and spears were the most common way to hunt large mammals .

Scrapers were used to butcher the animal and cut meat.

Atlatl technology

The atlatl acted as an extension of the forearm, allowing the dart to be thrown much farther than by hand alone.

The flexible shaft and atlatl weights helped bend the shaft during throwing which added an elastic element to the propulsion

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~walde/glossary.html#r

Hafting

the method used to attach projectile points to their wooden shafts.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~walde/glossary.html#r

ScrapersThese were used to butcher the carcasses of bison. They were either made from chert or obsidian depending on location.

http://www.dakotaplainsartifacts.com/InSitu.html

Hunting Strategies

Hunters stampeded herds of buffalo over cliffs and would gather the remains at the bottom.

Attacking herds of bison by rivers and killing the young calves was also very effective.

Bonfire Shelter

When threatened or frightened, a bison herd can stampede, forming a thundering mass of panicking animals that moves as a single body.

Hunters used this to their advantage by stampeding herds of bison off a cliff. There, one group of hunters had to trigger a stampede, perhaps by using fire.

Additional hunters (including their family members, women and children alike) would have erected brush or rock barricades, used fires, or waved blankets to divert the bison away from alternative routes and toward the cliff edge.

If everything worked just right, the stampeding herd would follow the desired path and gallop over the rise and suddenly encounter the cliff.

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/bonfire/index.html

Ambushing Bison herds at rivers

Hunters would set up ambushes at rivers and creeks where bison were known to cross.

The hunters positioned themselves at strategic locations in order to kill the animals as they emerged from the water and became mired in the mud.


The Plains Archaic Period

Dates: ca. 4000-250 B.C. The term "Archaic" implies a shift from

Pleistocene climate and forms of subsistence focus toward one utilizing species more characteristic of the Holocene

"Archaic", as a new, post-Pleistocene phenomena, then, is a more appropriate point of "genealogical origin" for modern and historic groups.

Plains Archaic

Where Pleistocene subsistence was basically a narrow spectrum approach, archaic populations began exploiting a broad spectrum of locally available resources.

Kill sites, characteristic of the Paleoindian Period, diminish.

Mixed, local economies come to predominate. Localized "Archaics" form the bases for

subsequent cultural differentiation and ultimate florescence

McKean Archaeological Site

The McKean Site (48CK7) was originally recorded by the Missouri River Basin Survey of the Smithsonian Institution in 1951.

Extensive excavations were conducted at the site in 1951 and 1952.

Large quantities of lithic artifacts were recovered, predominantly from two cultural levels which are now designated Middle Plains Archaic.

More than 100 projective points recovered from these levels became type specimens for the McKean Lanceolate, Duncan, and Hanna point types.

McKean site

http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/mckean.htm

The Plains Woodland Period

Woodland Culture (general characteristics): They were characterized by a mixed economy:

Horticulture: Maize appears (e.g. at Hopewell Village in Kansas

City area ca. A.D. 0-500) Beans Hunting-and-gathering: Woodland-type animals

(i.e., deer, squirrels, etc.)

Villages

Villages may be present but appear to have been abandoned for parts of the year.

Plains Woodland people were mound builders: Mounds conical and linear in shape Mounds' primary function was:

Mortuary, Not as temple bases

Woodland artifact material

Reflects a wide variety of media: Pottery Stone Bone Copper Obsidian Imitation bear teeth.

Woodland artifacts: Ceramics: Rocker-stamped, Zone decorated, Clay platform pipes, Catlinite pipes, Tubular pipes Incised tablets Stone tools: Corner-notched projectile points, 3/4 grooved

ground-stone axes, Milling stones

Plains Woodland Artifacts

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/stories/0201_0120.html

Plains Woodland communities

Range in size: Kansas City Hopewellian of 3-4 hectares (7.41-9.88

acres) Small communities of 1 or 2 houses

Probably others were found on rivers: Missouri River Republican River Arkansas River Red River Parts of the Mississippi and Minnesota tributaries

The Plains Village Period

While the stereotype of the Plains Indian is that they were basically nomadic hunters of roaming herds of buffalo, even during relatively recent times many of them had strong traditions of settled village life supported by agriculture.

