ASB 223 - Buried Civilizations of the Americas - Keith Kintigh

22. Woodland Earthworks and the Moundbuilders

• Dating: beginning, ending dates not fully agreed on
• Woodland: 1000 BC to AD 1000
• Mississippian: AD 1000 to 1550
• BUT some call period from AD 700 to 900/1000 the "Emergent Mississippian"
• Woodland: "more" than the Archaic: more people, pottery, earthen mounds, trade, more elaborate mortuary ritual, more plants cultivated and stored.
• Adena: well-known early Woodland culture 1000 BC to 200 BC centered around Ohio. Made pottery. Beginnings of horticulture. Some social stratification, probably not ascribed.
• Hopewell: evolved from Adena. Best known of Woodland cultures.
• Dates 200 BC to AD 500/550.
• mounds, earthworks larger, more complex than Adena.
• "Hopewell Interaction Sphere" -- goods from all over North America were traded. Artifact styles, manufacturing techniques were very consistent over whole region. Archaeologists conclude that each artifact type had single point of origin.
• Social organization: relatively equal, unranked kin groups. Achieved status.
• Late Woodland in Mississippi River Valley, ruling families began to centralize power = were moving to ascribed status.
• Hopewell peoples did not disappear. Trading system broke down, but social institutions continued.