Of Caves and Shell Mounds

13. Riverine Adaptation in the Midsouth

13 Riverine Adaptation in the Midsouth David H. Dye TRENDS TOWARD SEDENTISM and increasing cultural complexity have been well documented in the Midsouth for Late Holocene (5000-2500 B.P.) hunters and gatherers (Brose 1979; Goad 1980), but key features of this adaptation, such as multiseasonal base camps, semipermanent habitations, multiregional exchange networks, and specialized plant gathering, are evident as early as the Middle Holocene (8000-5000 B.P.) in the Midwest (Brown and Vierra 1983:165) and Midsouth (8. Smith 1986:18-27). The emergence of cultural complexity and increasing sedentism during the Middle Holocene has been linked to an increase in the aquatic resource base, which in turn resulted in a sharp escalation in the kinds and amounts of riverine aquatic species available to Middle Archaic hunters and gatherers (Brown 1983:10; B. Smith 1986:22). A concomitant shift is recognized in the duration and intensity of settlement patterns as part of the narrowing focus on riverine-oriented resources. Smith notes that the nature, timing, and cultural consequences of the initial increase in utilization of floodplain aquatic species remain among the most interesting and most important general research topics concerning Middle Holocene hunting and gathering adaptations (1986:27). One result of the increased attention by midsouthern, Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers on riverine aquatic resources is the development of dense middens, particularly those composed of accumulations of mollusks (Dowd 1989; Futato 1989; Klippel and Morey 1986; Lewis and Lewis 1961; Walthall 1980; Webb and DeJarnette 1942). Smith (1986:18-21) suggests that Middle Holocene midsouthern huntergatherers continued many of the cultural patterns established in the Early Holocene . Although temporal change in hafted biface morphology is well documented throughout the Southeast and Midwest, a general continuity in the Middle Holocene tool kit is evident for woodworking, plant food, and hide and carcass processing assemblages. In addition, the variety, range, and dietary significance of fundamental plant and animal taxa did not change substantially from the Early Holocene, with two exceptions: an increasing emphasis and orientation toward riverine aquatic species and the beginnings of plant cultivation. The Middle Holocene archaeological record is clear concerning the lack of increasing inventory of tool types or the advent of revolutionary technological innovations fostering significant socioeconomic impact from the Early Holocene Riverine Adaptation in the Midsouth I 14:1. (ibid.:18-22). Rather, a basic or primary adaptation to the temperate deciduous forest biome of eastern North America is evident throughout the Archaic tradition (Caldwell 1958), with the exception of an increasing reliance on riverine aquatic species and cultivated plants. The basic dichotomous Middle Holocene seasonal scheduling of riverine and upland resources during the warm (dry) season and cool (wet) season is one aspect of the continuation of the early Holocene adaptation. Oriented primarily around riverine base camps from which small populations inhabited short-term, limited-activity sites in the upland and floodplain, the warm-season , cool-season settlement-subsistence strategy continued well into the historic period in various forms. The duration of warm/dry-season residential base camp occupation increased on elevated points in the floodplain, such as natural levees, point bars, or alluvial fans, in proximity to spatially or seasonally limited aquatic resources, with the appearance or enhancement of meander or shoal habitats as a result of floodplain stability around 7200 B.P. (B. Smith 1986:25; Waselkov 1982). By the Middle Holocene, hunter-gatherer settlement patterns shifted toward semipermanent, if not permanent, warm-season floodplain base camps and cool/wet-season upland and valley edge base camps or dispersed, short-term upland camps. Paleoecology Changes in solar radiation stemming from changes in the orientation of the earth's axis produced a pattern of midlatitude changes in climate during the Holocene (COHMAP 1988), which in turn brought about changes in ecological processes. During the Middle Holocene, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus ) in central Illinois, for example, achieved only small body size because of changes in the quality of summer forage when climatic conditions were warmer and drier than present (Purdue 1989). During the Early Holocene (12,500-8000 B.P.) cool temperatures dominated much of the Midsouth. Central Tennessee at this time, for example, was characterized by a mixed mesic forest and a vegetative pattern similar to the modern flora found on the Allegheny Plateau of Ohio and West Virginia. By 8000 B.P. warming and drying conditions resulted in a suite of flora similar to those found today in eastern Kentucky (H. Delcourt 1979). By the Middle Holocene (8000-5000 B.P.) the...