Thorne Deuel

“ The study of man and his cultural activities.
ARCHAEOLOGY: The division of anthropology that studies peoples of the past through the remains of their works that are found in the ground.
ARCHAIC (SUBCULTURE) : An archaeological subdivision of the Lithic Pattern characterized by broad-bladed barbed spearheads, spearthrower weights and “bannerstones,” small camps, and a hunting-collecting economy (without plant-raising or food-storage) . ”

“ Religious beliefs and other customs had all this time doubtless been shifting gradually in meeting the needs and dangers of changing conditions to a new way of life we call the Archaic culture.
Every way of life is built on an older, often simpler, culture from which it has changed more or less rapidly. Due to important inventions, the group may modify its economy (ways of securing and processing 20 food, etc.) and produce a substantially improved manner of living which, from archaeological evidence alone, may be difficult to recognize as a development from its earlier phase. ”

“ Art in several forms flourished—carving in the round and in relief, the making of fine symmetrical polished, decorated and painted pottery commonly called typical Hopewellian, hammered copper jewelry, the setting of pearls and highly-colored native stones as eyes in sculptured animals and in bear-tooth pendants and ear ornaments, etching of delicate designs, naturalistic and conventional, on bone and the modeling and firing of exquisite statuettes in clay. ”

“ For the first time in Amerindian history in Illinois we become aware of an accumulation of wealth, a surplus of handmade goods over and above those needed for survival; many of these were neither well-suited nor intended for immediate physical needs, but rather were aimed at social display or spiritual enhancement. Wealth reflects a relatively constant and abundant supply of food and other necessities and the resulting accompaniment of considerable leisure time for a sizable portion of the community. ”

“ When the climate changed, those families that chose to remain in Illinois had to develop, perhaps slowly and painfully, a new way of life. The habits and haunts of deer, elk, bear and raccoon had to be learned. ”

“ As Big Game Hunters they probably lived as a number of families attached to a herd and relatively independent of each other except at hunting times. They had no homes, only temporary camps, and were bound to a moving herd, not to any particular region. The Paleo-Indian culture consisted of methods of trapping and slaying the great beasts and of filling other simple physical needs; a simple code of social behavior which enabled men and wives to live together with their children and, for brief periods, in gatherings of the families in relative peace and contentment ”

“ As was stated earlier, emerging cultures grow out of earlier ones. Although it may not yet be generally recognized, the Hopewellian civilization probably exerted tremendous influence on the Mississippi cultures and on tribes that followed them in the great central valley of the United States and beyond, down to historic times. It must be borne in mind that in spite of their splendid achievements, the Hopewellians had no domestic animals but the dog, no herds for meat and great wealth, no draft animals to drag the plough and turn the mill. ”

“ These gatherings and cooperative undertakings served, on the one hand, as a welcome change from the usual daily grind and afforded opportunities for the young to get acquainted and choose mates and, on the other, to unify the language and customs of the constituent local groups, to enhance the influence of the tribal elders and keep fresh in the minds of all the history of the tribe, the importance of its activities, and its sacred tradition, all essential to the way of life of dynamic Archaic peoples of recent times. ”

“ Archaic period at Modoc, the dead were buried in the floor of the rock shelter. Burial probably indicates a belief in life after death. Care in preparing the body for burial, in the funeral rites and burying, and in the customary mourning thereafter was highly important so the dead man could go promptly to the spirit world in peace and not remain in the neighborhood to disturb his kinsmen. Immediately after the burial, it is probable that the little settlement removed to a distant location as is customary with peoples in this stage of culture. ”

“ If fundamental changes are made in the economy by internal development or by imitating another culture, social and religious customs are very likely to change too, though usually at a slower pace.
As time went on, the Archaic way of life slowly changed and finally disappeared, but probably not so suddenly as might at first appear; for many Archaic customs, tools, and weapons continued to be made and used in the “new” culture by the descendants of rugged earlier people or were adopted by newcomers to the region. ”

