Chapter I: Part 1

BOARD OF
ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM ADVISORS

M. M. Leighton, Ph. D., _Chairman_
Illinois Geological Survey, Urbana
Everett P. Coleman, M. D.
Coleman Clinic
Canton
Percival Robertson, Ph. D.
The Principia College
Elsah
N. W. McGee, Ph. D.
North Central College
Naperville
Sol Tax, Ph. D.
University of Chicago
Chicago

Copyright by
ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
1958

STATE OF ILLINOIS
William G. Stratton, _Governor_

DEPT. OF REGISTRATION & EDUCATION—ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Vera M. Binks, _Director_ Thorne Deuel, _Museum Director_

STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES, No. 9

AMERICAN INDIAN WAYS OF LIFE

An Interpretation of the Archaeology of Illinois and Adjoining Areas

by
Thorne Deuel

Springfield, Illinois
1958

[Printed by authority of the State of Illinois]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 5
Paleo-Indians 9
Archaic Man 12
Cultures and Cultural Change 19
Initial Woodland 20
Food Storers (Advanced Phase) 23
The Hopewellian Civilization (Classic Phase) 26
Final Woodland 30
Middle Mississippi 34
Upper Mississippi 42
The Illini 45
The Indians Leave Illinois 54
Summary of Illinois Prehistory 54
Glossary 59
Bibliography 67
Diagram: Stream of Culture 57
Table I: Stages and Archaeological Units 4
Table II: Radiocarbon Dates 8
Table III: Cultural Characteristics of Archaeological Units 70

STAGE
SUBSTAGE
ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNITS
PATTERN
PHASE
SUBCULTURE
TYPE STATIONS
IV. MACHINE AGE
Lacking in the Americas
III. FARMING
DOMESTIC PLANTS AND FOOD-DRAFT ANIMALS
Lacking in the Americas
PLANT-RAISING
MISSISSIPPI
Historic Illini: 1673-1833
[Illini Tribes]
Brandt II (Ra^v1)
Upper: 1100 (?)-1600 A.D.
Langford
Fisher II and III
Middle: 1000-1500 A.D.
Cumberland
Kincaid Site
Cahokia
Dickson Mound (F^o34) and Fout’s Village (F^v664)
Protomiss
Dillinger Village Site
WOODLAND (Hoe-culture)
Final: 200 (?)-1000 A.D.
Effigy Mound
Tampico
Maples Mills Site
Stone Vault
Spencer Mound Group
Jersey Bluff
Otter Creek Sites
Raymond
Raymond Site
Lewis
Lewis (Pp^v1A)
Classic: 500 B.C-500 A.D.
Hopewell (South)
Hubele Village (Wh^v30)
Wilson Mound (Wh^o6)
Hopewell (North)
Clear Lake Village (T^v1)
Liverpool Mound (F^o77-II)
II. SELF-DOMESTICATION
FOOD-STORING
WOODLAND (Ceramic)
Advanced: 1000 (?)-100 (?) B.C.
Crab Orchard
Sugar Camp Hill Village (Wm^v1)
Baumer
Baumer Hamlet (Mx^v30)
HUNTING-COLLECTING
Initial: 2500-500 B.C.
Morton
F^o14-II and F^v35
Red Ochre
Hilltop Mound (F^o11)
Black Sand
Liverpool Hamlet and Cemetery (F^v88 and F^o77-I)
LITHIC
Archaic: 8000-2500 B.C.
Terminal
Ferry Site (Hn^v251) and Godar Cemetery
Medial
Modoc II
Simple
Modoc I
Paleo-Indian: 50,000 (?)-8,000 (?) B.C.
Folsom
Fluted points as isolated finds only.
Clovis
I. NATURAL MAN
PROTO-CULTURAL
None found in America

INTRODUCTION

This paper is primarily planned for the layman, the beginning student of prehistory and others interested in acquiring a general understanding of how primitive man lived during his successive occupations of Illinois and neighboring areas in the more important archaeological periods. Most of the archaeological data for the chief cultures or ways of life are given in references in the accompanying bibliography of technical publications selected as those from which (in the opinion of the writer) the information can be most easily gleaned.

The reconstructions given of the cultural features, where not those ordinarily inferred from archaeological findings, are based on a study of the practices commonly found among primitive people now, or until recently, living in the same stage or substage. These are tentative conclusions resulting from a study of fifty tribes in the Self-Domestication (pre-farming) stage and forty in the Plant-Raising substage. Because primitive tribes which are under pressure from people with advanced food-draft-animal agriculture or with machine industry or which are in a transitional condition between two adjacent stages are disorganized or drastically changing a formerly stabilized mode of life, great care has been exercised in drawing general conclusions from their cultural features.

The reconstructions of the perishable objects shown in the drawings are generally in keeping with the culture in which they are exhibited but cannot be vouched for as to their detailed form. The handle of an adze, the shape of a cabin roof, the headdress of a tribal chief each served the purpose for which they were made and their exact form was and is of no more consequence in the culture than the fashions in women’s hats or the fins on an automobile are in our own. The details in cultures serve to set them apart from each other; it is the basic and significant features and subfeatures that determine relationships and permit the most useful classification.

The study mentioned above is still incomplete, but results so far obtained indicate:

1. That man in the same stage (and substage) of cultural development
_tends_ to invent and employ the same broad social and spiritual
features, regardless of surroundings.

2. That where significant differences arise between substages of the
same stage, they are (at least sometimes) linked with peculiarities
of climate and/or natural resources which the people have seized
upon and exploited to the improvement of their economic situation.

3. That many details within these broad types of economic, social and
spiritual features appear to vary unpredictably within the range of
available possibilities.

The stage and criterion for each were proposed in an earlier issue (No. 6) of this series, _Man’s Venture In Culture_, (Deuel 1950, pp. 5-12) as:

1. _Natural Man_ (_Protocultural_), when “man” presumably employed
sticks and stones as implements and weapons.

