Changes and Reactions: Hunting and Gathering by Agriculturalist in the Woodland Period

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the midcontinent of North America, the transition from the Archaic to the Woodland Period is generally signaled in the archaeological record by the presence of ceramics and the adoption of agriculture, particularly of low yield indigenous plants including barley grass, goosefoot, sunflower, and squash during the Early and Middle Woodland. In contrast, stable isotope analyses from Late Woodland sites indicates a major increase in proportion of maize in the diet. New strains of maize were introduced with much greater productivity, changing the dependence on agriculture from a minor role at 15 to 20% to a major role at 50 to 75% of the calories in the diet. This enormous increase in the agricultural productivity resulted in an explosion of population and a substantial expansion of the number of sites, particularly with increases in smaller secondary river valleys and uplands. Part of the increase is sites includes greater use of rockshelters. Analyses of ceramic, lithic, faunal and spatial data from Woodpecker Cave will investigate the role of seasonal hunting sites within the context of greater agricultural dependence.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23179