All Rights Reserved.

All Images and Material

© 2010-2017

MauryMiller.com

Site Design By

Susan T. Miller

MillerAngles.com

WOODLAND PERIOD

1,000 B.C. — 750 A.D.

Early - 1000 B.C. - 200 B.C.

Middle - 200 B.C. - 500 A.D.

Late - 500 A.D. - 750 A.D.

The Woodland Period began to come into existence in the eastern United States along rivers like the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee around roughly 1000 BC, and endured with cultural changes till 750 AD.

This tradition brought on not only a change in ideology but also a reform in subsistence pattern.  The Woodland culture was a blend of new traits that became a pattern that was singular to those lands east of the Mississippi.  As a matter of consequence, the Woodland tradition was probably the most indigenous and distinctive culture in the east.

 With the advent of the Woodland culture came refinements in the way food was collected and stored for later reuse.  Collections of nuts and berries became more important as well as the use of underground pits in which to store nuts and seeds gathered in large quantities.  Horticulture began to arise as a supplement to a hunting and gathering lifestyle.

The custom of constructing earthen mounds to house the dead or the cremated remains gained widespread acceptance.  This practice of building mounds of earth to cover the deceased might have been an idea borrowed from the culture of the Olmecs in Mexico who were the first to initiate this practice.  Ornaments and tools were buried with some of the deceased individuals.

 A few archaeologists remain puzzled over some of the mounds and earthworks that dot eastern North America.   Some of the mounds and earthworks were simple in design and function while others were large and truly grand.  Some of the  piles of earth that were built are just that and nothing else.  

Several of the earth piles across the United States were constructed into the shapes of different animals.  One of the most famous is the Serpent Mound built on top of a steep bluff in southern Ohio.  Complete with a curvilinear design, it measures 737 feet, the body roughly measuring 20 feet wide and four to five feet high.  An aerial view of this snake shows it about to engulf an egg.  Another effigy mound of consequence is named Rock Eagle and located in Georgia.  This name comes from the fact that a design of a large eagle in flight is built of piles of rocks.  Maybe the serpent and eagle and other animals were important to the particular clan of the Woodland Indians.

 Two large structures built during the Woodland Period are in Tennessee.  One is a place called Old Stone Fort near Manchester, Tennessee.  The subworks were built with low walls of rocks, then covered with great amounts of earth.  This site is situated in  a natural plateau where the Little Duck and Duck Rivers come together in a fork.  It comprises an area of about 50 acres.  The lineal walls measure 4,000 feet in length.  The enclosure has only one entrance, and the purpose of not only the enclosure, but also the design, is not understood.

Another impressive and wonderfully preserved site of the Woodland  peoples is Pinson Mounds at Pinson, Tennessee, located on the South Fork of the Forked Deer River just south of Jackson, Tennessee.  It is the largest Middle Woodland group in the United States and comprises about 1,200 acres that date to about 1 - 500 AD, and includes some 15 earthen mounds.  Some of these mounds are only a few feet high, while others, like Ozier Mound, are large imposing structures.  One earthen mound at Pinson, Sauls Mound, is 72 feet high.  Some archaeologists believe that the peoples  who constructed this site had their minds on the sun, moon, and stars while building their design works.  Archaeologists believe that the aboriginals never lived directly on this site but only inhabited adjacent areas.  Primarily, this location was used as a ceremonial setting where Woodland peoples from far away would come to celebrate a certain personage or to commemorate a season or approbration (any reason to celebrate other than a personage or season).

 In some parts of the eastern U.S., Woodland peoples developed their own style of the particular period, even though some things were shared.  The Poverty Point Culture in Louisiana and Mississippi was one such region.  The Hopewell, and later, Adena in Ohio and West Virginia, was another area.  The Gulf Culture developed in the lower Mississippi Valley.  Still another was the Copena Culture in North Alabama, Southern Tennessee and North Georgia.  

 Vessels of terra cotta formed using the coil method made their widespread appearance during the Woodland Period.  Crushed rock and/or grit and, later in the period, shell, were used as temper to prevent shrinkage and produce vessels for long use.  They bore decorative motifs that were stylized regionally and locally by using carved wooden paddles that had designs carved directly into them, or sticks wrapped with cord or fabric.  These carved paddles were pressed into the wet clay to apply the design.  There were also punctated line designs.  Simple and complex incising using the crinkled edges of scalloped shells was applied to the pottery vessels.

Chipped flint knives, drills, scrapers, along with pecked and ground poled celts, polished items, flint spades, plummets, platform pipes and panpipes, and smaller flint arrow points were utilized in everyday life and also accompanied deceased ones of high rank to the grave.  Medicine tubes, boatstones (like small johnboats), expanded center gorgets, and pendants, net sinkers, and reel shaped copper objects and rolled copper sheet beads were other Woodland Indian objects.  Hematite and galena, red ochre and greenstone, pearl beads and turtle carapaces were decorative venues and much sought after.  Marginella and olivella shells, along with conch shell beads and dippers were popular items with Woodland Peoples during life and accompanying them to the hereafter.

The bow and arrow was introduced during the Middle Woodland Period.  It was a more efficient hunting weapon than the atlatl in use during the Archaic Period and the Early Woodland Period because it was an excellent ambush weapon.  Its invention resulted from the need to have a smaller shaft to thrust the new smaller, lighter arrow points designed to kill the smaller game now available for food.

A new kind of musical instrument called “panpipes” made using cane wrapped in copper were discovered in Woodland Period burials.

Toward 700 AD, for reasons unknown, the Woodland tradition began to fade in the Southeast.  The peoples ceased taking part in elaborate mortuary ceremonies and ceased their widespread trade network.