The aim of this lecture is simply to provide you with an overview of North American Archaeology
40,000? to 8,000 years ago -- with PaleoIndians, all dates are "more or less"
We don't know just how early the first peoples got here; we do know that we don't have any material evidence prior to about 40,000 years
Of course Indian people say they have been here forever; Goodman's American Genesis and Deloria's Red Earth, White Lies
But, material evidence is what archaeology is about; there may be earlier materials.
In point of fact, we have pushed back the barriers into a more distant past
The Pleistocene -- the Ice Ages
The advances and retreats of the ice sheets began 2 plus million years ago, and they are directly associated with the rise of humans
By 100,000 years ago, we have the dispersion of anatomically modern humans over much of the earth
Why not the Americas? The ice sheets themselves provide a barrier. Hard to imagine an ice sheet a mile or so thick.
Compression of earth's climatic zones and a drop in sea levels caused major shifts in climatological zones and therefore, life forms. Animals on the move during this time; good examples are horses, camels in early forms in the Americas, but disappeared.
Times also of mass extinctions of major megafaunal groups
As the last glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation, occurred, there were a series of advances and retreats that opened an ice free corridor into the core of North America
This entrada was no doubt slow and not deliberate. A 1500 mile wide land bridge, Beringia, connecting Asia and North America opened
The people were primarily hunters and gatherers, following the moving game -- they didn't know they were going much of anywhere
They lived in small, largely patricentric bands, and with a culture that was largely "Paleolithic"
Implications: material culture lightweight and transportable, a world view that was nature focused, a nomadic way of life
As the glaciers recede, the climate warms and climatic zones "decompress"
Clovis Hunters -- 14,000 - 10,000 BP
Mammoth hunters, but using a range of smaller game and wild plants
Disappearance of mammoths and other megafauna
Folsom Hunters -- 10,000 - 9,000 BP
As mammoth populations decline, a focus shifts to other big game, bison
Plano Hunters --9,000 - 8,000 BP
Bison hunters, but less nomadism, a settling in to regions
8,000 BP - 3,000 BP (but into Contact period in some areas)
A settling in to regional environments continues and becomes more rapid
Generalized foraging, redundancy of resources
Implications -
Cultural assemblage remains lightweight and transportable, but more ground stone including manos/metates, stone axes
Social organization still patricentric; worldview still nature centered
Developments
Basketry-origin unknown
4,000 BP- some pottery
Local traditions, some continue on
Desert traditions of the Southwest, Great Basin, California
3,000 BP - 800 AD , but continuing in some areas till Contact
Still largely patricentric hunter/gatherers, but material culture expands dramatically
Local traditions become clear
Large trade networks
Primary Forest Efficiency in some areas
Developments
Pottery widespread - may be imitation of stone bowls or basketry
Burial mounds -- use widespread over the east
Some cultigens develop
Some shifts toward hierarchical social structures
800 AD- time of Contact
The impact of climatic change and the expansion of Mesoamerican cultures
In the east, massive culture changes
The impact of corn, beans, squash on population
The growth of "urban" centers like Cahokia
The dramatic expansion of specialist material culture
The expansion of matricentric cultures
The development of dieties
In the Southwest, massive changes as well
The development of Puebloan Cultures
A Mesoamerican periphery
Massive changes lay ahead, mostly negative
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larry-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
University of Iowa Anthropology
08.20.98