2. _Self-Domestication_, following the discovery of the principle of the
conchoidal fracturing of flint and its control, and the invention of
tool and weapon types.

3. _Farming_ or _Food-Raising_, due to the discovery that grains
(grasses) and food-draft animals could be bred and raised in
captivity.

4. _Inanimate Power Machine_ (_Machine Age_), after the discovery of the
availability of water and wind as sources for energy and the
adaptation of animal-driven machines to utilize them.

Man in the wild or Protocultural stage is thought not to have reached the Americas. The oxlike mammals were not domesticated in America for drawing ploughs and vehicles, turning grain mills or to serve as a continuous food supply source. Consequently, we are concerned in the following discussion only with peoples in the Self-Domestication stage and the Plant-Raising substage of Farming.

In ordinary language, the word “culture” is used in a diversity of senses. In these pages it is used in one of two ways, the one employed being readily understood from the context. In a general sense, culture means the significant beliefs, customary activities and social prohibitions that are peculiar to man (together with the man-made tools, weapons and other material objects that he finds or has found necessary) that modify, limit or enhance in some manner, most of his discernible natural activities due to and arising from his physical animal inheritance and organization. Culture in a specific sense refers to the significant cultural features of a group or period under consideration.

For convenience, any cultural activity according to its dominant purpose may be spoken of as belonging to one of three aspects of culture, (a) economic (technological and intellectual); (b) social (and political); and (c) spiritual (religious, artistic and recreational). To lesser degrees, most cultural activities have relationships with the two aspects other than the dominant.

Certain prevalent archaeological designations have been changed to remove time implications (e.g. “early” and “late” Woodland to _Initial_ [beginning] and _Final_ [end of an archaeological series]), or to shorten (e.g. “Tennessee-Cumberland” or “Gordon-Fewkes” to _Cumberland_).

Technical terms have generally been avoided; but where it has seemed necessary to retain them or to use words in a special sense, they are explained in the text or can be found in the glossary. The terms _pattern_ and _phase_ are those generally employed in the McKern system of classification, for the larger groupings into which it is customary to place the “cultures” as determined from the typology of the artifacts, their association in the assemblage and pertinent data recovered at a site (or local community) with due regard to circumstances of time and location of other sites nearby and over a larger area. The largest unit is the _pattern_ which is made up of a number of _phases_. Cultural divisions smaller than these units are spoken of here as _subcultures_.

The approximate relationships of the archaeological units to the broader cultural stages and substages are given in Table I, page 4. The succession and coexistence of the archaeological units is indicated in the diagram “The Stream of Culture”, p. 57. The summary of “Characteristics of the Archaeological-Cultural Units” occurs on pages 70-76.

This is a story mainly of Illinois when occupied by American Indians but it would not give a reasonably true picture without showing the known extensions of some of the cultures into surrounding areas and the probable intrusions from outside the state.

Of necessity in attempting a summary of the archaeology of Illinois and adjacent areas, the writer has had to lean heavily on the field work and reports of the many anthropologists who have contributed so much to the present understanding of the American Indian in the United States. To this invaluable source material and to these able scientists the indebtedness of the writer is acknowledged to be very great indeed. In the compass of a work of this type it is impossible to name them or give them credit for original or similar views, nor is it practicable to include in the bibliography all the publications used.

Acknowledgment of assistance is made especially to Georg K. Neumann, Joseph R. Caldwell and Melvin L. Fowler, Milton D. Thompson, Ruth Kerr, Nora Deuel and Orvetta Robinson for reading and discussing the manuscript from various viewpoints, to Dr. James B. Griffin for helpful information on the dates of sites and of archaeological data, to Irvin Peithmann, Southern Illinois University, for photographs furnished, for information on sites he had discovered and the privilege of visiting them in his company, to George Langford for photographs and data regarding the Fisher site, to Charles Hodge for all photographs reproduced not otherwise credited, and to Jerry Connolly, Bettye Broyles, Barbara Parmalee and Jeanne McCarty for their excellent drawings. Without all this considerable and valuable aid the publication could not have been completed.

TABLE II. RADIOCARBON DATES[1]

CULTURAL UNIT C14 DATE SITE STATE COUNTY

MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI A.D. 1420±200 Crable Village Illinois Fulton
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI 1326±250 Nodena Village Arkansas Arkansas
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI 1156±200 Cahokia Illinois Madison
EFFIGY MOUND[2] 1041±212 Effigy Mounds Iowa Allamakee
National Park
HOPEWELLIAN 508±60 Twenhafel Illinois Jackson
(Weber) Md.
HOPEWELLIAN 432±200 Rutherford Illinois Hardin
Mound
HOPEWELLIAN 256±200 Knight Mound Illinois Calhoun
HOPEWELLIAN 214±250 Baehr Mound Illinois Brown
HOPEWELLIAN[2] B.C. 48±160 Hopewellian Ohio Ross
Group Mound #25
HOPEWELLIAN[3] 57±108 Wilson Mound Illinois White
HOPEWELLIAN 315±164 Havana Mound Illinois Mason
ADENA 423±150 Toepfner Mound Ohio Franklin
#I
ADENA 697±170 Dover Mound Kentucky Mason
ARCHAIC 704±80 Poverty Point Louisiana W. Carroll
(N.E.) Parish
ADENA 826±410 Toepfner Mound Ohio Franklin
#II
ARCHAIC 904±90 Poverty Point Louisiana W. Carroll
(N.E.) Parish
ARCHAIC 1624±300 Kays Landing Tennessee Humphrey
ARCHAIC[2] 2170±215 Indian Knoll Kentucky Ohio
ARCHAIC[2] 2360±270 Annis Mound Kentucky Butler
ARCHAIC 2765±300 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 2812±250 Perry Site Alabama Lauderdale
(N.W.)
ARCHAIC 2950±250 Annis Shell Kentucky Butler
Mound
ARCHAIC 3325±300 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 3352±300 Indian Knoll Kentucky Ohio
ARCHAIC 3646±400 Oconto Old Wisconsin Oconto
Copper Site (E.)
ARCHAIC[2] 3657±164 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 5194±500 Eva Site Tennessee Benton
ARCHAIC 5556±400 Oconto Old Wisconsin Oconto
Copper Site (E.)
ARCHAIC 5945±500 Graham Cave Missouri Montgomery
ARCHAIC 6204±300 Russell Cave Alabama Jackson
ARCHAIC[2] 6219±388 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 7310±352 Graham Cave Missouri Montgomery
ARCHAIC 7922±392 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
PALEO-INDIAN 7934±350 Lubbock Site Texas Lubbock
(Folsom)[2] (N.W.)
PALEO-INDIAN 18,000 Sandia Cave New Mexico Bernalillo
(Sandia) (Center)
PALEO-INDIAN (?) 22,000 Tule Spring Nevada Clark
Site (S.E.)
PALEO-INDIAN 35,000 Lewisville Site Texas Denton
(Clovis?)[4]

