3 - An Unforgiving Climate

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Although scientists divide North American prehistory into categories such as PaleoIndian and Archaic, the designations do not imply that human behavior abruptly changed from one period to the next. Far more often, people gradually modified customs over many years, and the modifications more likely than not occurred in different regions at varying times. Ferreting out the reasons for these changes is often difficult and occupies a great deal of researchers' attention.

Sometimes human innovation spurred change. In other instances, population growth was instrumental, and in some cases, the weather was the impetus. All three factors came into play during the Middle Archaic period of 5500 to 3000 B.C.

Nature was more closely intertwined than most of us can imagine with the lives of early people, whose survival hinged on knowledge of their environment. If they were to eat, they had to know where edible plants grew and where game could be found. With only spears for weapons, they could afford few hunting miscalculations.

Too, prehistoric people spent most of their lives outdoors where they witnessed the force and whims of nature up close, likely resulting in both awe and wariness. When spring floods came, they saw a languid river became a ravenous brute, devouring huge trees, steep earthen banks, and everything else in its furious rush downstream. Then there were the mysterious springs bubbling from the earth. We know from early European encounters with Native Americans that some indigenous people considered a spring to be a doorway to the underworld where fierce and hideous monsters lay in wait for the unwary. Indeed, early people saw life in nearly everything around them, leading to many superstitions and taboos.

During the Middle Archaic era, nature may have seemed especially cruel in the sand hills. Beginning about 5000 B.C., in a time called the Altithermal, the weather turned drier and warmer. Views differ about precisely which conditions existed, how dry the climate was, for example. The sand hills suffered a drought, producing near desert conditions, some think.

Antonio Segovia, who has studied early climates, theorizes that prehistoric droughts could have been quite severe in the South, sometimes lasting as long as 500 years. He describes a terribly parched land where trees and other vegetation shriveled and died, big rivers thinned to narrow streams, and tributaries and springs evaporated. Wildlife suffered in the struggle to find water. When thunderstorms erupted, lightning knifed into the dry earth, sparking fires that consumed remaining trees and plants.

Resilient nature slowly recovered. Rain doused the fires, and vegetation began to grow. The first trees to reappear were the pines with fire-resistant seeds that burst to life in the charred aftermath.

Other scientists question whether prehistoric droughts as envisioned by Segovia occurred in the South. Precisely how average temperatures changed during the Middle Archaic years is also debated. Archeologists Joel Gunn and Kathy Wilson, for instance, calculate that average temperatures were not that different from today, but that conditions were drier and extremes in heat and cold were greater. Others argue that the climate was only slightly warmer and slightly drier than now. Whatever the precise weather was, agreement is widespread that major ecological changes occurred. Longleaf pine trees spread across much of the northern Coastal Plain by the close of the Middle Archaic era about 3000 B.C., replacing the mixed forest of oak, hickory, and Southern pine that had thrived in the Coastal Plain since the Ice Age. Those forests now existed primarily in the Piedmont.

Some researchers think people tended to avoid the sand hills during this era, and there is evidence supporting their view. Archeologists have pinpointed only 27 Middle Archaic sites on Fort Benning, a drop from the 39 Early Archaic sites. If there were fewer people in the region, harsh, arid conditions could have been a cause. The spread of longleaf pine into the sand hills may have also played a role. There were still hardwoods, but they probably grew primarily in the wetter lowlands and river flood plains. Fewer hardwoods meant fewer nuts, striking at the core of the prehistoric way of life. Acorn, hickory, and other nuts were important elements in the human diet, but more significantly, deer and turkey, mainstays of human consumption, ate nuts and were therefore most abundant in hardwood forests. With fewer nut-bearing trees, people were forced to concentrate less on hunting and spend more time gathering a variety of plant foods, archeologist Christopher Hamilton argues.

The Middle Archaic era is somewhat enigmatic in the Fort Benning area because there have been so few significant sites found and studied. Scientists will undoubtedly locate more sites as they come to understand more fully the different spear points used in the era. Archeologists have long recognized Morrow Mountain spear points as especially important to people in the Piedmont. Mostly manufactured of quartz, the projectiles are often so irregularly made that they can be easily mistaken for odd-shaped pebbles. Formed in ovate, almond shapes, Morrow Mountain points seem crude compared to the aesthetically pleasing PaleoIndian Clovis points or the less defined, but still carefully made Early Archaic weapons.

Despite their roughness, Morrow Mountain points may represent enhanced technology. Many have a tanged base that presumably fit into a socket, attaching the point to the rest of the spear. Named for a site in North Carolina, Morrow Mountain points appear as far north as Virginia and as far west as Texas. But in the Coastal Plain of Alabama and Georgia, Morrow Mountain points are rare. Scientists are beginning to agree on other types of spear points that people used in the Fort Benning area, including some with side notches that previously had been designated as Early Archaic.

