Our knowledge starts to increase as we come to the period beginning
about 5,000 years ago. Here a few of the details of Indian life in the
Southeast emerge rather clearly. Curiously enough it was the food habits
of these _Shellfish Eaters_ which first led to their identification; and
even today our scanty information on them still tends to center around
this feature of their lives. From the nature of the evidence we will
soon present, it is easy to infer that the principal food of many of the
groups of this period was shellfish. This may not seem especially
remarkable; but we know that, in shifting to a principal reliance on the
lowly mussel, clam, or oyster, they accomplished, in effect, a local
revolution in man’s pattern of living. They had discovered that an
almost inexhaustible supply of these prolific creatures was to be had
for the taking in places along the rivers and the ocean shore where
conditions favored their growth. Perhaps the taste for this form of diet
was difficult to acquire, but once achieved it freed them for
generations from the hard necessity of moving their camp every time the
game grew scarce. At last they could settle in one place; and the
numerous sites they occupied tell us not only that life was easier but
that the abundant food supply contributed also to a marked increase in
the population.
[Illustration: Shellfish Eater campsites were gradually raised on mounds
of their own shell refuse, sometimes even larger than this. Courtesy
Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials.]
[Illustration: Dart points of the shellheap dwellers were heavy, but
workmanship varied from crude to very careful. Length, 2¼ to 2⅞ inches.]
Our chief reminder of the presence of these early shell gatherers lies
in the piles of shells which mark the scene of their activities. Of
course the bones of deer, bear, rabbit, turkey, and other wildlife mixed
with the shells show us that to vary their diet they did a good bit of
hunting and fishing as well. The river and coastal shorelines are dotted
with such refuse heaps, often of monumental size, from Florida to
Louisiana and northward inland to the Ohio River and along the coast as
far as Maine. It may be doubted that these were all produced by related
peoples, or that they even represent the same time period; for it is
certain that many of them were still growing in fairly recent years.
Still, the fact remains that in the southern area as far north as
Kentucky and Tennessee the sites represent the oldest camps yet to be
uncovered following the earlier paleo-Indian period; and that besides
the evidence of a remarkably uniform economy, they disclose a great
similarity in the tools, weapons, and ornaments of their inhabitants.
Projectile points (a term we use because “arrowhead” implies use of the
bow and arrow) make up by far the most numerous type of artifact
recovered; and these tend to be long and heavy, although proportions may
be either narrow or broad. The size of these points indicates that
instead of the bow and arrow the dart was used with the “atlatl,” the
Aztec name we have adopted for the throwing stick or spear thrower. This
is confirmed by the presence of many antler hooks for the end of the
throwing stick. Shaped much like the hook of a giant crochet needle,
these engaged the notched butt of the dart shaft. Additional evidence is
found in the special stone, antler, or shell weights which were attached
to the shaft to add momentum to the throw.
[Illustration: Mullers and pot boilers were important kitchen tools.]
Tools included grooved stone axes, chipped drills, and large chipped
knife or scraper blades. Mullers, or flared-end “bell” pestles, were
used to reduce wild plant foods to edible form; but the mortars or trays
with which they were used are thought to have been made mostly of wood.
Vessels of soapstone or sandstone were added to the skinlined pit or
basket, and the flat pieces of steatite with a large hole bored in them
may have been used with these containers for stone boiling. Fish were
caught with bone fishhooks and with nets weighted with grooved or
notched stones. Bone was also used for awls, which were probably
employed in making baskets and for simple stitching operations as in the
making of leather moccasins or leggings, as well as for projectile
points and flaking tools. Bone heads served as ornaments, as did bone
pins which were often decorated, though the plainer ones may have been
used merely to secure clothing. Shell was worked into beads of many
varieties, and into gorgets or pendants in addition to the atlatl
weights mentioned.
[Illustration: Shell mound people of the Archaic period are the first
whose axes we can surely identify. The hafting groove encircled the ax
completely or, in the three-quarter-groove form, was omitted from the
bottom edge. Length, 22 inches.]
Life on the shell mounds, or in the camps along streams and rivers where
this source of food was of minor importance, was hardly different in
most of its material aspects from that of the wandering hunters who had
gone before. Permanent dwellings were still apparently unknown; and the
rough shelters which were built were doubtless much the same crude
lean-to of poles and brush or tree bark as formerly. Areas which appear
to have been floored with clay and the remains of many hearths indicate
that the shell mounds themselves were the actual habitation sites. This
is confirmed by the presence of the numerous articles of daily living
mixed in with the shells. The dead, too, were buried directly in the
mound, most commonly in small round pits which required that the corpse
be tightly flexed. Dogs were also buried in this manner occasionally,
and we can guess either that they were loved by their masters or that
they held some special religious significance. The fact that a very few
shell mounds were intentionally formed into a large ring, as much as 300
feet in diameter, provides a definite hint of religious ceremonialism.