[1]These dates are selected as giving a significant picture of sequence
and contemporaneity of cultures. Dates based on shell specimens are
excluded on account of their general unreliability. Adena sites are
not included after 400 B.C. These are burial mounds and with their
inferred customs may be present in two or more cultural units rather
than constitute a feature characteristic of one.

[2]An average of at least two dates for this period.

[3]Average of three out of four dates. Libby’s second date disregarded
as widely out of line.

[4]Two samples gave identical results. Cultural identification as Clovis
based on single spearhead is doubtful.

PALEO-INDIANS, BIG GAME HUNTERS, DISCOVER A NEW WORLD (50,000? to
8,000? B.C.)[5]

Man probably discovered America as early as 50,000 years ago and gradually occupied the two continents in the succeeding millenia. The first discoverers of the New World were of Mongolian racial stock as are the American Indians. They crossed from Siberia to Alaska over an existing land bridge, over ice, or possibly by wading or by boat over the shallow sea in the wake of mammoth, mastodon or musk ox herds on whose flesh they lived. Following in the path of the huge animals, they made their way possibly up the Yukon from its mouth to the divide, thence down into the Mackenzie Basin, and along a great river where now exist a chain of lakes and so into the Mississippi Valley.

The migrants trailing each herd doubtless traveled in their several ways in family groups, uniting from time to time to trap and kill one of the great shaggy beasts. When the animals stopped, the families bedded down nearby in the most sheltered spots available taking care not to lose touch with the herd. These were wanderers, not explorers, nor were they seeking new homes; they were hunters that traveled where the herd led.

Their belongings, by our standards, were pitifully few, their way of life laborious, full of hardship and danger, but their needs were simple and their means of meeting them doubtless seemed ample to these hardy hunters. The chief weapon was a thrusting spear with a chipped flint head and a long shaft to keep the hunter as far from harm’s way as possible when attacking the dangerous animal. The narrow width of the spearpoint made it easy to withdraw from a wound and attack again. Our evidence that the Paleo-Indians (as the Big Game Hunters are commonly called) lived in Illinois are these same spearheads (Clovis and Folsom types), usually grooved or fluted lengthwise of the blade, which are scattered over much of the Illinois prairie as isolated finds. No campsites of this people have yet been discovered in Illinois, as they have been in Pennsylvania, Alabama and several southwestern states. We can only surmise that in Illinois the hunters also had stone hammers and chipped flint scrapers as they had elsewhere.

Having arrived in the great central valley between the Rocky Mountains and the eastern ranges, the herds probably moved slowly from one browsing ground to another in the open corridor between glaciers. It may have taken them many years to reach what is now the United States. Eventually the herds wandered back and forth across the Mississippi Valley, and some favorable spots came to be used as camping grounds again and again by the same or different families. Such places would appeal immediately to the campers because of their protection from rain and the piercing glacial winds, the presence of a plentiful supply of wood and water. The possibility of our gaining a better knowledge of Paleo-Indian life in Illinois rests on the discovery of such a site, difficult now to recognize because it may no longer provide wood, water, or shelter of any sort.

There are in southern Illinois a number of simple linear stone piles known locally as “stone forts,” all in the same type of land structure. Each forms an obstruction five to fifteen feet in height across a narrow neck or ridge leading to the plateau top of a near-vertical-sided “promontory” projecting out into a stream valley, making an excellent corral, with no fence necessary except across the entrance. They may have been used in late Paleo-Indian times and on into the Archaic period for impounding large game and/or driving them over the cliff.

ARCHAIC MAN, FIRST SETTLER IN ILLINOIS (8000 to 2500 B.C.)[6]

We have reason to believe that the Big Game Hunters wandered over Illinois and the adjoining states during the last advance of the glaciers. Around 12,000 B.C. the climate in the Midwest became milder, the glaciers “retreated,” and the mighty torrents—the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Illinois that had torn irresistibly down their valleys—shrank into smaller, less turbulent rivers that occupied but a fraction of their former beds. The great shaggy mammoths, musk oxen, the ground sloths and the giant beavers moved westward toward the mountains or to the north.

Some of the Big Game Hunters with their families may have followed the retreating glacier and the herds; others stayed behind in country to which they had grown attached. With the great herds gone, the human families remaining in Illinois had to hunt the game animals that now frequented the area—deer, elk (wapiti), bear and smaller mammals. The large hunting party was no longer practicable. The game roamed over the country singly or by twos or threes and had to be stalked by one or two hunters. Families were compelled to live widely separated one from another in order to secure ample food throughout the year. Thus developed a new way of life which we call the Archaic phase or culture.

The hunter, as time passed, learned the secret habits of the deer, bear and raccoon and the more sluggish fishes. His wife and daughters learned the haunts and ways of the smaller animals, the rodents, turtles and lizards, discovered where edible greens, wild tubers, nuts and fruits grew and where mussels and snails abounded in creeks and rivers. With increasing knowledge Archaic man made better and fuller use of his changed and changing surroundings, food became more plentifully available, life easier and less hazardous though still very difficult from our standpoint.