“ The larger settlements or settlement clusters dwindled to mere hamlets, whose remains are scarcely distinguishable from the early Woodland artifacts except that the tobacco pipe is present. Though they must still have retained a tradition of plant-raising, they seem to have avoided it and reverted to a pure hunting-collecting economy. Even in southern Illinois the storage of food seems to have played an insignificant role. ”

“ No traces of house structures have yet been discerned. Temporary huts, probably built of small poles and brush, may have been conical or hemispherical in shape. The artifacts or cultural objects, except for a small amount of jewelry (shell and copper beads and pendants) and the few offerings placed in graves, show little evidence of any urge to fine workmanship or much feeling for beauty of line or form. Life was probably too hard and the effort in securing food and other requirements too exacting to leave much leisure for artistic workmanship in durable materials. ”

“ If Archaic man in Illinois lived as do present-day Archaic peoples, the family or local group, though they restricted themselves during most of the year to their hunting grounds which they guarded jealously from trespassers, did not camp continuously in one spot. At appropriate seasons of the year they rotated from one hamlet site to another to take advantage of the food resources of that locality. ”

“ In southern Illinois the advance of Hopewellian culture was slower. The infiltration of new pottery styles noted at Crab Orchard very possibly represents intermarriage with Hopewellian women. Possibly through ties of relationship and the acceptance of the new food plants, the old Baumer way of life was submerged by the Hopewellian customs though here and there former habits still are recognizable. Some customs of Baumer and Crab Orchard were adopted by the northern Hopewellians—the reel-shaped gorget, the plummet and the chipped stone hoe. ”

“ Man in the wild or Protocultural stage is thought not to have reached the Americas. The oxlike mammals were not domesticated in America for drawing ploughs and vehicles, turning grain mills or to serve as a continuous food supply source. Consequently, we are concerned in the following discussion only with peoples in the Self-Domestication stage and the Plant-Raising substage of Farming.
In ordinary language, the word “culture” is used in a diversity of senses. ”

“ Across the state on the Ohio River a Woodland people succeeded the earlier Archaic residents. Their culture is known as Baumer and their nearest cultural relatives lived south of the Ohio in Kentucky (Round Grave or Upper Valley People) . The Baumer artifacts do not resemble those of the Archaic period very closely, giving one the impression that the Baumer people developed their way of life elsewhere and moved into Illinois, possibly while Archaic groups were still in the region. ”

“ The earliest stage of true human culture which began presumably with the discovery of controlled flint chipping and the invention of flint tool types. During this stage, man is enabled to secure a fairly constant food supply by hunting and collecting, keeps his young under parental care and control for several years and learns to accommodate himself more or less peaceably to his family and to fellow tribesmen during brief periods of religious and social gatherings. ”

“ The Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo and Potawatomi did not long enjoy the territory they had wrested from the Illini and Miami. Immediately after the Black Hawk War in 1832, steps were taken to move all Indians from the state. By the Treaty of Chicago, the Indians gave up all their lands in Illinois, and in 1837 the last bands (Potawatomi) crossed to the western bank of the Mississippi. No land is reserved today in this state for Indians. Its former resident tribes now live in reservations in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and in the state of Coahuila in Mexico. ”

“ Civilization, as used in this paper, signifies exhaustive exploitation of the natural resources and accompanying significant elaborations of the social and spiritual aspects (as exemplified by ceremonies, regalia, insignia, art and extensive architectural structures) , accomplished by means of specialization of the existing tools and technologies, with or without fundamental inventive developments. ”

“ This seems to be a continuation in grander form of the earlier Red Ochre funeral and burial. It is unfortunate that we do not have tangible evidence of their other religious and political ceremonies which may have been even more impressive and significant. The official dress and insignia of the officials, which we can barely glimpse in the rich and varied remains in the tombs, signify a political system of social control and an established priesthood for the spiritual guidance of the community. Shamans or medicine men probably had only the duty of treating disease. ”