From the few objects of daily use or adornment placed with the dead, we
can assume they believed in an after life.
The life of these Indians continued unchanged in any of its major
features until perhaps 2000 or 1500 B. C. About that time, according to
radiocarbon dating, the knowledge of pottery making seems to have
reached them in some manner which has not yet been determined. Perhaps
they even discovered it for themselves; but it seems more probable that
the idea reached them from some fairly distant tribe, and that by local
experiment they developed their own techniques from a hazy understanding
of the principles involved. At any rate, the upper levels of the older
shell mounds begin to yield “sherds” (fragments) of a coarse undecorated
pottery which contains innumerable tiny holes running through the paste
in all directions. These are the channels which remain after some
vegetable material like grass or moss fibers was burned out when the
vessel was fired. Any substance mixed with the clay to make it easier to
handle and keep it from cracking during the drying out and final firing
of the pot is known as “temper,” and the process itself is called
“tempering.” Later potters learned that a temper of sand, crushed shell,
or, better still, crushed rock or crumbled bits of old pottery made
stronger and better pottery; and therefore “fiber-tempered” wares
usually represent the oldest type of pottery we find in any region where
they occur. While this pottery was undecorated at first, its makers in
the Georgia area later developed a type of decoration composed most
often of lines of indentations, or punctates, made with the point of a
stick or a bone tool.
[Illustration: Except for caves, a rough windbreak to give protection
from bad weather was probably the only shelter known to the earliest
Indians.]
This new item in the household inventory was probably one of the most
significant advances which ever took place in the life of the American
Indian, and second in importance only to the later introduction of
agriculture. With it, the awkward and tedious routine of stone boiling
came to an end, and soups and stews enlarged the menu and became at once
the easiest prepared and one of the most appetizing of the foods used.
Pottery, too, marks a big change in the work of the archeologist when it
appears in the cultures which he is studying. Types of projectile points
and other stone artifacts have a way of continuing in use for long
periods without change. Clay vessels, however, seem to have been
constantly changing in form or decoration or construction, possibly
because the potter’s clay is so plastic and responsive to any fancy it
is desired to express, and there are many different ways of producing
similar results. For this reason, it forms a sensitive indicator of the
passage of time and is one of our best clues to relationships between
sites and the cultures of their inhabitants.
[Illustration: Fiber-tempered pottery might be only a crude beginning of
the potter’s art, but even these vessels were large and strong enough to
be highly useful. Width, 15 inches.]
No sizable shell mounds of these Archaic peoples, as they are known to
the archeologist, have been found in the central-Georgia area. Numerous
sites occur here, however, which contain no pottery but are littered
with scraps of worked flint and where large numbers of the heavy Archaic
projectile points are plowed up annually. At other sites, including
those on the Macon Plateau, these points are found with a considerable
quantity of the distinctive fiber-tempered pottery. It appears,
therefore, that the Shellfish Eaters proper were a limited portion of
the population of that era and that others with just about the same
material equipment followed the old hunting and gathering life in
temporary camps. The shell heaps themselves were occupied for rather
brief periods by single groups of people. Possibly the large shell
mounds represent an annual camping spot for numerous groups who used
them successively and at other times of the year lived chiefly on game
or along the smaller rivers where shellfish were available but not in
such vast quantities. This would account for the smaller accumulations
of shells in some areas; and it could be that recent changes in the
courses of such rivers as the Ocmulgee and the Oconee, brought about by
industrial activity and flood control measures, have resulted in the
obliteration of small heaps of this sort.
In any case, it appears that the Macon Plateau had again demonstrated
its advantages as a habitation site, and that a people with a material
culture similar to that of the Shellfish Eaters dwelt here at intervals
during the period 2000 B. C. to 100 B. C. Their residence was not
continuous for very long at any one time, however, since their lives
depended on hunting. Instead they probably moved about over a fairly
large area, returning every so often to the familiar banks of the
Ocmulgee to set up their village again and to hunt the surrounding
region until the game once more became scarce.
[Illustration: Simple stumping, as in this Mossy Oak jar, often appears
like crude scratching. Height, 10 inches.]
[Illustration: The woven basketry fabric which produced these
impressions is among the earliest recorded in eastern North America.]