Archaeology of Minnesota: The Prehistory of the Upper Mississippi River Region

6. Terminal Woodland Effigy Mound Builders and Bison Hunters: Terminal Woodland Adaptations in Southern Minnesota

137 CHAPteR 6 terminal Woodland effigy Mound Builders and Bison hunters terminal Woodland Adaptations in southern Minnesota by AD 500, new trends in the manufacture of ceramic vessels and stone projectile points become apparent among Woodland cultures in southeastern Minnesota and adjacent parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. Changes in some aspects of social organization and religion were apparently occurring, too, for burial of elite individuals in large earthen mounds with nonutilitarian items made from exotic materials disappears . Other trends already visible in Late Archaic and Initial Woodland cultures in the region, such as increased reliance on domesticated plants and human population growth, continue and probably are more fundamental to understanding the transformation in human lifeways that was occurring. Many but not all of these cultural innovations and elaborations reached southwestern Minnesota by at least AD 900. More dramatic changes occurred throughout the southern part of the state between AD 900 and 1100, when agricultural societies with large, often defended villages and new material equipment appear. Later forms of these “Mississippian” cultures still occupied parts of southern Minnesota when European missionaries and adventurers first paddled the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Since a wide variety of cultural practices continued to differentiate Native Americans in southeastern and southwestern Minnesota, I continue to discuss them separately , as I did in chapter 4. tHe teRMinAL (LAte) WooDLAnD ARCHAeoLoGiCAL ReCoRD in soutHeAsteRn MinnesotA The gradual transformation of Early and Middle (Initial) Woodland archaeological complexes sometime after AD 500 into new complexes in southeastern Minnesota and adjacent regions of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois remains poorly understood. Part of 138 terminal woodland effigy mound builders and bison hunters this transformation involved innovations in weaponry (the bow and arrow) and mound form (effigies), and the disappearance of Havana-Hopewell traits, such as Havana ware, elaborate mortuary ritual associated with large earthworks, an elaborate smoking-pipe complex, long-distance acquisition of exotic materials, and (possibly) the presence of socially ranked societies. Other aspects of this period in southeastern Minnesota, such as increasingly larger human populations, greater dependence on domesticated food plants, new ceramic vessel forms with thinner walls and finer temper, the appearance of greater numbers of localized cultures, greater population nucleation into larger settlements, greater numbers of sites, expansion of year-round settlement into small secondary valleys and adjacent uplands, and reduction in amounts of imported stone for chipped stone tools, seem best understood as interlinked products of the acceleration in pace of trends that have their roots in the earlier Late Archaic period, especially social circumscription, social group packing, and resource intensification. The overriding themes in the Late Woodland in southeastern Minnesota are, then, gradual change and continuity. As evident as these trends are in some areas of southwestern Wisconsin, eastern Iowa, and northwestern and central Illinois, they are difficult to document in southeastern Minnesota. As James Theler and Ernie Boszhardt phrase it, “the nature of postHopewellian Woodland cultures along the Mississippi River north of La Crosse is virtually unknown.”1 One reason may be a real lack of sites, for large-scale surveys in this region of the state have failed to document a strong Late Woodland presence. It seems possible that the Woodland tradition in general in this area never had a population density as large as other areas of the state and as in some adjacent areas of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. Scott Anfinson suggests that this apparent lower level of use is “due to a more limited wild food base. It was the horticultural Mississippians that first realized the greater economic potential of southeastern Minnesota.”2 Because of the sparseness of the known Late Woodland archaeological record in southeastern Minnesota, I discuss what that archaeological record and its associated lifeways might be like based on information from bordering states, where an EarlyMiddle -Late Woodland terminology is used (as opposed to our Initial-Terminal Woodland terminology). In particular, I borrow James Stoltman and George Christiansen’s divisions of the Late Woodland period into Initial, Mature, and Final for the quad-state (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) driftless area, since all or parts of Dakota, Goodhue, Wabasha, Winona, Olmsted, Dodge, Houston, Fillmore, and Mower Counties in southeastern Minnesota are in the driftless area.3 139 terminal woodland effigy mound builders and bison hunters initial late Woodland, AD 500–700 The Initial Late Woodland period is considered a transitional phase between late Middle Woodland and Mature Late Woodland lifeways in southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern...