Part 2

Organization for such a life was simple. Since they must move with the game on which they depended, group size had to be limited; for large bodies of people could not move easily from place to place. Moreover, the population was not large, and there was plenty of room to spread out. For all these reasons the hunting band was probably made up of a few related families, numbering on the average perhaps 50 people who habitually camped together. Leadership in such a small group would not be a matter of too great importance; and the chief might be chosen for skill in hunting or for an outstanding personality. Possibly he inherited the office, but in any case his authority is not likely to have been very great. The band doubtless accepted his choice of campsite, his direction in the hunt, or arbitration in disputes; but in doing so it was more likely to be out of respect for his ability than in recognition of his official position.

Even at this simple stage of culture, though, there were doubtless well defined rules of conduct. All primitive peoples today share certain universals of social life. From these we may confidently infer that every man was part of a clearly defined kin group, that the structure and relationships of this group determined into what similar group he might marry, and which were forbidden to him as sources for choosing a mate. We can also be reasonably certain that while antisocial acts like murder, adultery, and theft might not be punished by the community at large, strong measures to hold them in check were generally approved even though they might have to be initiated privately. In short, the rudiments of social living were already thousands of years old. The lives of these early Georgians were different from our own in countless material ways; but even at this early date their primary problems were the same as ours. They must have food, shelter, and protection for individual survival; and the continued existence of the group required the education of its younger members in the skills and habits and community organization of their elders. The means to these ends were crude, and by our standards extremely simple; but they were not developed without considerable ingenuity; and hard work made up for many technical shortcomings.

Food From the Waters

Our knowledge starts to increase as we come to the period beginning about 5,000 years ago. Here a few of the details of Indian life in the Southeast emerge rather clearly. Curiously enough it was the food habits of these _Shellfish Eaters_ which first led to their identification; and even today our scanty information on them still tends to center around this feature of their lives. From the nature of the evidence we will soon present, it is easy to infer that the principal food of many of the groups of this period was shellfish. This may not seem especially remarkable; but we know that, in shifting to a principal reliance on the lowly mussel, clam, or oyster, they accomplished, in effect, a local revolution in man’s pattern of living. They had discovered that an almost inexhaustible supply of these prolific creatures was to be had for the taking in places along the rivers and the ocean shore where conditions favored their growth. Perhaps the taste for this form of diet was difficult to acquire, but once achieved it freed them for generations from the hard necessity of moving their camp every time the game grew scarce. At last they could settle in one place; and the numerous sites they occupied tell us not only that life was easier but that the abundant food supply contributed also to a marked increase in the population.

Our chief reminder of the presence of these early shell gatherers lies in the piles of shells which mark the scene of their activities. Of course the bones of deer, bear, rabbit, turkey, and other wildlife mixed with the shells show us that to vary their diet they did a good bit of hunting and fishing as well. The river and coastal shorelines are dotted with such refuse heaps, often of monumental size, from Florida to Louisiana and northward inland to the Ohio River and along the coast as far as Maine. It may be doubted that these were all produced by related peoples, or that they even represent the same time period; for it is certain that many of them were still growing in fairly recent years. Still, the fact remains that in the southern area as far north as Kentucky and Tennessee the sites represent the oldest camps yet to be uncovered following the earlier paleo-Indian period; and that besides the evidence of a remarkably uniform economy, they disclose a great similarity in the tools, weapons, and ornaments of their inhabitants.

Projectile points (a term we use because “arrowhead” implies use of the bow and arrow) make up by far the most numerous type of artifact recovered; and these tend to be long and heavy, although proportions may be either narrow or broad. The size of these points indicates that instead of the bow and arrow the dart was used with the “atlatl,” the Aztec name we have adopted for the throwing stick or spear thrower. This is confirmed by the presence of many antler hooks for the end of the throwing stick. Shaped much like the hook of a giant crochet needle, these engaged the notched butt of the dart shaft. Additional evidence is found in the special stone, antler, or shell weights which were attached to the shaft to add momentum to the throw.

Tools included grooved stone axes, chipped drills, and large chipped knife or scraper blades. Mullers, or flared-end “bell” pestles, were used to reduce wild plant foods to edible form; but the mortars or trays with which they were used are thought to have been made mostly of wood. Vessels of soapstone or sandstone were added to the skinlined pit or basket, and the flat pieces of steatite with a large hole bored in them may have been used with these containers for stone boiling. Fish were caught with bone fishhooks and with nets weighted with grooved or notched stones. Bone was also used for awls, which were probably employed in making baskets and for simple stitching operations as in the making of leather moccasins or leggings, as well as for projectile points and flaking tools. Bone heads served as ornaments, as did bone pins which were often decorated, though the plainer ones may have been used merely to secure clothing. Shell was worked into beads of many varieties, and into gorgets or pendants in addition to the atlatl weights mentioned.

