We can gain much curious knowledge by beginning to explore the archaic mound-building tradition of North America. You are beginning to do so by way of a normal every day exploration right now.
Archaeologists and others continue to do much fruitful field work and contemplation around our world at an accelerating rate. That activity includes the work around the Mound-Builder Tradition sites of North America. Their understanding of who we are grows, and they are sharing that understanding more widely than ever. They continue to make fine, well organize information available to you and I.
A significant portion of that opening, meaning, and understanding deals with North American prehistory and history. I believe that you are capable of considering a broad sweep of time and of bringing more meaning into your life by doing so. Here, in this essay, I hope to begin an exploration of human being in North America from about 5,000 BC up to about 300 AD. Almost six thousand years of human doings and happenings may seem a lot to consider, but those doings and happenings have be going on for over 60,000 years. I fact, many of a scientific bent, have come to agree that our goings on may have begun more than 200,000 years ago; which may make 5,000 or 6,000 years not seem an enormous stretch of time.
But, then a close consideration of just a week of your life could make a lot of history. Then again the consideration of a certain day of your life can make a lot of history. Than again, such consideration might make one more of a psychologist than a historian. Then again, (again,) we don't have to be pigeon-holed to put more meaning and understanding into our life.
Okay lets get on to some details and examples. We can go on with our exploration, hoping and aiming to get closer to reality, while probably we don't know anyone who has been there. Still. I believe that we can experience, think that experience over a bit, and become better human beings for doing so.
Not just piles of dirt: The archaeologist Dr. Sanders has led some humans to look more closely into the the evidence of the Mound Building tradition. There is more to learn about the "nature of evidence" and even about the word "tradition'' as used by archaeologists, but who can learn about everything in one paragraph?
In this case Sanders looked at the evidence in the Mississippi River drainage area which included, for him, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and beyond. Sanders hasn't told me so but to me he seems to be one of the conservative and careful experts pointing us to times beyond Noah. But that will concern us little here.
Here begins our little dip into our past. We start with the careful work of Joe sanders and his work in the lower Mississippi River area where he has done much original work on know sites there. His work has validated and extended previous work which you could check out and tell us about.
I have written a bit more about his related work and posted that writing on this blogsite. Three related archaeological sites are at Hedgpeth, Frenchman's Bend, and Watson Break. My notes tell me that Sanders obtained calibrated radio carbon dating human activity there back as far as 3,700 BC and 3000 BC. Adding 2000 AD to 3700 BC gives us a time of 5,700 years ago. That's getting close to the time of 6,000 years ago that I mentioned not far above. So that time is a sort of limit to this excursion into the past. However, from this point of view looking back one can glimpse evidence of long distance trade and commerce and man hunting giant animals we have called mega-fauna and mega-mammals.
There is much more information available than the tiny examples I am sketching in here and we are finding more, including world wide connections. So one might say, " The best is yet to come." I am able to offer a few tasty morsels at a time in which I hope you will find some satisfaction and perhaps even seek more.
The sites I have mentioned here are providing, through Dr. Sanders and others, to be representative of widespread construction of similar mounds and earthworks in what are now the the U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. The main site at Watson Break was begun about 4,000 BC and abandoned about 2,800 BC. That is, it appears to be a culture which lasted 1,000 years longer than the United States has lasted. Sander's dating is sound. Others have dated this group of sites to from about 4,500 BC to 3,400 BC.
You might want to keep in mind that there are also similar sites along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers drainage area all along the rivers north to the Great Lakes and beyond. The mounds were being looted by French, Spanish, and others for about 200 years before the existence of the U.S. and has continued until recent times. Among that which impressed looters were metals, the remains of men over seven feet tall, and other things.
It is remarkable that a name can often tell us more about the namer than about the named. To me, the name "Mound Builders" less about the culture named and more about the knowledge of the namer. It now seems certain that the people in North America co-operated to build impressive earthworks as early as 4,000 BC. This began while they were hunter harvesters of the lands around them and were practicing very limited agriculture.
These Mound Builders are said to have chiefdoms and well organized, They had no pottery, but did have backed clay objects. They were largely woods dwellers and worked, bone, antler, and stone. They imported a lot including shell, a little bit of copper and perhaps gold, and also some specialized stone. They also had stone receptacles which may have been use for cooking. Some cooking may have been done in basketry and even bark receptacles. This cooking was done by adding heated stones to water. They were excellent hunters, fishermen, and harvesters of nature. Sometimes that nature may have been groomed a bit by men nd women. They also traveled river and stream and perhaps beyond in dugout or birchbark canoes. As I have suggested they have left some clues that probable they practiced the beginnings of horticulture.
