Twelve Millennia: Archaeology of the Upper Mississippi River Valley

Chapter Eleven

The Oneota Culture The Oneota Culture was born of the marriage between Late Woodland people and Middle Mississippian ideas. Local groups appear to have selectively adopted Mississippian cultural aspects, such as intensified corn agriculture and shell-tempered pottery. The resulting Oneota are sometimes referred to as Upper Mississippian. The Oneota, however, never became fully Mississippianized . Missing from the Oneota cultural repertoire are stratified societies and platform mounds that served as elite residential substructures. After about A.D. 1200, Middle Mississippian influence waned as Cahokia went into decline, but Oneota persisted, lasting until European contact in the seventeenth century. The Oneota Culture was not stagnant for the six centuries that it inhabited the Upper Mississippi Valley (fig. 11.1). Populations congregated in distinct localities and periodically moved, while ceramic styles evolved with uncanny similarity across the broad region from Lake Michigan to the Missouri River. Despite maintaining distinct settlements, these groups were clearly interacting on a regular basis. Although sharing basic subsistence economies focused on corn agriculture and wetland resources, Oneota groups located east of the Driftless Area c h a p t e r e l e v e n early/emergent middle/developmental l ate/cl a ssic 850 b.p. 650 b.p. 500 b.p. 300 b.p. were more adapted to the resources of Lake Michigan and eastern Wisconsin ’s inland rivers and lakes. To the west, Oneota groups were increasingly more reliant on Plains resources, particularly buffalo. Groups that settled at Mississippi River localities such as Red Wing, Minnesota, La Crosse, and southeast Iowa were strategically located to take advantage of resources from both the river and prairie environmental zones through travel or interaction. Furthermore , Oneota people located along the Mississippi River could take advantage of the natural north-south highway presented by this major artery. This crossroads location played a critical role at the end of prehistory, during the final cultural revolution experienced by Native American societies. Interaction between Oneota settlements along the Mississippi River and 158 | t h e o n e o t a c u l t u r e 11.1. Oneota localities through time. those in the glaciated region toward Lake Michigan probably occurred through river systems such as the Fox-Wisconsin and the Des Plaines–Illinois routes. These routes were later followed by French explorers. Western interaction is reflected in the presence of buffalo shoulder blade hoes, engraved buffalo artwork , and red pipestone (most of which originated at the catlinite quarries of southwestern Minnesota) at Oneota sites along the Fox Valley in eastern Wisconsin and at others near Chicago. In addition, some pots found at eastern Wisconsin sites have decorations that mimic those found at western Oneota sites, while a few vessels found at La Crosse appear to have been manufactured in eastern Wisconsin. Evidence for interaction between Oneota groups on the Mississippi and areas to the west is stronger, with more buffalo shoulder blade hoes, catlinite , and artistic depictions of buffalo. Carvings and drawings of buffalo have been found at several western Wisconsin rockshelters, each of which has produced evidence of minor Oneota occupation (fig. 11.2), and in etchings on rare pipestone tablets found at Oneota village sites (see Appendix B). The high degree of Plains influences, including the accurate portrayal of buffalo , suggests that some of the Mississippi River Oneota ventured onto the eastern Plains, obtaining resources themselves. Other shared traits, such as near-identical ceramic decorations and common lithic resources, suggest exchange between the Mississippi River Oneota and Plains groups. For example , between about A.D. 1250 and 1400 Oneota potters at Red Wing and La Crosse employed decorations that are nearly identical to those found at settlements in the Blue Earth River Valley of south-central Minnesota and the t h e o n e o t a c u l t u r e | 159 11.2. Drawings of buffalo carvings, or petroglyphs, from Driftless Area rockshelters with arrows or heart lines entering the chest area from the mouth. These were almost certainly carved by Oneota artisans. Dixon/Correctionville locality of northwestern Iowa. The Red Wing, early La Crosse, and Blue Earth settlements also shared a unique flint resource, Grand Meadow chert. This gray flint occurs as small nodules that were mined from an upland locality in southern Minnesota, about midway between the La Crosse and Blue Earth settlements. North-south interaction along the Mississippi...