Life on the shell mounds, or in the camps along streams and rivers where this source of food was of minor importance, was hardly different in most of its material aspects from that of the wandering hunters who had gone before. Permanent dwellings were still apparently unknown; and the rough shelters which were built were doubtless much the same crude lean-to of poles and brush or tree bark as formerly. Areas which appear to have been floored with clay and the remains of many hearths indicate that the shell mounds themselves were the actual habitation sites. This is confirmed by the presence of the numerous articles of daily living mixed in with the shells. The dead, too, were buried directly in the mound, most commonly in small round pits which required that the corpse be tightly flexed. Dogs were also buried in this manner occasionally, and we can guess either that they were loved by their masters or that they held some special religious significance. The fact that a very few shell mounds were intentionally formed into a large ring, as much as 300 feet in diameter, provides a definite hint of religious ceremonialism. From the few objects of daily use or adornment placed with the dead, we can assume they believed in an after life.

The life of these Indians continued unchanged in any of its major features until perhaps 2000 or 1500 B. C. About that time, according to radiocarbon dating, the knowledge of pottery making seems to have reached them in some manner which has not yet been determined. Perhaps they even discovered it for themselves; but it seems more probable that the idea reached them from some fairly distant tribe, and that by local experiment they developed their own techniques from a hazy understanding of the principles involved. At any rate, the upper levels of the older shell mounds begin to yield “sherds” (fragments) of a coarse undecorated pottery which contains innumerable tiny holes running through the paste in all directions. These are the channels which remain after some vegetable material like grass or moss fibers was burned out when the vessel was fired. Any substance mixed with the clay to make it easier to handle and keep it from cracking during the drying out and final firing of the pot is known as “temper,” and the process itself is called “tempering.” Later potters learned that a temper of sand, crushed shell, or, better still, crushed rock or crumbled bits of old pottery made stronger and better pottery; and therefore “fiber-tempered” wares usually represent the oldest type of pottery we find in any region where they occur. While this pottery was undecorated at first, its makers in the Georgia area later developed a type of decoration composed most often of lines of indentations, or punctates, made with the point of a stick or a bone tool.

This new item in the household inventory was probably one of the most significant advances which ever took place in the life of the American Indian, and second in importance only to the later introduction of agriculture. With it, the awkward and tedious routine of stone boiling came to an end, and soups and stews enlarged the menu and became at once the easiest prepared and one of the most appetizing of the foods used. Pottery, too, marks a big change in the work of the archeologist when it appears in the cultures which he is studying. Types of projectile points and other stone artifacts have a way of continuing in use for long periods without change. Clay vessels, however, seem to have been constantly changing in form or decoration or construction, possibly because the potter’s clay is so plastic and responsive to any fancy it is desired to express, and there are many different ways of producing similar results. For this reason, it forms a sensitive indicator of the passage of time and is one of our best clues to relationships between sites and the cultures of their inhabitants.

No sizable shell mounds of these Archaic peoples, as they are known to the archeologist, have been found in the central-Georgia area. Numerous sites occur here, however, which contain no pottery but are littered with scraps of worked flint and where large numbers of the heavy Archaic projectile points are plowed up annually. At other sites, including those on the Macon Plateau, these points are found with a considerable quantity of the distinctive fiber-tempered pottery. It appears, therefore, that the Shellfish Eaters proper were a limited portion of the population of that era and that others with just about the same material equipment followed the old hunting and gathering life in temporary camps. The shell heaps themselves were occupied for rather brief periods by single groups of people. Possibly the large shell mounds represent an annual camping spot for numerous groups who used them successively and at other times of the year lived chiefly on game or along the smaller rivers where shellfish were available but not in such vast quantities. This would account for the smaller accumulations of shells in some areas; and it could be that recent changes in the courses of such rivers as the Ocmulgee and the Oconee, brought about by industrial activity and flood control measures, have resulted in the obliteration of small heaps of this sort.

In any case, it appears that the Macon Plateau had again demonstrated its advantages as a habitation site, and that a people with a material culture similar to that of the Shellfish Eaters dwelt here at intervals during the period 2000 B. C. to 100 B. C. Their residence was not continuous for very long at any one time, however, since their lives depended on hunting. Instead they probably moved about over a fairly large area, returning every so often to the familiar banks of the Ocmulgee to set up their village again and to hunt the surrounding region until the game once more became scarce.

Potmaking Becomes an Art

The next period which can be clearly identified on the Macon Plateau is the one whose inhabitants we have called _Early Farmers_. It lasted for roughly 1,000 years and naturally witnessed considerable change; yet the evidence for this change in middle Georgia is tantalizingly slender. There are more and larger sites, and the increase of population reflected in these might be thought to signify an increased food supply such as the beginnings of planting and tending a few crops could produce. Direct evidence for the introduction of such hoe cultivation, however, is lacking; and we can only say that a number of different lines of reasoning lead us to believe that some plants—possibly pumpkins, beans, sunflowers, and tobacco—probably were being cultivated before the period ended. Through the provision of increased leisure and stability, an assured food supply may well have been one of the factors permitting an enrichment of Indian life at this time. Since this cannot yet be demonstrated, however, we must turn to what we do know. Perhaps the reader will not be too surprised to learn that we shall again be talking about pottery, since we have already mentioned it as one of the archeologist’s most unfailing sources of information.

