An Introduction to the Prehistory of Indiana

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The Woodland Tradition is basically defined by the presence of pottery containers with surfaces distinguished by cord impressions or other decorations applied using a flat paddle-like tool. Also, the numerous burial mounds and many other earthwork features found in eastern North America are a part of this interesting tradition. Some observers associate substantial plant cultivation with Woodland, but the importance of this subsistence strategy has not been confirmed.

The introduction of the widespread use of pottery constitutes a technical achievement of no small importance, not only for the cooking and storing vessels produced but also as regards the intellectual endeavor represented. Ceramics is the only native product which entails an actual transformation of raw materials into something totally different. Selected clays, tempering, and water are proportionally combined and, after sun drying, aufficient heat is applied to induce a physical change with the result being a hard insoluble substance.

Ceramics are also important for the prehistoric archaeologist. Each step of the pottery-making process is susceptible to considerable variation: choice of clays and the tempering medium, methods used to form the container, shape of the vessel, types of surface decoration, presence or absence of handles and other appendages, and the firing process. All of the foregoing separately and in combination can produce a seeming unending variability. However, what was produced was controlled in large measure by style preferences which differed at particular times and places. Because broken pieces of pottery are frequently the most common artifact recovered at an archaeological site, when this is combined with its systematic variability, archaeologists almost everywhere in the world use pottery to anchor area chronologies and at least initially, identify cultural groupings.

The origin of pottery in northeastern North America is presently unclear. The oldest pottery in North America was made in the Georgia-Florida area at about 2,000 B.C. It is thick, heavy, and tempered with vegetable fiber. The elongated oval vessel shapes are reminiscent of yet earlier containers manufactured from steatite or soapstone. Fiber-tempered pottery is also found in northwestern South America at an earlier date, and it has been suggested that the occurrences are related, but the substantial distance between the two poses difficult problems for one inclined to derive one from the other.

As regards the beginning of Woodland pottery, at one time there seemed to be an insurmountable temporal and technical difference between it and the fiber-tempered materials in the southeast. This made unlikely the derivation of one from the other. However, more recent work has eliminated much of the temporal gap and has identified transitional forms.

Because cord-impressed pottery is also an Old World characteristic, it has been proposed that this idea was introduced from there into the New World, either from northeast Asia or Europe. Logical as this might appear at first view, the simple fact is that thousands of miles intervene between the two distributional areas with no direct evidence to connect them.

A third alternative might be that this consequential innovation was arrived at independently in
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its area of occurrence. This, of course, does not resolve the problem; but it suggests that much critical evidence is not yet in and the wisest choice may be to avoid the question of "origin" for the present.

It has been a common practice to state that the beginning of the Woodland Tradition represents little more than Archaic with the addition of pottery. That is, while a technical contribution has been made, the life-style itself is essentially unmodified. While this may be true for some regions, certainly southern Indiana offers a contrary view. Conspicuously, the utilization of the river mussel is markedly diminished judging by the absence of shell middens. This suggests that some alteration in subsistence practices and settlement have occurred. The decline in the utilization of this resource is unexplained. Perhaps the mussel was no longer available in quantity, or changes in dietary preference may have been a factor. As regards the latter, there is some evidence that plant cultivation may have begun to play a more important role in diet.

The earliest pottery recognized in Indiana is a type referred to as Marion Thick. It or related material occurs in southern Indiana and northward in the Wabash drainage into the lake area. As the name suggests, it is a heavy coarse ware the outer surface of which, also often the inner, is impressed with cord impressions having a resemblance to woven fabric or basketry. The compaction of the clay using a roughened device, such as a paddle wrapped with cordage, anneals the damp paste and eliminates captured air pockets the presence of which would be disastrous during the firing process. The vessel shape resembled that of our common flower pots.

The sites where Marion Thick occurs are generally small, though the presence of numerous pits and thick midden deposits suggest the areas were occupied intensively for limited periods, perhaps seasonally.