With new needs and some leisure from the labor of providing food, Archaic man invented specialized devices, new methods of making tools and weapons, the more skillful among them shaping the objects carefully into symmetrical forms pleasing to the eye of others and strangely satisfying to the maker.[7] He pecked a hollow in both sides of his cobblestone hammer so he could grip it securely and use it more skillfully. He pecked and ground diorite and granite into adzes, hatchets (celts), and axes with a groove for hafting. These were a decided improvement over flaked choppers. He ground and polished banded and highly-colored shale (“slate”) into prismatic and cylindrical spearthrower weights and bored them with a tube, sand and water. His own person he decked out with necklaces and oval pendants (made by boring a hole in smooth flat waterworn pebbles) and with bone ornaments cut to shape, ground, engraved and polished. These he and his wife wore as had their forefathers but not the skin robes of glacial times.

As life grew easier, the family or local group increased in size. Sons brought their wives to the family dwelling place and built windbreaks near those of their parents. With food abundant the little settlement became a small cluster of households or a hamlet consisting possibly of sixty to seventy persons.

If Archaic Man Was Like Present-Day Archaic Tribes[8]

If Archaic man in Illinois lived as do present-day Archaic peoples, the family or local group, though they restricted themselves during most of the year to their hunting grounds which they guarded jealously from trespassers, did not camp continuously in one spot. At appropriate seasons of the year they rotated from one hamlet site to another to take advantage of the food resources of that locality. In winter perhaps they moved to a rock shelter, like that of Modoc in Randolph County, Illinois, near the wooded valleys of streams emptying into the river where deer and elk sought protection from the rigors of winter; in spring to upland lakes for duck and other waterfowl; and in autumn to wooded parklands to harvest acorns, hickory nuts, and berries. The spot chosen for each hamlet location was generally one that had been so used at that same season from time out of mind by the family and its forebears.

It is probable, as among most primitive peoples, that men did only work thought suitable to men, and women that appropriate for women. Men made the weapons and tools they used, did the hunting and fishing, and the fighting (when quarrels developed into feuds or wars between local groups of the same tribe). The rest of the labor fell to the women—caring for the children, collecting edible plants, clams and small animals, preparing the food, and carrying burdens. All work was done by hand; loads were carried on the back. It is possible that boats, perhaps of dugout type, were used as among present-day Archaic peoples living on waterways. There was no other specialization and each “household” provided for the needs of all its members to the best of its ability. No food was grown and no domestic animal except the dog was known.

Once or twice a year when food was easily and bountifully available, local groups from nearby hunting territories met together for religious rites. These local groups spoke the same dialect, had the same way of life, and considered themselves a unit or tribe. They had no political form of government but were kept in order through habits formed by early training and by extension of the kinship system to the whole tribe. Thus the tribal elders were considered fathers and mothers, and to them were due obedience and respect, just as children they had been taught to regard their own blood fathers, uncles, and other older relatives. The elders knew the tribal customs; and to be accepted as a tribal member, boys must respect, learn and conform to these customs.

The object of these annual gatherings was to teach the young the tribal customs and to perform solemn ceremonies, the purpose of which was to insure the security and well-being of the tribe, a continuing abundance of the favorite foods, and to express gratitude and thanksgiving to unseen Spirits who watched over the game animals (and possibly the edible plants) for the blessings received during the past year. These gatherings and cooperative undertakings served, on the one hand, as a welcome change from the usual daily grind and afforded opportunities for the young to get acquainted and choose mates and, on the other, to unify the language and customs of the constituent local groups, to enhance the influence of the tribal elders and keep fresh in the minds of all the history of the tribe, the importance of its activities, and its sacred tradition, all essential to the way of life of dynamic Archaic peoples of recent times.

In the later (Medial) Archaic period at Modoc, the dead were buried in the floor of the rock shelter. Burial probably indicates a belief in life after death. Care in preparing the body for burial, in the funeral rites and burying, and in the customary mourning thereafter was highly important so the dead man could go promptly to the spirit world in peace and not remain in the neighborhood to disturb his kinsmen. Immediately after the burial, it is probable that the little settlement removed to a distant location as is customary with peoples in this stage of culture.

The rites for important dead in the Terminal period probably began with the conventional mourning of relatives, with painting the body with red ochre and grease and adorning it with the dead man’s jewelry, followed at the appropriate time by the conveyance of the body to the grave side, where the corpse was deposited in a pit together with personal insigne and weapons. The grooved stone axe, large spearheads, daggers, bannerstones, spearthrower with weight and more rarely copper articles were placed alongside or on the corpse. In some instances large stones were laid upon the grave probably for one or more of the following reasons: (a) to mark the grave of an important tribesman; (b) to keep the body from being disturbed by animals; and (c) to hold the dead man’s ghost until he departed for the spirit world.

It is very probable that, on occasions of social and religious import, Modoc man and other Archaic tribes in Illinois bedecked themselves in their best paint and jewelry. Possibly the colorful and intriguing bannerstones, which were undoubtedly developed from the spearthrower weight, were carried or worn by the local group headmen who had won that right because they were skillful hunters, courageous fighters, or learned in the tribal customs and beliefs and thus recognized by the tribe as leaders for the time being.

CULTURES AND CULTURAL CHANGE

Man can live virtually anywhere on the earth’s surface where he can obtain food, water and fuel, and do so without any fundamental change in his physical structure. This is largely because he is easily able to modify his customary ways of filling his basic needs under new or changing conditions of his surroundings. For primitive man to “live better” required an increasing knowledge of the resources in his locality and ingenuity in devising effective means and contrivances for exploiting them.

Because of this ability, the Paleo-Indian wanderers (Big Game Hunters) in Illinois around 12,000 to 10,000 B.C., when confronted with rising temperatures and other regional changes, could choose whether they would follow the mammoth and musk ox herds and familiar subglacial conditions elsewhere or adopt new and strange methods of securing food and other requirements.

