Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Lower Ohio River Valley

7. The Late Holocene: Filling the Landscape

7 / The Late Holocene Filling the Landscape Introduction Geologists refer to the time from 5,000 years ago until the present as the Late Holocene. Archaeologically, the first 2,000 years of the Late Holocene correspond to the Late Archaic subperiod (5000–3000 B.P.). The drier conditions of the Hypsithermal interval were ending by this time, and sea levels along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts were approaching those of today.The composition of the Southeast’s forests, including those in the Lower Ohio Valley, changed very little during the Late Holocene, except for relatively minor spatial and temporal fluctuations attributable to small oscillations in temperature and moisture, as well as the growing impact of more people living on the land (Muller 1986:51; Smith 1986:6–7). Tall stands of oak-hickory forests covered much of the Lower Ohio Valley landscape. The acorns and nuts that these trees produced were important foods for Late Holocene hunter-gatherers as well as many of the animals they relied on for food, clothing, and raw materials for toolmaking. Southern pine gradually crept into far western Kentucky during this time, along with vegetation commonly associated with cypress-gum forests in the lower Mississippi River valley (Delcourt and Delcourt 1981:Figures 8 and 9). To the north, the prairie grasslands gradually retreated to the west, reflecting the amelioration of the drier Hypsithermal conditions. Pollen profiles from Old Field swamp in southeastern Missouri near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers indicate the replacement of grass Late Holocene / 189 and herb plant communities by bottomland arboreal vegetation and an increase in swamp size about 5,000 years ago, reflecting increased precipitation (King and Allen 1977:320–321). At Jackson Pond, in west central Kentucky, an increased percentage of grass pollen and the appearance of prairie vegetation like prairie clover suggest that the mixed prairie-deciduous forests encountered by early Euroamerican travelers were established by this time (Wilkins et al. 1991:236). Throughout much of the Southeast and Midwest, the Late Holocene was a time of cultural continuity as well as change. In many places cultural traditions established during the late Middle Archaic continued well into the Late Archaic with relatively little technological or social change. In contrast, recent research has demonstrated that several cultural innovations once used to distinguish later Woodland cultures (3000–1000 B.P.) from those of the Archaic actually had their roots in the Late, or in a few cases, the Middle Archaic. These include the establishment of formal mortuary areas, sometimes in the form of low burial mounds (Buikstra and Charles 1999; Charles and Buikstra 1983), and the cultivation of domesticated local plants in small gardens (Smith and Cowan 2003). In parts of the Southeast, but apparently not the Lower Ohio Valley, Late Archaic groups were experimenting with making clay pots for cooking and storing foods (Sassaman 1993a; Smith 1986). Smith (1986:30), referring to this technological innovation as “the container revolution,” noted that early ceramic vessels were technologically simple and aesthetically unassuming. These shallow, hand-molded vessels were made using clay tempered with either plant fibers or sand. In other parts of the Southeast and Northeast, containers sometimes were fashioned from steatite or sandstone (Sassaman 1993a:180–185; Webb and DeJarnette 1942). While Lower Ohio Valley hunter-gatherers undoubtedly used an assortment of wooden, fiber, or hide containers, and possibly dried gourd or squash bottles (Smith 1986), no evidence for ceramic vessel manufacture has been found prior to start of the Woodland period. Some Late Archaic hunter-gatherers expanded on the tradition of constructing earthworks and mounds started by their Middle Archaic forebears (Russo 1996; Saunders 2004; Saunders et al. 1994). Earthen mounds, often located in prominent settings like on bluff tops above river valleys, served a mortuary function as well as possibly marking a group’s home territory (Charles and Buikstra 1983; Klepinger and Henning 1976). The function(s) of other Late Archaic mounds and earthworks, like those constructed at Poverty Point in Louisiana, are more difficult to discern (Gibson 1996, 2001), but they clearly 190 / Late Holocene demonstrate the level of cultural complexity achieved by Late Archaic people. So far, no intentionally constructed Late Archaic earthworks or mounds are known for the Lower Ohio Valley, but some researchers have suggested that the Green River shell middens were actually ceremonial mounds similar to later Woodland-period constructions (Claassen 1996a:243). In parts of the Midcontinent Late...