CULTURES AND CULTURAL CHANGE

Fig. 6. Primitive woman carrying a load with the aid of atumpline. (J.C.)

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 ofdugouttype, were used as among present-dayArchaicpeoples living on waterways. There was no otherspecializationand 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 itssacred tradition, all essential to the way of life of dynamicArchaicpeoples of recent times.

Fig. 7.Fertility riteswere probably performed byArchaicpeoples to ensure the abundance of game animals for the next year. (J.C.)

Fig. 8.Archaicweapons: A, Hidden Valley type spearhead; B, prismatic atlatl weight of polished red shale; C, throwing a spear with an atlatl; D, socketed antler spearhead; E, short thrusting spear or javelin. A, B, and D are from Modoc Shelter in Randolph County, Illinois.

In the later (Medial)Archaicperiodat Modoc, the dead were buried in the floor of therock 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 thisstageofculture.

The rites for important dead in the Terminalperiodprobably began with the conventional mourning of relatives, with painting the body with red ochre and grease and adorning it with the dead man’sjewelry, 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 personalinsigneand weapons. The groovedstoneaxe, largespearheads,daggers, bannerstones,spearthrowerwith 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.

Fig. 9. Groovedstoneaxes are frequently found inArchaicgraves but were not buried with the dead after thisperiod. (J.C.)

It is very probable that, on occasions of social and religious import, Modoc man and otherArchaictribes in Illinois bedecked themselves in their best paint andjewelry. Possibly the colorful and intriguing bannerstones, which were undoubtedly developed from thespearthrowerweight, 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.

Fig. 10. Anculosa shell necklace with flat pendant of water-wornstonefrom theArchaicperiod. Anculosa necklaces were worn by many Illinois peoples probably up to the European contact period.

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. ThePaleo-Indiancultureconsisted 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. Eachfamilyeventually acquired a more or less definite piece of land or hunting territory in which it selected certain favorable places to build the temporaryhamletat 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 samestatusstill 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 theArchaicculture.

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

On occasion,peoplefrom 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 theeconomyby internal development or by imitating anotherculture, social and religious customs are very likely to change too, though usually at a slower pace.

As time went on, theArchaicway 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”cultureby the descendants of rugged earlierpeopleor 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 asWoodland.

After 5000 B.C. the temperatures continued to rise producing a climatic interval known as theThermal Maximumwhen 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 theModoc Rock Shelterup to the five-foot level where theArchaicremains 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.

Fig. 11. Potsherds from theLake Baikalin southern Siberia resemble those of Initial andClassicWoodland(Hopewellian) in Illinois. The letters with subscripts refer to Siberian pottery. A-E, reduced to ½ actual size; F-H, reduced to ¹/₁₆ actual size. (Siberian pottery from Richthofen in ANTHROPOS, 1932: 128, 129, 130; Illinois pottery from Illinois State Museum collections.)

In northern Illinois, similar climatic conditions were developing. There, possibly as early as 2500 B.C., a newculture, 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 aflexedor “doubled-up” position, occasionally with food, personal ornaments and other funeral offerings.

Fig. 12. Aflintdaggeror hunting knife from “Red Ochresubculture” of InitialWoodland. (B.B.)

The pottery of oneWoodlandgroup (Morton) in the Illinois valley resembled, in shape, surface treatment, design and area decorated, pots made in theLake Baikalregion 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 samepeople. 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.

Fig. 13. A coppergorget, A, (possibly patterned after the double-bitted ax-shaped bannerstone) and shell gorgets, B and C, from “Red Ochresubculture” of InitialWoodland. All fromMound11, Fulton County, Illinois.

These late migrants probably found groups like the Black Sand (and Red Ochre) peoples in Illinois who were just emerging from theArchaicphaseinto InitialWoodland. The settlements of all earlyWoodland 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. Theartifactsor cultural objects, except for a small amount ofjewelry(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]

It has been seen that in southern Illinois theArchaicway of life may have persisted until 2100 B.C. or perhaps even later. Across the state on the Ohio River aWoodlandpeoplesucceeded the earlier Archaic residents. Theircultureis known as Baumer and their nearest cultural relatives lived south of the Ohio in Kentucky (Round Grave or Upper Valley People). The Baumerartifactsdo not resemble those of the Archaicperiodvery 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 Baumerculturediffers in several ways from the northern InitialWoodland; 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. Theirartifactsare numerous and varied, suggesting they were well adapted to their surroundings. Flat forms of polishedstone(resembling in outline certainArchaicbannerstones from which they may have derived) served presumably as breast ornaments or gorgets (as similar pieces did in the Hopewellianperiod). 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 acornsand hickory nuts were found. Thesepeople, like the acorn gatherers of California and the Eskimo, knew how to preserve food over long periods. Acorns were probably abundant enough for a Baumerfamilyto 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.