It is during the Early Woodland period that burial ceremonialism represented by complex mound structures become abundantly evident. It was the presence of such features that excited the interest of early settlers in the region and contributed to some unfortunate theories concerning their sign)ficance. It is unfortunate in the sense that the burials and artifacts found in the mounds were thought to represent, when compared with the cultures of the historic Indian encountered by European settlers in the Ohio Valley, an infinitely superior level of culture. The presence of earthwork complexes, some containing large geometric structures, indications of widespread trade in exotic raw materials, and artifacts exhibiting an aesthetic sophistication contributed to the creation of a "mound-builder" myth. The people responsible for these works were said to be intellectually superior, possess an advanced technology, have a political system capable of controlling vast areas, and were racially different from the American Indian. It was the last group which was responsible for the downfall of this widespread "civilization. " A variety of proposals have been suggested to explain the superiority of the "mound builder race," including its derivation from the Lost Tribes of Israel, Egyptians, Welsh, Atlantis, etc. Systematic archaeological work has long since laid to rest these fanciful tales and demonstrated that the mounds and associated practices represent a part of the American Indian heritage in eastern North America, yet many of these earlier interpretations continue to confuse us in the popular media.

As noted above, burial ceremonialism was not a cultural complex that appeared suddenly on the scene, but its antecedents were present in the burial practices observed during the Late Archaic. The practices apparent there underwent change and gradually increased in complexity during a l,000-year period varying in time and place as they were interpreted in the many differing cultural complexes in eastern North America. Though mound burial persisted in some areas to late prehistoric times, it had largely run its course by A.D. 400 or before. [see Woodland Burial Mound, Dearborn County]

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The earliest developed burial mound complex, named Adena after the Ohio estate on which the type site was located, is widely distributed in the Ohio Valley from West Virginia into southeastern Indiana (Dragoo 1963). The burial mounds vary greatly in size from those that were relatively small and almost imperceptible to two that are nearly seventy feet in height. The larger mounds are frequently complex structures involving several building stages, each of which may have incorporated a major burial interlude. These are generally marked by the presence of well constructed tombs made from logs, some of which formed crypts. The majority of these tombs contain a single extended burial, but multiple burials are sometimes present and cremations also occur. There is some suggestion that the tombs may have been left open for ritual and visitation before being covered by the mound. Several observations lead to the conclusion that the individuals interred in mounds represented an upper status group. Among these are the fact that the number of burials is generally small when compared with the mound mass, the elaborateness of the tombs themselves, and the presence of unusual artifacts in the graves.[see Late Archaic Artifacts (north)]

Few Adena villages have been identified or excavated, and knowledge of daily life is limited. The larger mounds were sometimes constructed over portions of the habitation sites, and they were preserved as a consequence. Adena village debris is also contained in the mound fill on occasion indicating that a portion of the habitation area was scraped up during construction. Excavation in the village areas have succeeded in identifying large residential structures. Typically they are circular in ground plan, had outward sloping walls, and the structure was covered with bark. Some of these buildings seemingly served as charnel houses, which were [see An Adena Log Tomb with Burial, Dearborn County]

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subsequently burned, and the mounds were then constructed over the remains. Work in central Ohio suggests that the Adena communities were small and dispersed over the countryside. The inhabitants of several of the communities probably maintained a special social relationship and co-operated in the construction of the mounds and shared in the attendant ritualism.

The subsistence dependency of the Adena people was upon naturally occurring plants and animals, but there is also good evidence that agriculture, particularly in the form of cultivated squash, was beginning to play a more prominent role.

Reference to two excavated Adena mounds in Indiana will provide some notion of the content and variability of such structures. [see Adena Artifacts]The Nowlin Mound was located in Dearborn County on an upland formation near the Whitewater River and adjacent to a small creek that flowed into the Ohio River (Black 1936). Elliptical in ground plan and measuring 165 feet in length and 15 feet in height, it was one of the largest burial mounds in the state. Actually the mound had had a complex constructional t.istory being composed of two adjacent early mounds, each of which had had multiple additions before the whole was covered by a single mantle of earth to bring it to its final form.

Seven log tombs were contained in the Nowlin Mound. Several of these were relatively simple with logs up to 8 feet in length placed on the ground surface to delimit rectangular areas. However, one of the log structures was nearly 20 feet in length and 15 feet in width; not only were the logs placed at the margins but others had been placed laterally to form a roofed structure. Earlier excavation by unknown individuals had succeeded in removing a part of the internal

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evidence, but seven extended and four reburials were ultimately recovered from the tomb areas within the mound. The floors of the tombs were typically covered with a layer of bark, and the same material sometimes covered the bodies. Red ocher was another material commonly associated with the interments.

Within the Nowlin Mound artifacts associated with the burials tended to be infrequent. Included were disk-shaped shell beads, Marginella beads, and others made from the columella of marine mollusks, corner and side-notched projectile points, bone awls, bone handles, and a plain sandstone "tablet." A C-shaped copper bracelet, among other artifacts, was recovered from a disturbed portion of the mound.

