Place
names everywhere…including ‘bayou’ and “mississippi’
All
plotted by their archeological remains…especially spear points.
Paleo
Indians are largely distinguished by their hunting and gathering economic
system.
Mostly
gathering early on.
Not much
work required of hunters and gathers, but lots of land and occasionally
migration.
Did they
hunt to extinction the mammoth, mastadon, giant ground sloths? (12,000 on)
Evidence
sketchy because of the geologic changes since. Most territory now under water
or alluvium.
The
combination of hunting and gathering…makes the Archaic designation, which
really made life easier and populations larger.
Women were
apparently on the verge of domesticating marsh elder, aramanth and chenopod
Replaces
the nomadic existence of the H/G cultures.
Still
hunt, but more settled and the domestication of plants begins.
Use of
fire explains some of the forest cover.
Europeans and later tribes copied the practice.
Slash and
burn agriculture…are present day burnings a hold-out?
Complex
social structures and civilization begins.
Pottery,
jewelry, religious ceremonies
http://crt.state.la.us/crt/ocd/arch/homepage/index.htm
2000-200
bc
Bayou
Macon in West Carroll parish
Bird
effigy mound
Largest
structure in the US before the 20th centry.
The
semicircle mounds have a diameter of 3/4ths a mile…10 times larger than
stonehenge.
Was the
heart of a large regional culture that stretched from Missouri to Florida.
Wide
trading network
5000
people
standard:
hunter, herdsman, farmer, city dweller, civilized.
geographer:
gatherer, farmer and then became civilized before he moved into a city.
Poverty
pointers were not farmers
But how to
produce such surpluses???
No
‘set-up’ culture with a precdent of this magnitude.
Manufacturing
site for jewelry, beads etc. not just a
trading site.
Probably a
diffusion of ideas, commericial, political and religious from another area,
perhaps Mexico around 2000 bc.
Urban
heirarchy existed within the poverty point culture.
Maize
beans, squash, melons, sunflowers and tobacco
Were still
on hand when DeSoto arrived.
Intercropping:
Hill tillage, corn in the middle, beans next to them, then squash and pumpkins,
which provide erosion protection…self-sustaining, no weeding, but pollination
sometimes had to be assisted.
Were in a down period socially,
politically when Europeans arrived.
When the
French arrived there were six groups segregated by linguistic characteristics.
Mostly
lived along rivers and lakes in small villages.
Nucleated
town plan, centered around a square where the chief lived.
Agricultural
and fishing, gathering and trade
Mobilian
was the language of commerce, was apparently a Choctawan pidgin
Was not
strictly a barter economy, shells and pearls also served as currency.
Long
history of intertribal warfare
The
arrival of Europeans complicated and aggravated the tribal tensions, brought
disease and eventual elimination of many of the tribes and cultures.
Adai,
Doustioni, Natchitoches, Oachita, Yatasi
Had
connections to the plains tribes of the West and Texas.
Caddoans
were allied with the French, eventually ceded their land to the US, were moved
to Texas and eventually into Oklahoma.
Koroa,
Tunica and Yazoo
http://www.tunica.org/museum.htm
Tunica-Biloxi
tribe is federally recongized today.
Koroa,
were allies of the Natchez against the French
Natchez,
Taensa, Avoyel
Battled
the French in the early 1700s on a number of occasions.
Houma,
Bayougoula, Acolapissa, Quinaisa, Okelousa and Tangipahoa
The Houma
still exist and are recognized by state authorities as a tribe.
Chitimacha,
Washa and Chawasa
Bayou
oriented and remote for sometime
Chitimacha
are a federally recognnized tribe, living near Charenton
Atakapan
and Opelousa?
Some that
had allied with the French were moved west across the Mississippi after 1763,
when the Fr lost to the Br.
The
Spanish got much of the territory west of the Miss. after 1763, and tried to
employ the indians to their advantage against the Br.
Smallpox,
mumps, yellow fever…concurrent.
Alcohol
Guns,
warfare, reorganization of indian economy around european ideals
Technology.
Really
helped speed the process of Europeanization because the landscape was already
humanized quite well.
Fire
Crops
Willingness
of the British Southerners to accept indian farming techniques may have given
them a substantial advantage over the Fr. And the Sp.
Kosati in
Allen parish retain the most cultural identity
Several
thousand of various other tribes are scattered throughout the state.
Only 593
indians in the 1900 census, but as many as 12,000 today.
There is a
Louisiana inter-tribal council
American
Indian Center in Baton Rouge
Biggest
news of late is the introduction of gaming onto tribal lands
Broyles,
Bettye J. and Clarence H. Webb (editors)
1970 The Poverty Point Culture. Bulletin
No. 12. Southeastern
Archaeological Conference, Morgantown,
West Virginia.
Byrd, Kathleen M. (editor)
1986 Recent Research at the Poverty Point
Site. Louisiana Archaeology
No. 13. Louisiana Archaeological Society,
Lafayette.
1991 The Poverty Point Culture, Local
Manifestations, Subsistence
Practices, and Trade Networks. Geoscience
& Man Vol. 29. Louisiana
State University, Baton Rouge.
Ford, James A.
1955 The Puzzle of Poverty Point. Natural
History 64(9):466-472.
Ford, James A. and Clarence H. Webb
1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic Site
in Louisiana. Anthropological
Papers Vol. 46, Pt. 1. American Museum of
Natural History, New
York.
Gibson, Jon L.
1987 The Poverty Point Earthworks
Reconsidered. Mississippi
Archaeology 22(2):14-31.
Gibson, Jon L. (editor)
1980 Caddoan and Poverty Point
Archaeology: Essays in Honor of
Clarence Hungerford Webb. Louisiana
Archaeology 6 for 1979.
Louisiana Archaeological Society,
Lafayette.
1994 Exchange in the Lower Mississippi
Valley and Contiguous Areas
at 1100 B.C. Louisiana Archaeology No. 17
for 1990. Louisiana
Archaeological Society, Lafayette.
Jackson, H. Edwin
1991 The Trade Fair in Hunter-Gatherer
Interaction: The Role of
Intersocietal Trade in the Evolution
of Poverty Point Culture. In Between
Bands and States, edited by Susan
A. Gregg, pp. 265-286. Occasional Paper
No. 9. Center for
Archaeological Investigations. Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale.
Webb, Clarence H.
1968 The Extent and Content of Poverty
Point Culture. American
Antiquity 33:297-321.
1977 The Poverty Point Culture.
Geoscience & Man Vol. 17. Louisiana
State University, Baton Rouge. (2nd
edition, revised, published in 1982).