Most sites of this tradition were on, or very near, wet lands. The climate dryer warming interval from about 7,000 BC to 2,500 BC may well have resulted in population concentrating in wet lands.
Bones at Watson Break showed signs of butchering and cooking, so meat seems to have been part of the menu. The bones of deer, opossum, squirrels, turkey, and racoon were common. Could these have been leavings of later visitors? These Mound Builders did take fresh water fish, probably with hook, net, and trap. They seem to have avoided crawfish! There is evidence that they processed and ate hickory nuts, black walnuts, and hazelnuts. We continue to learn more about these people who lived 6,000 years ago.
Found in these specific mounds which include Watson Break were vessels of soft stone, such as soapstone, which may have been used for cooking. However, ground roasting and steaming were probably more common. Domesticated cultigens may have been eaten. That which they may have cultivate included squash, maygrass, sunflower, sumo-weed, and more. The repetition of that which was cultivated at this time, may be due to the fact many people, including professional people in areas related to this topic, believed that such cultivation was extremely rare. This belief was not so rear not so many years ago.
The many cracked rocks found at the sites suggests that they may have been heated and used for cooking. I believe that Stone Age people of this time were capable of finding and using stone rather resistant to such cracking. But then one cannot find stone which is not there. There is much evidence that early native Americans used this stone cookery with water in tightly woven baskets. It seems that so far there is no evidence that these "mound people" were not using baskets. How many thousands of years might a discarded basket remain in recognizable sight? I have heard of ancient Europeans(perhaps mega-mammal hunters?)cooking large animals in excavated, earthen, wood-lined hole filled with water. Well heated stone were added over time to do the cooking. Eating is a big deal, cooking to!
Let's look some more about what seem to be true of these Watson Break people and their neighbors. At the W.B. site a very large number of unbroken snail shells were found suggesting that they had been steamed and the flesh removed without breaking the shell. Similar shells were used to make necklaces. We know of some early people who used such shell as a sort of money or in long distant trade.
Around "our" three sites and other earthworks of similar tradition, artifacts such as small stone tools for cutting, drilling, and Middle Archaic points were also found.
At the WB site, fired earthen ware objects were found, as well as bifaced stone of local materials. No burials were found at the site. It is significant that some mounds were not meant to be places for burial.
The micro-drill found at the WM site is considered as defining the tradition of that site. The many found were small, with tapered ends; showing rotary ware markings. A quantity of them were found associated with chert beads. Red ocher was also found associated with the drills! Also those with sanders found 30 kilograms of fired earth objects shaped as cubes, spheres, tablets and cylinders. Were these fired earth objects used in game and used as items of trade?
I am a bit surprised that no good evidence of fairly large scale trade or exchange has been found at these sites. At other sites, I have been told, much evidence of trade before and after 4,000 BC has been found. I admit that I am not sure of the nature of that evidence. If you are privy to information about the exchange of goods at the approximate time we speak of along the Mississippi, please let us know.
Other of information about the sites we are using as examples is that the people of WB appeared to have kept a specific area clear of debris. That area was enclosed by mounds. That they built in spurts over a long period time may give us some hints about their thinking. It seems that the timing of their building spurts coincided with El Nino happenings. El Nino and La Nina are climate patterns which cause changes in rainfall and temperature, sometimes lasting more than a year and causing other environmental changes. These pattern changes seem to have their start in the Pacific Ocean. There is plenty which we can learn.
When I say that I see a cultural continuance back to the last Ice Age and suggestions of advanced cultures in those times, and that I see Watson Break people as decedents from this latest Ice Age you deserve some convincing evidence. That evidence is developing now. Not by me, but I intend to keep alert to its discovery and development. I hope to share my findings with you. Help me find developments. There is a lot being published on the internet.
So evidence is beginning to be gathered, let's try to get some of it. Our interpretation of the evidence may be as good as or better than that of many others. There is lot to learn, but new information is being found, interpreted, and shared in ways people can understand. We are free to participate in that process. Believing that a seeker may find and an asker may be answered does not seem overly optimistic.
Active amateurs can still bring tentative new archaeological sits to the attention of experts. Thoughtful and practiced experts can share useful interpretations of the available evidence with. We can get valuable information about who we are. We can learn about the movements of our Earth and our world and have better chance of surviving and thriving in the coming changes. We can practice doing so together.
Thank you for reading. And thank you to those who are organizing the available information in increasingly useful ways, and sharing with us in meaningful ways.
Richard
