Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Lower Ohio River Valley

5. Early Holocene Foragers

5 / Early Holocene Foragers Introduction Although the times of massive glacial expansion had ended, Lower Ohio Valley hunter-gatherers continued to feel the lingering effects of the Pleistocene for thousands of years. Archaeologists refer to the segment of prehistory extending from 10,000 to 3,000 years ago, representing more than one-half of eastern North America’s known past, as the Archaic period. The beginning of the Archaic period, as currently defined, roughly coincides with recent dates for the Pleistocene/Holocene “boundary”; however, it is becoming increasingly clear that natural conditions and cultural adaptations did not greatly differ on either side of this boundary (Anderson et al. 1996:14). For the most part, it appears as if the foraging strategies used by Early Archaic hunter-gatherers did not differ markedly from those employed by their Late Paleoindian predecessors. As their territories became more bounded during the Holocene, Archaic groups diversified their subsistence strategies, exploiting a wider variety of plant and animal resources through time (Meltzer and Smith 1986:19–20). The Archaic was a time marked by continuing changes in the cultural and physical landscapes. The forests and rivers, along with the plant and animal communities that inhabited them, slowly evolved in response to the constantly changing post-Pleistocene climate. Eventually, the landscape assumed a character resembling that seen by the Ohio Valley’s first European inhabitants (Jefferies 1996b:39). Throughout the Archaic, hunter-gatherers exploited the Ohio Valley’s plant Early Holocene Foragers / 89 and animal resources using highly flexible hunting, collecting, and fishing technologies . By the late Middle Holocene, approximately 6,000 years ago, some groups were becoming increasingly sedentary and were starting to experiment with plant cultivation as an alternative food source. By the Late Holocene, thousands of years of interaction between the region’s inhabitants and their physical and social surroundings resulted in the creation of a very diverse cultural landscape occupied by groups of variable size and social, economic, and political complexity. The Early Holocene Although small, highly mobile Paleoindian groups had lived in the Lower Ohio Valley for thousands of years, it was not until the Early Holocene, some 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, that we see evidence for a general population increase and more distinct regional cultural traditions. This two-thousand-year segment of prehistory is known as the Early Archaic subperiod (Jefferies 1996b:40; Muller 1986:56). For much of this time, the Lower Ohio Valley’s physical landscape was in the process of adjusting to the milder Early Holocene climate. This transition to cool, moist conditions was reflected by the northward expansion of Mixed Hardwood forests.The Southeast’s boreal forests, common in many areas during the Late Pleistocene, were reduced to remnant fir and spruce populations that continued to grow in the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians. Oak-hickory forests developed in southern Illinois, mixed hardwood forests covered areas to the south and east of the Ohio Valley, and mixed conifer– northern hardwood forests grew across the Midwest (Delcourt and Delcourt 1981:147; Muller 1986:50). The Early Holocene marks the first time in many millennia that the Lower Ohio Valley’s physical landscape was actually favorable for human habitation (Muller 1986:50). Not only did the developing oak-hickory forests provide abundant nuts and nut oils that Early Archaic people could consume, but they also supported a rich population of game animals that provided food, clothing , shelter, and materials to make tools and ornamental items.Throughout the Early Holocene, small, mobile groups of Early Archaic hunter-gatherers inhabited this environmentally rich portion of the North American Midcontinent, continually adapting to the region’s changing landscape. If we can equate the number of recorded sites with regional population levels, comparison of the number of recorded Lower Ohio Valley Paleoindian and Early Archaic sites 90 / Early Holocene Foragers suggests a substantial Early Holocene population increase (Figure 5.1). Figure 5.2 shows the locations of sites that have contributed important information about Early Archaic hunter-gatherers. In their seminal volume on the Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast, David Anderson and Kenneth Sassaman (1996) provide a historical perspective on the development of theoretical models for Early Archaic settlement/ subsistence in eastern North America, particularly the Southeast (Anderson 1996b:29–57). While none of these models was developed specifically for the Lower Ohio Valley, they strongly influenced how archaeologists working in the region conceptualized the region’s...