“ The reconstructions of the perishable objects shown in the drawings are generally in keeping with the culture in which they are exhibited but cannot be vouched for as to their detailed form. The handle of an adze, the shape of a cabin roof, the headdress of a tribal chief each served the purpose for which they were made and their exact form was and is of no more consequence in the culture than the fashions in women’s hats or the fins on an automobile are in our own. The details in cultures serve to set them apart from each other ”

“ There was no significant improvement in labor, power or transportation; all were still accomplished wholly by human effort without the aid of draft animals. Traveling by boat was known and probably used by both cultures.
Comparing the two peoples with other plant growers having no domestic food-draft animals, it seems apparent that each had an effective political organization, a formalized vital religion with true priests (not “self-appointed” shamans) and a system of moral values and tenets that “church” and “state” were organized to maintain. ”

“ Less advanced Mississippi tribes with customs showing some admixture of Woodland cultural elements living contemporaneously in Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, encircled the Middle phase peoples on the east, north and west. Known generally now as the Upper phase peoples their sole representative in Illinois was the people of the Langford subculture, who dwelt around the southern end of Lake Michigan as well as in adjacent parts of Indiana and Michigan. ”

“ Possibly long continued abuses of power and privilege by religious and political officials, especially those from the highest social caste, weakened the confidence of the lower classes in their leaders and the culture. Newcomers from Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky may have further disorganized certain settlements and separated areas of the larger community from each other. Generally, however, the writer gets the impression that the decay began within the civilization although its final downfall may have been accelerated by external pressures. ”

“ Because primitive tribes which are under pressure from people with advanced food-draft-animal agriculture or with machine industry or which are in a transitional condition between two adjacent stages are disorganized or drastically changing a formerly stabilized mode of life, great care has been exercised in drawing general conclusions from their cultural features. ”

“ Art, while possibly as highly developed as Hopewellian, resulted in a far smaller number of art objects in fewer durable media. Intaglio rock carvings (chiefly in southern Illinois) of geometric designs, human hands, ceremonial paraphernalia, animal outlines, and, in a few instances, painted hollowed-out animal silhouettes can probably be ascribed to this period on the basis of the symbols employed. Dwellings or cabins were relatively substantial structures and the extent of village remains indicate a large general population as compared to earlier times in the state. ”

“ The elaborate ceremonial dress, insignia, and jewelry, and the artistic creations (at least in durable materials) became a part of the past; the people found themselves reduced to the rude cultural level of their early Woodland ancestors. Huts were flimsy and left no discernible remains. Tools, weapons, and ornaments were, in general, carelessly made and poorly finished. Although tobacco was smoked and small patches of maize and beans may have been grown, the chief economic dependence undoubtedly was on hunting, fishing and collecting. ”

“ There are few instances when it appears probable that a part of the state was invaded by a people of a distinctly differing culture. The Paleo-Indian Big Game Hunters presumably found in Illinois virgin country without previous human occupants. The Baumerians probably entered Illinois from south of the Ohio and expelled or absorbed the conservative Terminal Archaics. Possibly Mortonians intruded into the Black Sand-Red Ocre culture of Illinois from the northwest. ”

“ Generally speaking, each succeeding higher culture in the area made most of the tool and weapon types of their predecessors, adding certain improvements and sometimes new types. The Archaic people used flint scrapers, chipped flint choppers, and native cobblestone hammers as had the Paleo-Indians. The narrow-bladed spearheads were occasionally made but the fluting or channel is practically always lacking. Polished stone forms, possibly the spearthrower, were new inventions in Archaic times. ”

“ When the change is sufficient to be noted as a “new” culture, the various cultural elements or features are apt to be widely distributed over much the same area. Thus, Baumer seems to have existed for a time alongside Terminal Archaic but finally spread through the southern counties; Hopewellian may have persisted in Calhoun County for a century or more after its collapse to the north and east; and the Final phase may have lingered on in remote portions of the state until Cahokia was past the height of its glory. ”