Fig. 14. Housewife storing roasted acorns in a pit near door of her square log cabin dwelling. Characteristic clay vessel (“flower-pot” type) with “mat-impressed exterior.” Baumerperiod. (J.C.)

Fig. 15. A,stonepestle; B, reel-shaped stonegorget; C, “spud-shaped” stone gorget or pendant; D, grooved plummet. From the Baumersubcultureand site.

Fig. 16. Pots from theCrab Orchardperiodof Baumersubculturerecovered from the Sugar Camp Hill Site by Moreau Maxwell for Southern Illinois University. Vessel in center is roughly 16″ tall. (Photographs furnished through courtesy of Dr. James B. Griffin, Univ. of Michigan.)

The size of the Baumer settlement, the semi-permanent houses, the presence of chipped spades,stonepestles and pottery might lead one to think that thesepeoplewere 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 thatculturein southern Illinois.[11]

Toward the end of the InitialWoodlandperiodmaize 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, aformalized religionarose, probably concerned with the worship of deities who personified natural forces like the sun, rain and thunder, which were important to a plant-growingpeople. 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 complexreligion. 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 andinsigniaof 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 inflint, 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 theculture; rather thosealready, existing in the InitialWoodlandwere raised to a high degree of excellence.Artin 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 copperjewelry, 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 stonehammers and an anvil forpeckingstoneto the general form; sandstone files or abraders; clay and water to polish pieces;flintand 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.

Fig. 17. Artist’s idea of a Hopewellianchiefor highpriestin full ceremonial regalia. (J.C.) Evidence for dress (except forcalumet) has been found in Illinois.

For the first time inAmerindianhistory 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 craftspecialization.[13]

It is hardly necessary to add that, if such a profusion of grave offerings as indicated by Hopewellian tombs—feather clothrobes, pearl necklaces, copper hatchets, and beautifully fashionedartobjects—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 Westerncivilization. For a better perspective these tomb offerings should be compared with objects usually found in camp and grave sites of the Initial and FinalWoodlandpeoples.

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 Olivashells, for the larger Cassis and Busycon shells, and to the Yellowstone or Mexico forobsidian(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 theirculturearea by the force of arms is an interesting question that cannot now be answered.

Fig. 18. The Hopewellianassemblageofartifactsthat collectively identify the Hopewellian (ClassicWoodland)periodand, except for shell spoon, turtle shell dish, and some bead types, distinguish it from the other Woodland assemblages. A, drinking cup of marine shell (Cassis madagascarensis); B, C, D, Hopewellian pottery (restored); E, mussel shell spoon with “handle”; F, turtle shell dish; G, sheet mica (mirror?); H, antler headdress; I, J, platform pipes witheffigymammal bowls, polishedstone(Otter and bear’s head, eyes set with copper pellets); K, platform pipe (plain bowl), curved base, polished stone; L, copper earspools or ornaments, pair; M, imitation bear tooth, copper; N, (Below) N₁, Bear jaw, cut in half, ground and drilled to be worn as a double pendant; (Above) N₂, Fragment of a human jaw that has been similarly treated; O, copperhatchetthat carries imprint of textile on its surface; P, copper adze; Q, R, Hopewellianspearheads; S, massive bead of copper; T, bracelet of copper beads; U, necklace of pearls; V, necklace of copper beads; W, necklace of graduated ground shell beads from columella (central column) of marine shell.

In southern Illinois the advance of Hopewellianculturewas slower. The infiltration of new pottery styles noted atCrab Orchardvery 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-shapedgorget, the plummet and the chippedstonehoe.

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 theculturedied out in Illinois by 500 A.D., it still flourished inMississippi(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 Hopewelliancivilizationprobably exerted tremendous influence on theMississippicultures 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 Hopewelliancivilizationapparently disappeared as suddenly as it seems to have arisen. This impression is probably due to the fact that thepeoplecontinued to live in the old villages long after the characteristic colorful Hopewell customs were no longer practiced. Actually theculturemay 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 theculture. 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 thecivilizationalthough 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 wereWoodlandculturally with some small evidence of their Hopewellian heritage, but each differed in certain respects from itsneighbors. Villages dwindled to the mere hamlets, widely separated one from another. The elaborate ceremonial dress,insignia, andjewelry, and the artistic creations (at least in durable materials) became a part of the past; thepeoplefound 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, thechiefeconomic dependence undoubtedly was on hunting, fishing and collecting.

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