As Big Game Hunters they probably lived as a number of families attached to a herd and relatively independent of each other except at hunting times. They had no homes, only temporary camps, and were bound to a moving herd, not to any particular region. The Paleo-Indian culture consisted of methods of trapping and slaying the great beasts and of filling other simple physical needs; a simple code of social behavior which enabled men and wives to live together with their children and, for brief periods, in gatherings of the families in relative peace and contentment; with religious beliefs and rites suitable to their cultural level that they believed assured them of a continuance of their satisfactory existence.

When the climate changed, those families that chose to remain in Illinois had to develop, perhaps slowly and painfully, a new way of life. The habits and haunts of deer, elk, bear and raccoon had to be learned. Other methods of hunting and of making tools and devices to fit new conditions were invented as a result of the new fund of knowledge assembled. Each family eventually acquired a more or less definite piece of land or hunting territory in which it selected certain favorable places to build the temporary hamlet at suitable seasons. As the man and his family became better adapted to the land and its resources, he hunted more successfully, and the family or local group grew larger in number.

Probably a number of neighboring families, when food was especially abundant, gathered together for social and religious purposes as peoples living today in the same status still do. Religious beliefs and other customs had all this time doubtless been shifting gradually in meeting the needs and dangers of changing conditions to a new way of life we call the Archaic culture.

Every way of life is built on an older, often simpler, culture from which it has changed more or less rapidly. Due to important inventions, the group may modify its economy (ways of securing and processing food, etc.) and produce a substantially improved manner of living which, from archaeological evidence alone, may be difficult to recognize as a development from its earlier phase.

On occasion, people from another region may invade an area, drive out the inhabitants and bring in a differing way of life. Usually this merely extends, to a desirable region less effectively exploited by others, the range of a vigorous cultural group whose territory has become too densely populated.

Sometimes newcomers essay to live peaceably with the natives and a new cultural blend is developed. If fundamental changes are made in the economy by internal development or by imitating another culture, social and religious customs are very likely to change too, though usually at a slower pace.

As time went on, the Archaic way of life slowly changed and finally disappeared, but probably not so suddenly as might at first appear; for many Archaic customs, tools, and weapons continued to be made and used in the “new” culture by the descendants of rugged earlier people or were adopted by newcomers to the region. Other changes were added through new inventions and incoming people from other regions producing a new culture now generally known as Woodland.

THE INITIAL WOODLAND CULTURES[9] (2500-500 B.C.)

After 5000 B.C. the temperatures continued to rise producing a climatic interval known as the Thermal Maximum when it was warmer and drier than at the present time. After reaching its high point, the temperature gradually declined and probably ended in southern Illinois about 2100 B.C. or later in a climate much like that of today.

By projecting the rate of deposit from the eight- to the eleven-foot level of the Modoc Rock Shelter up to the five-foot level where the Archaic remains appear to end, we secure a date for its upper limit of about 2100 B.C. (Deuel 1957, p. 2). The remains between the five- and eight-foot depths are scantier and less varied than in the earlier (lower) layers and may indicate a cultural group in a losing struggle to maintain itself under changing conditions.

In northern Illinois, similar climatic conditions were developing. There, possibly as early as 2500 B.C., a new culture, the Initial (early) Woodland, was coming into existence. At any rate, groups living there some time prior to 1000 B.C. made pottery, placed their dead in cemeteries and in low burial mounds in a flexed or “doubled-up” position, occasionally with food, personal ornaments and other funeral offerings.

The pottery of one Woodland group (Morton) in the Illinois valley resembled, in shape, surface treatment, design and area decorated, pots made in the Lake Baikal region in Asia some 7000 miles distant. The appearance of such striking similarities has long been a puzzle to anthropologists. In the first place the detailed likenesses suggest both were made by one and the same people. It seems fairly obvious that the several resemblances did not travel from tribe to tribe from Asia to central North America. The preservation of a pottery tradition during a migration of 7000 miles, probably lasting for several generations, seems equally incredible. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that two widely separated divisions of a people originating in central Asia with the same cultural background and similar surroundings arrived independently at a remarkably similar but very simple pottery type.

These late migrants probably found groups like the Black Sand (and Red Ochre) peoples in Illinois who were just emerging from the Archaic phase into Initial Woodland. The settlements of all early Woodland peoples were small in extent and poor in cultural remains. The population of these hamlets probably seldom exceeded fifty. No traces of house structures have yet been discerned. Temporary huts, probably built of small poles and brush, may have been conical or hemispherical in shape. The artifacts or cultural objects, except for a small amount of jewelry (shell and copper beads and pendants) and the few offerings placed in graves, show little evidence of any urge to fine workmanship or much feeling for beauty of line or form. Life was probably too hard and the effort in securing food and other requirements too exacting to leave much leisure for artistic workmanship in durable materials.[10]

THE FOOD STORERS (BAUMER AND CRAB ORCHARD CULTURES) (1000?-100 B.C.?)

It has been seen that in southern Illinois the Archaic way of life may have persisted until 2100 B.C. or perhaps even later. Across the state on the Ohio River a Woodland people succeeded the earlier Archaic residents. Their culture is known as Baumer and their nearest cultural relatives lived south of the Ohio in Kentucky (Round Grave or Upper Valley People). The Baumer artifacts do not resemble those of the Archaic period very closely, giving one the impression that the Baumer people developed their way of life elsewhere and moved into Illinois, possibly while Archaic groups were still in the region.