The people in this stretch of prehistory roved almost constantly and apparently did not use base camps. However, the total area they traveled was greatly reduced because expanding population shrank territories. Some bands likely now lived most of their lives within the Piedmont, which in Georgia is about 80 miles wide.

Other groups spent most, if not all, their time in the Coastal Plain. They apparently used mostly chert for tools, while Piedmont bands depended upon quartz. These preferences grew from convenience. People of this era were much more likely than their Early Archaic predecessors to make informal tools, which they produced quickly, used briefly, then tossed aside. Gone from Middle Archaic campsites were many of the formal tools with handles that earlier people so carefully crafted. Gone, too, was the variety of blades and stone knives once used, according to archeologist Dennis Blanton. Middle Archaic people were also less likely to resharpen tools, a practice common during the Early Archaic years when bands traveled long distances to get preferred rocks. People now were more likely to camp fairly close to the materials they needed so there was less need to retain stone tools.

The Fort Benning region may have served as a boundary between those who spent most of their time in the Piedmont and others who considered the Coastal Plain home. Perhaps residents from both areas visited Fort Benning. Research at the Carmouche site may support this idea, although interpretation is difficult because of the mixing of soil layers and artifacts from different eras.

Prehistoric visitors to Carmouche tended to work on chert tools at different locations at the site than when working on quartz tools. This could indicate that Coastal Plain bands and bands from the Piedmont camped at the site, arriving at different times over thousands of years, according to Dean Wood and Tom Gresham. Also interesting is that while Morrow Mountain spear points elsewhere overwhelmingly tend to be quartz, at Carmouche, five of six such points were made from chert.

During the Middle Archaic era, people were much less dependent upon the Chattahoochee River. They often camped in the sand hills, which are some distance from the flood plain. Of the 27 Middle Archaic sites discovered so far on Fort Benning, only two are adjacent to the Chattahoochee. Middle Archaic people tended to choose high, flat hills or terraces safe from flooding and with good vistas for spotting game. They had few other requirements. They stayed only a short time, collecting their few possessions and moving on when animals and plant resources dwindled. This was an efficient way to live in an environment where potential food sources were similar everywhere within a band's range.

They probably ate the most deer in the fall, for a number of reasons, including the decline of other foods such as fruits and berries. Also, the animals are more vulnerable in autumn when leaf cover disappears and bucks lose their caution in the mating season battle for does. Fall is also when acorns and hickory nuts ripen and drop to earth. Fall camps, then, are likely to reveal a few more tools for scraping away animal flesh and more pitted rocks for cracking nuts than sites occupied during other seasons.

When the hunt was successful, Middle Archaic people often roasted the meat over an open fire. They also enjoyed stews and soups heated in bark or animal skin containers in these days before pottery. Archeologists think people sometimes created cooking vessels for stews and soups by digging holes, about six inches deep, then lining them with animal skins and staking down the edges to hold the skins in place. A stew might contain deer, bear oil, water, and various plants, which the cook heated with rocks warmed in a nearby fire then dropped into the stew.

Dramatic changes in human customs occurred elsewhere during this period that perhaps affected people living in the Fort Benning area. In Tennessee and in northern Alabama, for instance, people began staying in place longer, camping along rivers. They waded into the shallows and plucked mussels from the river bottoms. They ate enormous quantities of mussels, freeing them from constantly hunting. And because they moved less, they were able to keep more possessions. They tossed the empty mussel shells into large piles, and the shell in these garbage dumps, or middens, helped seal human belongings from corrosion, preserving some artifacts for thousands of years.

Some objects protected by the shell piles reveal an aesthetic nature among their creators. For example, at a site called Eva in Tennessee, inhabitants were adept at fashioning bone into jewelry. They transformed delicate bird bones into beads and the skeleton of a rattlesnake into a sinister-looking necklace. They also drilled holes into bear, bobcat, and dog teeth and strung them into necklaces. Similar objects probably adorned people at Fort Benning, but have disappeared. No shell piles have been found that could have helped preserve bone adornments, a good indication that people in the region were not yet eating shellfish in any quantity.

People at Eva also smoothed edges and drilled holes in stones, then suspended them from necklaces and bracelets as pendants. Other aspects of life were more solemn, such as burying the dead. Mourners arranged the corpse in a flexed, fetal position and placed the deceased's possessions such as spear points and other tools in the grave. Sometimes they also interred dogs with the dead, some of the earliest signs of domesticated animals in North America.