While perhaps having some its origins during the earlier Plains Woodland Period, village life becomes the dominant form during the Plains Village Period. Thus, village life may be tied with Woodland cultures from

the east. Thus also, we should note that village life was associated

with the Mississippian cultures: That made inroads into the Plains in the Caddo area of

Oklahoma That is often associated with Oneota Culture—a western

woodlands group found in the: Upper Mississippi and in Iowa

Dates: ca. A.D. 900-1850

Plains villages were located on permanent streams in the Prairies

Dakotas south through Texas West as far as the prairie base of the Rocky

Mountains

Plains Village Period

General characteristics: Settlements:

Villages could be large Settlements permanent Often stockaded sometimes with moats

Architecture involved: Large, substantial, permanent earth-covered

lodges Homes often had underground storage pits Subsistence involved maize agriculture Artifact inventory was varied

Animal Scapula hoe for farming

http://archaeology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Flime.weeg.uiowa.edu%2F%7Eosa%2Fresearch%2Fstates.htm

Earth lodges

Farming on the plains

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/stories/0201_0112.html

Plains Village historical groups

Siouan speakers: Mandan Hidatsa Oneota Winnebago Iowa, etc

Caddoan speakers: Arikara Pawnee Wichita (had thatch-covered, not earth covered,

lodges)

Mandan Village

http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0301/newsbriefs/mandan

Crow Creek Massacre A.D. 1325

The people who lived and died at the Crow Creek site were descendants of people who had moved from the Central Plains in the areas that are now southwestern Iowa, Nebraska, and northern Kansas.

Archaeologists call them the Central Plains tradition people. They moved into South Dakota because the climate changed in the Central Plains.

Droughts came more often there because the climate grew more hot and dry. They were farmers who lived in small villages near streams

and rivers. They usually planted their gardens along the maize, beans and squash. They also gathered wild plants such as prairie turnips, nuts, and fruits. They got meat by hunting buffalo, deer, and smaller animals such as birds and rabbits.

Crow Creek Massacre A.D. 1325

We know from evidence found in the dig that the massacre probably happened in the very late Autumn or early Winter.

Enemies attacked the village, somehow getting through the fortification ditch.

We believe that the Crow Creek people were actually still building the ditch, so there might have been gaps.

Reconstruction of attack

Nearly 500 people were the victims of the massacre

Why did the attack occur?

Some archaeologists believe that the attack was carried out by the Middle Missouri villagers who came down from the north. They might have been unhappy that the Initial Coalescent people had moved into the area and had taken their land.

Other archaeologists do not believe this is a good explanation. These scientists believe that the cause had to do with the environment and overpopulation. The number of people from the Initial Coalescent grew quickly once the people moved from the dry south into an area with good water and soil for their crops. Within 150 they had built about 15 villages, some with many people.

The Crow Creek Reburial, 1981

From the beginning, the people on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation had concerns about how the remains found at the site were to be treated. Archaeologists and government officials agreed that the remains would be briefly studied then reburied.

In the meantime, the people from the Crow Creek Reservation were concerned about the spiritual aspects of the dig and whether the excavation was proper.

They asked that a Lakota Holy Man conduct ceremonies at the site. Mr. Bill Schweigman, a holy man from Rosebud, built a sweatlodge at the site. He took two skulls into the lodge during the ceremony. During the ceremony, he was told that the "wanagi," spirits that sometimes guard graves, were gone and that the excavation could continue.

Protohistoric and Historic The Spanish came from New Mexico

beginning with Coronado in 1541. Contact was made with the Santee Sioux in

the north in the middle of the seventeenth century.

French traders contacted the Pawnee from the east around 1700.

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, Inc.

Plains Historic

The Native ethnicities on the Plains in the Historic period were many and dynamic.

Besides bison hunters and those who farmed in the river valleys, groups from further east moved onto the Plains and reinvented their cultures at this time.



The major agents of transformation were the arrival of the horse, trade in European goods, particularly the gun,

and the spread of disease.


In addition, historical archaeology is helping the study of topics such as

the story of the fur trade, the various conflicts with Native people such as

the battle of the Little Bighorn, and the labor history of the Plains.

Sources

http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/naa.html http://www.unl.edu/plains/map.html http://archaeology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?

site=http%3A%2F%2Flime.weeg.uiowa.edu%2F%7Eosa%2Fresearch%2Fstates.htm

http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/mckean.htm

Cultures of the Great Plains Environment Culture History.

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