The Baumer culture differs in several ways from the northern Initial Woodland; actually it appears to be more advanced although it has been termed early Woodland by some archaeologists. In the first place, the area of settlement was more extensive which seems to indicate a larger population than do early northern Woodland campsites. Their artifacts are numerous and varied, suggesting they were well adapted to their surroundings. Flat forms of polished stone (resembling in outline certain Archaic bannerstones from which they may have derived) served presumably as breast ornaments or gorgets (as similar pieces did in the Hopewellian period). Tear-shaped stone objects (plummets) were made as they had been in Medial and Terminal Archaic. House structures were semi-permanent, large, square, made of poles or logs set in holes in the ground. Huts with circular floors seem to have been in use also. Most important of the cultural habits noted were numerous pits apparently for the storage of food. In these the remains of acorns and hickory nuts were found. These people, like the acorn gatherers of California and the Eskimo, knew how to preserve food over long periods. Acorns were probably abundant enough for a Baumer family to lay up several months’ supply in a short time. This permitted them to live in larger settlements and gave them sufficient leisure to build rather substantial houses and shape symmetrical ornaments from stone. These facts seem to substantiate the hypothesis that they were a sedentary people by virtue of their knowledge of how to store food.

The size of the Baumer settlement, the semi-permanent houses, the presence of chipped spades, stone pestles and pottery might lead one to think that these people were plant-growers rather than simple food storers. Comparing them with the acorn-gathering tribes of California, who were storers and not food growers, it is seen that these, too, had permanent settlements with well over one hundred inhabitants, rather substantial houses, stone pestles, and some tribes, at least, had pottery vessels. The Californians doubtless had digging tools since the rooms of some houses were dug four feet down into the soil.

Traces of Hopewellian influence, possibly indicating inter-marriage with Hopewellians, have been noted at the Sugar Camp Hill site (date undetermined) in Jackson County, which is presumably later than Baumer. However, the Baumerians like the native Californians were conservative, for four centuries intervened between the oldest Hopewellian village in the north and the earliest known station of that culture in southern Illinois.[11]

THE HOPEWELLIAN CIVILIZATION[12] (500 B.C.-500 A.D.)

Toward the end of the Initial Woodland period maize or corn, as we call it today, was introduced into northern Illinois, presumably from Mexico and Middle America through the agency of intervening tribes. In an apparently short time, its production seems to have been greatly intensified and exploited. Other food crops and tobacco may have accompanied maize.

About the same time, a formalized religion arose, probably concerned with the worship of deities who personified natural forces like the sun, rain and thunder, which were important to a plant-growing people. From the evidence of burial places, there seem to have been two or possibly three social classes. Doubtless the first comprised the families who introduced and grew the new food plants and who were inspired to invent the complex religion. The burial of the dead, especially those socially important and of the highest class, was accompanied by elaborate and colorful ceremonies closely bound to the religion. This seems to be a continuation in grander form of the earlier Red Ochre funeral and burial. It is unfortunate that we do not have tangible evidence of their other religious and political ceremonies which may have been even more impressive and significant. The official dress and insignia of the officials, which we can barely glimpse in the rich and varied remains in the tombs, signify a political system of social control and an established priesthood for the spiritual guidance of the community. Shamans or medicine men probably had only the duty of treating disease. Reverence for and possibly worship of ancestors is suggested by the impressive tomb chambers and mounds and the care obviously bestowed on certain of their socially prominent dead.

Social and political prestige, religious pomp and ceremonial, all seem to have combined to stimulate a demand for rare materials, beautiful jewels and impressive regalia. This initiated the search for pearls at home, the development of skillful and artistic workmanship in flint, bone, shell, copper and mica, travel abroad and trade in materials obtainable only in distant regions.

Aside from those technologies connected with the growing of plant foods, probably few new crafts appeared in the culture; rather those already, existing in the Initial Woodland were raised to a high degree of excellence. Art in several forms flourished—carving in the round and in relief, the making of fine symmetrical polished, decorated and painted pottery commonly called typical Hopewellian, hammered copper jewelry, the setting of pearls and highly-colored native stones as eyes in sculptured animals and in bear-tooth pendants and ear ornaments, etching of delicate designs, naturalistic and conventional, on bone and the modeling and firing of exquisite statuettes in clay. We admire and wonder at the excellence of execution in the best of their small sculpture because they are skillfully fashioned and finished and because they so accurately portray the characteristics and habits of animals with which we are familiar. The artist had the crudest of tools to aid him—rough stone hammers and an anvil for pecking stone to the general form; sandstone files or abraders; clay and water to polish pieces; flint and tubular drills for boring; and flint knives to cut and engrave pottery and bone—in spite of which the best craftsmen well knew how to bring out the beauty of the piece.

For the first time in Amerindian history in Illinois we become aware of an accumulation of wealth, a surplus of handmade goods over and above those needed for survival; many of these were neither well-suited nor intended for immediate physical needs, but rather were aimed at social display or spiritual enhancement. Wealth reflects a relatively constant and abundant supply of food and other necessities and the resulting accompaniment of considerable leisure time for a sizable portion of the community. It may also mark the beginning of craft specialization.[13]

It is hardly necessary to add that, if such a profusion of grave offerings as indicated by Hopewellian tombs—feather cloth robes, pearl necklaces, copper hatchets, and beautifully fashioned art objects—were left with the dead, that the high political and religious officers were correspondingly bedecked in gorgeous apparel for civil and religious ceremonies.

Nor should sight be lost of the fact that these creations and materials, so commonplace and inexpensive today, were to the Hopewellians as valuable and highly desirable as gold, silk, and precious stones are to us in Western civilization. For a better perspective these tomb offerings should be compared with objects usually found in camp and grave sites of the Initial and Final Woodland peoples.

Traders may have gone to distant regions to select and barter for raw materials, to the Lake Superior region for copper, to Ohio for pipestone, to the south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts for the small Marginella and Oliva shells, for the larger Cassis and Busycon shells, and to the Yellowstone or Mexico for obsidian (of which little is found in Illinois graves). Trade, to some degree, removes the limitations imposed by the immediate surroundings. Pearls were secured in quantity from the clams of the native streams. Bone, antler, tortoise and clam shell, bears’ teeth, bear, wildcat and wolverine jaws from their hunting and collecting pursuits were utilized more fully than ever before. Even human jaws, possibly of enemies, were cut, polished and bored for use as pendants.

