ANT-202 Fact Sheet Tuesday March 1, 2005

 

   XI               The Early Farming Adaptation (continued)
                            C               Concepts applied to the study of political organization and social inequality
                                                     1               Chiefdom: political units that consist of two or more local communities, such as villages or encampments, which are under the permanent control of a paramount chief.
                                                     2               States- political units which consist of a large number of communities within a circumscribed territory, all of which are under the control of a central government.  States differ from chiefdoms in two crucial respects
                                                                                                                                i            Rule is divorced from kinship
                                                                                                                              ii            States have at least three levels of administration --- community, district, and central leadership --- whereas the chiefdom has but two
                                                     3               Ascribed status: Inherited
                                                     4               Achieved status: Acquired through effort
                                                     5               Social stratification: Society broken into ranked groups

                            D               Eastern North America        

1.      Precursors

a.      Possible initial occupation: 12,000 B.C. (Meadowcroft Rockshelter)

b.      Definite Paleoindian 11,000-9000 B.C. (Fluted points)

2.      Archaic  8000 –500 B.C.  (dating is approximate—varies from region to region): Hunting and gathering with some use of domesticates) The Poverty Point Site is an unusual example of a late Archaic  site in the Southeast. It dates from 1500 B.C. to 700 B.C. This site produced some of the oldest earthworks in the East.—precursor to the later monumental construction.

a.      By 2000 B.C. or so Archaic peoples domesticated several plant foods:

i.        Goosefoot  (Chenopodium)

ii.      Marsh elder (Iva annua)

iii.    Sunflower (Helianthus)

3.      Woodland (post 500 B.C.) (Mounds, and greater reliance on domesticates dated to 1000 B.C. in some areas).

a.      Increased reliance on domesticates

b.      Marked increase in preoccupation with the dead- Burial mounds

c.      Marked increase in pottery

d.      Cremation

e.      Adena  Culture Ohio Valley 500 B.C.- A.D. 400. It is marked by

i.        Burial mounds.

ii.      Earthworks in the shape of circles and squares.

iii.    Beginning of long distance trade.

f.        Hopewell Culture  A.D. 1-400

i.        Serpent Mound

g.      Mississippian (A.D. 800-1500 [historic contact])

i.        Based on intensive maize horticulture—slash and burn .

ii.      More storage features at Mississipan sites.

iii.    Larger, more dense settlements in river valleys.

iv.     Platform mounds

v.       Planned and palisaded settlements

vi.     Cahokia in Missouri, Moundville in Alabama