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ARCHAIC PERIOD

8,000 B.C. — 1,000 B.C.

Early - 8000 - 6000 B.C.

Middle - 6000 - 3000 B.C.

Late - 3000 - 1000 B.C.

After the Pleistocene Period started to close, and the expansive ice sheets receded, and the Paleolithic Tradition declined, a new lifestyle came into being  – the Archaic.  This new hunter-gatherer lifestyle was productive and disparate.  Not only did it rely on hunting of deer, wild turkey, elk, bears and wolves and smaller animals of the fields and forests, but it also was based on the gathering of berries, seeds, fruit, acorns, hickory nuts, and muscle shells.  Fishing and shellfishing became commonplace.

Archaic peoples seem to have egalitarian societies where status distinctions were rarely made.

Archaeologists have divided this period into three sections.  The Early Archaic had climatic conditions that were more cool and moist over the previous epoch.  The Middle Archaic had atmospheric conditions changing to warmer and drier than earlier.  This warmer, drier period was called the “hypsithermal” and  lasted from 7,000 BC to roughly 3,000 BC.  During this “hypsithermal” there was a reduction of forests and an increase in grasslands and a change in water resources that affected the Middle Archaic bands that traversed the territory.  Between 3,000 BC and 1,000 BC the climate seemed to moderate.  The Late Archaic had weather conditions similar to those of present day.

Cluster locales were not uncommon, and the people of the Archaic were able to make a living within smaller territories by not having to roam as far as the Paleo people had to roam to survive.  There were three types of cluster locales during the Archaic.  Settlements covering two or three acres were occupied during the winter.  Base camps that were comparable in size to settlements were only occupied during the summer.  Transient camps were occupied in the spring and autumn when groups were on the move between settlements and base camps.  They were using as many as 73 different kinds of plants.  These people were rally quite healthy but suffered when food supplies ran short.  Marsh elder, knotweed, goosefoot, maygrass, and other like foods come to be utilized during the Late Archaic.

The Archaic peoples’ lives changed not only due to responses in the environment but also through the accumulation of ideas.  This setting made it achievable for a more settled existence, plus incorporated more substantial dwellings.

The commerce and cultural exchanges at this time came about through a trade system that became more established during the Archaic.  Rolled copper beads, flint, sandstone, drilled shell beads, greenstone, steatite, are just some of the articles of exchange that came about in the Southeast.

For their life in the forest and also in the savannahs (grasslands), the Archaic peoples developed many specialized tools.  Mortars and pestles made from stone and wood were used for crushing seeds and berries.  Nutting stones for cracking nuts were a popular item.  Grooved axes, gouges, and stone adzes were used for woodworking.

Choppers and scrapers, abraders and hammerstones, pecked stone tools, and other tools of like manner changed somewhat in the Archaic.  Unlike the Paleo, Archaic flaked tools were not uniface but biface, meaning that both sides of the tools were worked to form the shape they wanted.  Evidence from some archaeological sites reveals that Archaic peoples developed fish hooks, nets and plummets to aid them in fishing.

Shaved bone awls and needles from deer and elk were used in making basketry that was fashioned from split canes, reeds and rushes.  Containers made from steatite or soapstone, easily worked minerals, were used for cooking and storage during this time frame.

Tubular pipes and medicine tubes came into use.  Materials used were clay-stone, pottery, steatite, chlorite, micaceous schists, red ferruginous sandstone, greenstone, and even catahoula sandstone.  Some of these objects are carved very symmetrically and exhibit a prepared finish.  Plant substances like willow bark, sumac leaves, goldenrod, fleabane flower, and even early tobacco was used in these pipe forms.  Archaeologists are of the opinion that many of these stone pipes or medicine tubes found in Tennessee and Kentucky are medicinal in their particular use.  Most of these artifacts have a uniform perforation with rotary scars found inside.  Archaeologists, here again, believe they were probably drilled with hollow cane filled with sand.  Some of these specimens can be dainty little tubes with thin walls and a little more than four inches long and one inch in diameter at the center.  One like this was found many years ago in Williamson County, Tennessee, upon the Harpeth River and made from reddish-brown clay paste.  Another from Middle Tennessee found in Overton County is very symmetrical and made from talcose slate.  It is five and one-half inches long and one and one-fourth inches in diameter at the large end.  It is said that after viewing these stone and terra cotta medicine pipes and tubes it gives the individual considerable respect for the ancient artisans who made these pieces.

The distinguishing characteristic, one would have to say, that separates the Archaic from the Paleolithic would be how the points/knives were fashioned or made.  There were many different styles to these points/knives.  Knife forms were hafted to bone, antler, or wood handles.  During the Early Archaic most of the  projectile point forms were corner notched, side notched, or bifurcate, such as Big Sandy’s and Charleston’s.  The projectile point forms made in the Middle Archaic era tend to be basal notch forms, contracting stems, and straight stemmed forms, such as Morrow Mountain’s, Eva I’s and II’s.  In the Late Archaic projectile points were straight stemmed, deep corner notched, and straight stems with wide barbs, such as Ledbetter’s, Pickwick’s, Turkey Tail’s, and Buck Creek’s.  Societies who shared similar projectile point styles within a region also seemed to share other cultural traits.

A new hunting innovation was invented during the Archaic Tradition — the atlatl — Aztec word for spear-thrower or throwing stick.  The atlatl extended the length of an individual’s throwing arm and increased the force and distance a projectile could be cast.  This throwing stick consisted of two wooden or cane shafts, a long shaft, spear, that was thrust, and a short shaft that stayed in the hunter’s hand.  The spear was three to four feet long with the projectile point was hafted to one end.  The short shaft was about two feet long with a hook-like projection made of antler, carved wood, or bone at one end.  This hook fitted into the nock end of the spear and held the spear secure until the spear was thrust.  The short shafts of the atlatls had finely polished weights attached to them — banner-stones, gorget banners, loaf stones, boatstones.  These weights enhanced velocity of the spear when thrust from the short shaft.  An individual, if really good with one of these throwing sticks, could pierce a four inch square at 40 yards — 120 feet.

After the game was killed, it was dressed out and cut with large flint knives.  The meat was scraped from the hides with flint scrapers.  Further work was done with smaller flint knives and bone awls and needles to make clothing.

Personal adornment began with the Archaic peoples.  Stone pendants and shell beads were worn.  Ornaments made from pebbles and small water worn stones hollowed out with flint drills or sand filled cane reeds were also a favorite.  In some territories copper (though rare as it was) was also worn.  The variety and the beauty of polished stone tools and ornamentation increased as time progressed.

Due to the work of William S. Webb in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the Late Archaic came to be known as the “Shell Mound Archaic” because of the great concentrations of riverine mussel shell found at several of the Late Archaic sites.

Burial of the dead was a scarcity among Early Archaic peoples, probably due to their highly transient way of life.  As time progressed to the Middle and Late Archaic era, burial of the dead became an important issue with individuals.  Flexed burials (fetal positions) were the norm.  Articles of interest buried with the dead were the very things that had been important to them or had accompanied them in life.  Wolf, deer and bear teeth necklaces, as well as engraved bone pins, flint tools, ground stone pendants, and red ochre accompanied some of the burials at this time.  The increasing importance placed on the burial of the deceased was a forerunner to the more impressive burial practices that existed and characterized the next tradition in the Southeastern aboriginal prehistory.