At the Perry site in northern Alabama, people also ate mussels, discarding the shells in a mound some ten feet high and 300 by 200 feet wide. Located on Seven Mile Island in the Tennessee River, the Perry site was the seasonal home during warm months to prehistoric people when they hunted, fished, gathered plant foods, and ate mussels. They also found time to make pieces of chert into preforms, apparently to trade to others who used the preforms to make tools. Preforms found in east central Mississippi probably came from the Perry site, and some finished artifacts discovered along the Gulf Coast possibly were made from Perry preforms. What did the Perry site residents gain in return? One coveted trade good was seashell from the Gulf Coast. Long shell bead necklaces were found at the site.

Gulf Coast shells have also appeared elsewhere in the country's interior, further proof of long distance trade. So far, no sign of similar trade during this period has surfaced at Fort Benning, but there is a strong possibility that inhabitants were involved. Long-distance trade goods may have funneled through the area, with local residents acting as intermediaries, speculates archeologist Dan Elliot.

Burials and grave goods have also been found in northern Alabama at the Stanfield-Worley rock shelter and inside Russell Cave, now a National Monument. Artifacts from these sites reflect development of a new weapon. Hunters still used spears, but now they added extra power to their throws with a spear thrower called an atlatl.

Made of wood, an atlatl was about a third to half the size of the spear. The hunter attached the end of the spear onto a hook, usually made of bone, embedded in one end of the atlatl. The spear then lay atop the atlatl. When he spotted game, the hunter flung the atlatl forward with a pitching motion. He did not, however, release the atlatl. As his arm came forward, the spear separated from the atlatl and flew toward the target with far more power than without the atlatl. Middle Archaic people living on Fort Benning land perhaps used such weapons. They were definitely using the atlatl during the following Late Archaic era.

The first homes of long duration in North America have also been traced to the Middle Archaic years, specifically at the Kostner site in southern Illinois. But perhaps the most spectacular practice of the time was the building of earthen mounds. Until recently, researchers thought prehistoric people did not erect mounds until much later. Middle Archaic people lacked the organizational skills required, according to this thinking, and were too preoccupied with the hunt for food to mount a huge building program. Overwhelming evidence gathered in recent years soundly contradicts such assumptions. Using radiocarbon dating and new measures to determine the age of soils, scientists have discovered that dozens of mounds, especially in Florida and Louisiana, can be traced to the Middle Archaic era. Some consist partially of garbage, cast aside by prehistoric people, but they also contain huge amounts of dirt deliberately mounded.

To form one of these monuments, the builders collected earth in baskets, which they carried to the mound site and emptied. They tamped the dirt into place with their feet, then refilled their baskets again and again. They repeated the process hundreds of times, shaping monuments that have stood for thousands of years. Some of the mounds are astonishing, considering when and how they were made. For example, at the Watson Brake site in northern Louisiana, inhabitants built eleven mounds, one 23 feet tall, that form a circle about 900 feet wide. This is the earliest circle of mounds discovered anywhere in North or South America, built even before the pyramids in Egypt and Mexico.

If there is a common thread among the first mound builders it was perhaps their inclination to fish, suggest archeologists Jon Gibson and Michael Russo. Because they lived in places rich in aquatic resources, there was perhaps less need for the mound builders to hunt and move. Consequently, they could afford to devote energy to public works, such as building an earthen monument. Why did they undertake such huge projects? There is no certain answer now and perhaps never will be. Surprisingly, unlike mounds built in later periods, few burials have been unearthed in the Middle Archaic mounds, leading to speculation that they were built to delineate group territory and also for religious and ceremonial purposes. The nature of ceremonies that might have unfolded atop the monuments and around them is, for now, another mystery.

As knowledge of the Middle Archaic mounds grows, archeologists are rethinking old ideas about band organizations and their presumed nature of equality.

The new assumption is that some type of hierarchical leadership, perhaps temporarily selected by consensus, was necessary to persuade or to cajole people into action. Researchers also think there may be more evidence of early mound building still to be discovered.

Public lands, such as Fort Benning, will play a pivotal role in the search for more mounds. Scientists now know what to look for, making discovery more likely, if the mounds exist.

Only time and further research at Fort Benning will disclose if the post was once home to Middle Archaic people who built a mound.

For now, researchers continue to assume that those who lived on Fort Benning land were organized into bands of fairly egalitarian, extended families throughout the Middle Archaic era. They changed camps often, did not build elaborate earthworks, and depended on seasonal hunting and gathering.

Their lives unfolded year after year in much the same way. Major change, however, was approaching. The Late Archaic years heralded the beginning of a new age. Trade became more widespread and a new invention would alter prehistoric life.

Chapter 4: Shaping the Earth

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