Though the Hopewellians may not have been the pacifists they are sometimes painted, there must have been long periods of peaceful relationships with distant and nearer neighbors with whom they traded or through whose territories their traders had to pass. Whether or not a condition of peace was maintained within the borders of their culture area by the force of arms is an interesting question that cannot now be answered.

In southern Illinois the advance of Hopewellian culture was slower. The infiltration of new pottery styles noted at Crab Orchard very possibly represents intermarriage with Hopewellian women. Possibly through ties of relationship and the acceptance of the new food plants, the old Baumer way of life was submerged by the Hopewellian customs though here and there former habits still are recognizable. Some customs of Baumer and Crab Orchard were adopted by the northern Hopewellians—the reel-shaped gorget, the plummet and the chipped stone hoe.

In the north of Illinois, Hopewellian lasted until 250 A.D. (Poole site) and in the west and south to about 450 or 500 A.D. Though the culture died out in Illinois by 500 A.D., it still flourished in Mississippi (Bynum site) around 800 A.D. and at Marksville, Louisiana, as late as 850 A.D.

As was stated earlier, emerging cultures grow out of earlier ones. Although it may not yet be generally recognized, the Hopewellian civilization probably exerted tremendous influence on the Mississippi cultures and on tribes that followed them in the great central valley of the United States and beyond, down to historic times. It must be borne in mind that in spite of their splendid achievements, the Hopewellians had no domestic animals but the dog, no herds for meat and great wealth, no draft animals to drag the plough and turn the mill. All labor was “by hand,” all transport on the back or in a boat driven by human power.

THE DARK AGE IN ILLINOIS—FINAL WOODLAND (200 to 900 A.D.)

The Hopewellian civilization apparently disappeared as suddenly as it seems to have arisen. This impression is probably due to the fact that the people continued to live in the old villages long after the characteristic colorful Hopewell customs were no longer practiced. Actually the culture may have declined for a century or more before it finally broke down completely. Many of the simpler folk traditions probably persisted in the area for some centuries afterward.

Possibly long continued abuses of power and privilege by religious and political officials, especially those from the highest social caste, weakened the confidence of the lower classes in their leaders and the culture. Newcomers from Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky may have further disorganized certain settlements and separated areas of the larger community from each other. Generally, however, the writer gets the impression that the decay began within the civilization although its final downfall may have been accelerated by external pressures.

With failing confidence and a rising uneasiness, trade would naturally decrease and the incentive to fine workmanship decline. The larger cultural community split apart into a number of small tribes, who were isolationists and individualists. All the separate little tribal units were Woodland culturally with some small evidence of their Hopewellian heritage, but each differed in certain respects from its neighbors. Villages dwindled to the mere hamlets, widely separated one from another. The elaborate ceremonial dress, insignia, and jewelry, and the artistic creations (at least in durable materials) became a part of the past; the people found themselves reduced to the rude cultural level of their early Woodland ancestors. Huts were flimsy and left no discernible remains. Tools, weapons, and ornaments were, in general, carelessly made and poorly finished. Although tobacco was smoked and small patches of maize and beans may have been grown, the chief economic dependence undoubtedly was on hunting, fishing and collecting.

The religious beliefs, too, were probably simplified and mixed with magic and superstition, surviving relics of the religion of the past age. In a word, the social and religious customs of the little tribes were broadly similar but in minor details differed from each other much as do their artifactual remains.

A study of the Final Woodland and other phases of Illinois history reveals certain relationships among some distinguishable differences of detail:

1. The almost complete lack of evidence of Hopewellian art, trade and religion in the late Woodland period gives little apparent indication that the people were the direct descendants and heirs of that civilization. On the other hand, the general resemblance of Final Woodland assemblages to those of the Initial phase seems marked. Let us examine further.

The tobacco pipe of the late phase with the stem projecting beyond the bowl is found in most aspects. Likewise, the vertically elongated pot is common but not the only form. Burials are often in mounds, frequently in a central chamber or grave, with skeletons in the flexed and/or extended positions, occasionally accompanied by grave offerings. All these are broadly reminiscent of Hopewellian customs and, in the writer’s opinion, indicate a continuing thread of tradition from Initial Woodland through Hopewellian into the Final phase.

2. The relationship to the Middle Mississippi seems more evident and has been attributed by some authors to the “impact” of a high culture on that of cruder or “under-developed” neighbors. What are the grounds for these conclusions?

New pottery forms were being attempted, the flattened globular pot, the shallow bowl (occasionally found in Hopewellian sites), the cup or beaker and the plate. In southern counties, a new method of making pits is indicated by a tendency of sherds, even grit-tempered ones, to split or laminate (see Maxwell, _Woodland Cultures of Southern Illinois_, Beloit, 1951, p. 204). Secondary features previously lacking begin to appear as “raised points” or knobs on rims, some roughly resembling animal heads with ears and a snout. Triangular arrowheads and others reflecting larger spearhead types are all made from curved, not flat flakes as the Mississippian points are. The stone discoidal that seems to be the game piece of the historically known chunkey game, which was possibly initiated in late Hopewellian times (see Fowler, _The Rutherford Mound_, Springfield, 1957, pp. 31-33) occurs in the Bluff subculture and probably in the Tampico also.

All these bespeak Middle Mississippian tendencies. A common conclusion, as mentioned previously, is that these features were borrowed from non-Woodland groups. The writer, however, gets the impression from his studies that the Middle Mississippi phase developed through the interplay of invention and adoption of improvements, modification and re-invention, between the Final Woodland subcultures in Illinois and adjacent territory. This does not mean that Illinois communities alone were responsible for the emergence of this phase but rather that they played an important dynamic role in its development. The Cahokia subculture of western and central Illinois probably constituted the native local tribe or nation.