In contrast with the very large Nowlin Mound, the C.L. Lewis Stone Mound, located on a bluff overlooking the Flat Rock River in Shelby County, was a low dome-shaped structure measuring about 55 by 50 feet and 4 feet high (Keller 1960). Three major building stages were identified in this small mound. The first of the three was a low embankment which delimited a central area about 25 feet in diameter. Over this was placed a mantle of limestone slabs transported from the nearby cliff adjacent to the river. Subsequently, additional slabs were added to further enlarge the mound.

Portions of at least thirty-six human burials were associated with these several building episodes. A mass burial deposit containing the remains of at least fourteen individuals, both adults and children, had been placed within the central area; it had been covered with a thick layer of grass and twigs which had been burned. Directly above this central concentration and within a large oval depression defined by the limestone slabs there had been an intense crematory fire, and two partial human cremations were encountered in the area. A second mass burial area was found peripheral to the central area, and human skeletons and portions thereof were encountered at various locations beneath and among the slabs. Many of the individuals had been interred in an extended position, but a number of disposition methods were represented: flexed burials, disarticulated skeletal parts, and isolated human crania.

Artifacts in burial association included C-shaped copper bracelets, 26 copper beads, a copper earring, three bone combs, a bone handle, a flint hammerstone, a large corner-notched flint blade, an antler flaking tool, a stone chisel, beaver incisors, and an expanded center slate gorges.

A radiocarbon date of 80 B.C. has been obtained from the C.L. Lewis Stone Mound.

Though these two mounds are obviously quite different in many details, an Adena affiliation has been proposed for both. These determinations were made on the basis of shared characteristics with other mounds in the Ohio Valley, e.g., the log tombs and artifacts such as the copper bracelets, expanded center gorges, bone combs, flint projectile points, etc. However, given the differences between the two tumult, there is a growing suspicion among archaeologists that the Adena concept as it has been traditionally employed and extended over a relatively large area tends to oversimplify a more complex situation (Swartz 1971). A fruitful line of future research would be to gain some greater understanding of the variation in time and space. Another obvious approach would be to concentrate on the habitation sites associated with the mound's builders. Only in this fashion can a fuller understanding of the culture be developed.

The middle period of the Woodland Tradition is typically the interval during which burial ceremonialism attains its greatest complexity. In a sense it represents the culmination of trends begun in the Archaic. This is reflected in many ways. Burial mounds are widely distributed in eastern North America from southern Canada to the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and the Appalachians to the Plains. Even more widespread trade patterns are apparent: obsidian from

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Wyoming, copper from the upper Great Lakes area, pipestone and flint from Ohio, Wyandotte chert from Indiana, mica from the southern Appalachians, and marine shells from the Gulf region. Also, a few distinctive artifacts occur sporadically in burial contexts in many parts of the east: copper panpipes, bicymbal-shaped copper ear spools, distinctive zoomorphic and monitor stone pipes, and terra cotta human figurines. Some pottery decorative styles such as complicated stamping, rocker stamping, incising, and a distinctive pattern of zoning also have a widespread distribution. All of these contribute to a picture of widespread social interaction at about the beginning of the Christian Era.

The area where this cultural pattern is most accentuated is in south-central Ohio, particularly in the Scioto River valley. Large burial mounds were constructed, often in association with geometric earthworks, and these were sometimes joined together in a single complex by thousands of feet of earthen embankments to form prehistoric centers of unusual size and complexity. These highly visible surface features attracted some of the earliest archaeological work undertaken in North America (Squier and Davis 1848). And the discovery of quantities of elaborate artifacts made from exotic raw materials associated with burials at these sites gave impetus to more work. The results of these excavations were widely publicized, and the inferred notion of great cultural superiority represented by these remains succeeded in coloring interpretations of North American prehistory to the present moment. Hopewell, the name given to this Ohio cultural expression, became the epitome of "mound-builder culture, " and it was proposed that it was the unique cultural center to which all else could be related.

While there can be no doubt that the south-central Ohio region was of significant consequence during this Middle Woodland period, the emerging interpretation is suggestive of a significantly greater complexity than was originally proposed (Seeman 1979). For many years, archaeologists have recognized that Ohio Hopewell was related to the earlier Adena. This relationship was evident in aspects both of burial practices, including mounds, and some of the raw materials utilized and artifact forms; the differences could ultimately be attributed to cultural developments occurring through time. However, there were other features, such as decorative elements of the ceramic complex, which seemed to have no antecedents in the Ohio area. Therefore, these must have been derived from some other area. It has since been determined that some of the features characteristic of Middle Woodland were present at an earlier time in the Illinois River valley, and this has led to the conclusion that influences from that region contributed to the developing complexity. Giving added credence to this hypothesis is the presence of artifacts of almost certain Ohio manufacture in Illinois sites.

Indicative of the social relationships that must have existed over a wide area are other materials clearly derived from the southeast. For example, complicated stamped ceramics, a decorative style common in the Georgia-Florida area, occurs in the Ohio Valley.

Some archaeologists, particularly those working in the southern states, bclicve that the cultural antecedents will be found in the lower Mississippi Valley and these, in turn, will ultimately have a Middle American base. There is presently no direct evidence to support this position.

There is no single cultural expression present during the Middle Woodland period. There are many richly varied local groups, each of which reflects in some measure its own unique material traditions and environmental circumstances. Even the burial ceremonialism and its material accompaniments, which have received so much attention in the literature, exhibit much variation from one region to another. Some writers have proposed that a formal exchange system operated in eastern North America at this time and conceptualized it as the Hopewell Interaction Sphere.

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Others have argued that it was precisely what would be anticipated if cultural diffusion were operating. Hopewell Archaeology (Brose and Greber 1979), a useful study of the Middle Woodland period in eastern U.S. prehistory, summarizes much of the data and considers these several interpretations.

There has also been much discussion of the subsistence base that supported Middle Woodland trade, craft specialization, earthwork construction, and the socially defined status differences that can be inferred. Though the hunting-collecting-fishing triad was clearly important, it has been argued that plant cultivation must have been essential, too. The evidence for the last has been slow in accumulating, but there is an increasing body of excavated data suggesting that agriculture was of importance in some areas and may have involved, in addition to squash, perhaps corn, and a number of locally available plants such as May grass, goosefoot, and the like.

In Indiana, Middle Woodland sites have a widespread distribution, though they seem to cluster into a number of localized expressions. These undoubtedly reflect time differences as well as geographic factors.

The earliest materials in the state attributable to Middle Woodland were recovered from a deeply stratified site near Yankeetown in Warrick County.[see Middle Woodland Artifacts] These have been radiocarbon dated to about 300 B.C. The pottery recovered from this locale is tempered with clay, flint, and/or quartzite and has both plain and coarse cord impressed surfaces. This pottery is associated with living floors and hearths which contain many charred nuts and some animal bone. None of the ceramic decorative elements definitive for the period have been found nor is it known whether mound construction is associated with the occupation. It seems likely that the pottery is representative of a localized cultural expression immediately prior to the introduction of the later burial ceremonialism.[see Middle Woodland Pottery]

In southwestern Indiana in the Ohio and lower Wabash valleys many of the burial mounds are attributable to the Crab Orchard Tradition, a basically ceramic development defined by the presence of cord-wrapped dowel impressed pottery. Mounds of this tradition occur singly and in groups, often on high terraces and bluffs overlooking broad river valleys. While no mounds have been excavated in Indiana, the Wilson Mound (Md. Wh6) overlooking the Wabash River in White County' Illinois, is undoubtedly representative (Neumann and Fowler 1952). It contained a large central roofed log tomb in the center of which was a subfloor pit. A single extended burial had been placed in it. On the floor adjacent to the four sides of the pit opening were six additional extended interments. Associated with these were marine and turtle shell containers, antler flaking tools, a celt and beads made from copper, cut bear mandibles, a monitor pipe, and several distinctive curved base platform pipes carved in animal form.

A number of other mounds were associated in this site as was a large village that contained a cemetery area. This is a further suggestion that mound burial was reserved for a special few.

The Havana Tradition, another local expression defined by a distinctive ceramic complex and centered in the Illinois River Valley, is marginally represented in the Wabash Valley. It occurs from about the mouth of the White River north into Tippecanoe County and up the White into Greene County and adjacent areas (Tomak 1970). Havana pottery, in addition to cord-marked and plain vessels with bosses and corded lips, has distinctive stamped, incised, and punctated designs that are readily distinguished in the region. Indiana State University has devoted much research time to documenting the Havana presence in Indiana and has salvaged a badly disturbed Havana mound in Vigo County which was radiocarbon dated at about I IS B.C. (Pace and Anslinger 1978).