Final Woodland Archaeology

Archaeologically these peoples are in the Final Woodland phase of culture. The Final Phase yields tobacco pipes and crude flint arrowheads, its chief artifactual differences with the Initial phase. The clay of their pottery was generally mixed with grit or sand to prevent firing cracks in the vessel walls. The customary vertically-elongated pot with a conical or pointed bottom was accompanied by new forms—the globular or flattened globular with “round” (spherical) bases, the “coconut shell” cup or larger vessel, and shallow bowls. The flattened globular pots and the bowls were occasionally decorated with two or four knobs or with “raised points” on the rim, sometimes giving a squarish appearance to the mouth. In some instances these decorative projections were crudely modeled ears and snout which give the effect of animals’ heads facing out and foreshadowing the Middle Mississippi effigy shallow bowls. An important invention, the bow and arrow, appears in Illinois for the first time in this period. Judging by the crudity of the chipped flint arrowheads, these people were poor archers and preferred the spear and spearthrower in hunting and fighting. Pipes, like most artifacts except weapon heads, are rare. The “elbow” or L-shaped pipe is generally representative of the culture.

The six recognized Final Woodland subcultures with their diagnostic (though not very significant) traits are (1) Effigy Mound named for its distinguishing characteristic; (2) Tampico with pottery decorated with designs formed by cord-impressions, in northern Illinois; (3) Stone Vault with stone mounds containing walled tomb chambers; (4) Jersey Bluff with its unique “handled” tobacco pipes, in the west; (5) Raymond, best characterized by the generalized Woodland nature of its artifacts; and (6) Lewis with incised spiral designs on pottery, in southern Illinois.

A SECOND PLANT-RAISING CIVILIZATION—THE MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIANS
(1000-1500 A.D.)

The Middle Mississippi culture seems to have arisen, as previously suggested, in the area where several important highways of aboriginal travel converged—the region surrounding the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from the mouth of the Wabash to the mouth of the Illinois. Whether or not its development was stimulated by the contracts of Muskhogeans and Algonkians or whether it was due to interplay between the cultures of the Final Woodland petty tribes is unknown.

Two slightly differing subcultures of the Middle phase appeared in the state. One, known archaeologically as the Cumberland (Tennessee-Cumberland), may have embraced at one time all the southern Illinois counties between the mouths of the Kaskaskia and the Wabash. [The Angel Site near Evansville, Indiana, may belong to the Cumberland subculture.] The other subculture, which may be termed Cahokia, flourished in counties bordering on the Mississippi from Union County to Wisconsin. As the two periods show few significant cultural differences, they will, except as noted hereafter, be treated as a single unit.

The bow and arrow invented in the Final Woodland phase, was developed early in the Middle Mississippi period into an effective weapon although spear and perhaps spearthrower continued in use. The chunkey game was probably played as a part of a religious ceremony though it may quite possibly have served as a popular pastime as well.

Pottery was slow at first to change from its more obvious Woodland characteristics but new shapes foreshadowing most of those of the fully developed (Old Village) cultural phase practically replaced the conical-based elongated pot early in the period. Cord-roughening and grit-tempering disappeared in the classic Cahokia period, and a fine polished blackware and a painted pottery were added to the smooth utilitarian ware. An excellent “dull gray” ware with smooth gray to brown surfaces was of more common occurrence. It appears to differ from the fine ware only in its partially oxidized surfaces probably due to poorly controlled firing methods.[14]

There were probably two or more social classes among the Middle phase people as there were among Hopewellians, Natchez and Polynesians.[15] The fine polished black and painted wares may have been marks of distinction between the highest and lower classes since it is much less common. In Hopewellian times, it is probable that both the fine ware and the specialized forms (which were usually of the highest quality) were reserved for the highest caste. In the Mississippi period, the shallow bowl, the cup or beaker, and the plate of dull gray ware seem to have been wide-spread in the village and may indicate a general improvement of living conditions among the lower social classes since Hopewellian times.

Advances in the economy were obviously present in the fully developed Middle phase. The Union County flint “mines” and workshops were intensively worked. Trade with the Lake Superior, lower Atlantic and Gulf Coast regions was resumed. Chief imports of raw materials were copper and marine shells, Busycon, Marginella, Oliva and Olivella. Art, while possibly as highly developed as Hopewellian, resulted in a far smaller number of art objects in fewer durable media. Intaglio rock carvings (chiefly in southern Illinois) of geometric designs, human hands, ceremonial paraphernalia, animal outlines, and, in a few instances, painted hollowed-out animal silhouettes can probably be ascribed to this period on the basis of the symbols employed. Dwellings or cabins were relatively substantial structures and the extent of village remains indicate a large general population as compared to earlier times in the state. Trade and art suggest leisure and wealth or surplus available for exchange or to support officials and others in non-food productive pursuits. This prosperity was possibly due to newly discovered methods of intensive cultivation of maize and possibly to a greater diversity of crops than ever before.

Territorially the tribe probably consisted of a number of villages and the surrounding country. Each tribe may have had a chief village or capital that was also a religious center with tribal (public) buildings and a temple. Archaeological and historical evidence shows that these buildings, presumably temples and the dwellings of tribal chiefs and the high priests, were erected on the flat tops of rectangular earthen mounds or pyramids, which were grouped around a plaza of ceremonial square. Here the tribe gathered for religious and political ceremonies and for important funerals. Intertribal negotiations and chunkey games were probably also staged on or near the plaza.

Pipes, either of stone or pottery, were generally of the “equal-armed” type (where stem length is about equal to bowl height). In numerous instances, a short projection resembling the stem in shape but shorter, extends beyond the bowl away from the smoker. Massive effigy pipes of stone were widespread but not numerous. Some were excellently carved. From their construction, it is obvious that they were made to be smoked through a reed or hollow wooden stem called in later times the calumet. These together probably constituted a form of ceremonial pipe that served as a safe conduct between tribes, as a bond and signature at peace- and treaty-making ceremonies, and to present tobacco smoke as incense to the gods in religious rituals.