Like most archeological field work the excavations at Ocmulgee did not result in an independent body of information which could be added unchanged to the total fund of our archeological knowledge. We know in detail what was found; but we must turn to work in nearby and more distant areas for assistance in its correct interpretation. In the present case, four main types of pottery occurred more or less intermixed at almost the deepest levels excavated on the plateau. The first of these was the fiber-tempered ware described in the previous section. The other three are tempered with sand or with “grit” (finely crushed stone) in varying amounts. Like the fiber-tempered pottery these three types are important time markers in the Southeast. It would be tedious to go in detail through all the steps involved in placing them in their proper position in the time scale; but some idea of the nature of the problem might help us to gain an understanding of its complexities. It could help us, too, to realize what a jigsaw puzzle an archeological reconstruction is likely to be.

First let us see what we know about the earliest appearance of pottery in eastern North America. It has long been thought, and radiocarbon tests have recently demonstrated, that the earliest pottery known in this section has come chiefly from the area drained by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from New York State to Illinois and south as far as north Georgia. This pottery has such close parallels at a like early period in northeastern Asia that many students believe it may have been brought here by direct migration, though naturally over a period of generations. Its chief characteristic is the roughening of its surfaces with the marks of twisted cords and somewhat later with those made by a plaited basketry fabric. Here, some believe, must have been the models which stimulated the shellheap dwellers to their first experiments in making pottery.

The two sand-tempered wares in the early Macon Plateau collections referred to above are Mossy Oak Simple Stamped and Dunlap Fabric Marked. The name of the first of these combines that of the site with which it was first principally identified with an indication of its general type, i. e., exhibiting the straight grooves left by the paddle used in finishing the pot. The paddle itself may have been carved with simple straight grooves, or it may have been wrapped with a thong or smooth bit of plant fiber such as honeysuckle vine. Dunlap, on the other hand, is the name of a family which had long owned a large part of the Ocmulgee area, while the type designation refers to the use of a piece of woven basketry used in finishing the vessel.

In order to place these two types of pottery we must examine their occurrence on the Georgia coast and in north Georgia. Such a study reveals that the simple stamping follows directly after fiber tempering on the coast; and that in north Georgia, where the latter is absent, it lies immediately above a fabric-marked pottery very similar to Dunlap. It would seem likely, then, that this latter type of pottery might have worked its way south by the end of the period in which fiber temper was in vogue. Both types exhibit a kind of finish which, like the early cordmarking farther north, resulted from techniques that had probably been found most effective in working the wet clay. Some sort of implement was needed for thinning and compacting the vessel walls, and experiment has shown that a paddle with roughened surface is more efficient for this purpose than a smooth one. No doubt this is caused by the more tenacious adherence of the wet clay to the latter. In any event, different ways were found of roughening a flattened stick or paddle, whether by wrapping various materials about it or carving it with deep grooves; and some groups may well have rolled up a piece from an old broken basket or bit of matting and found it equally useful. Then, if a smooth surface were desired, the marks of any of these implements could be erased easily by smoothing with a wet hand.

The time we have been describing belongs to the general period of eastern United States archeology known as Early Woodland. The Adena culture, which apparently spread from centers in the Ohio Valley, belongs to this period and is well known for its elaborate burial mounds and other distinctive features which are regarded as typical markers over a wide area. While no burial mounds are known from middle Georgia at this time, the fabric-marked and simple-stamped pottery does belong to a general class of wares occurring also in Adena sites. It seems also to relate Ocmulgee to a pair of eagle effigy mounds of stone near Eatonton, Ga.; and bird symbolism is likewise a distinctive Adena feature, though one more fully developed in the following Middle Woodland stage. So it appears that a few traits have been found to connect this period quite definitely with some of the broader currents affecting other areas in the same time span.

The fourth pottery type found mixed in the lower levels at Ocmulgee was Swift Creek Complicated Stamped. Actually this was either grit- or sand-tempered; but its outstanding characteristic was the complex patterns with which the paddles were carved. The type is named for the Swift Creek site only a few miles down the river which was occupied almost exclusively by the people of this culture. This ware covers a longer time span than the other two types, and its distinctive influence was exhibited in some sections even into historic times. In its early stages, it probably served as the source for a tradition of complicated stamping which covered most of the Southeast and even spread to some extent beyond its limits. We don’t know just when it began. In northwest Florida and on the Georgia coast it seems to fall in the Middle Woodland period. Since the type site, though, is close to its apparent center of development, its occurrence on the plateau mixed with Mossy Oak and Dunlap may well represent its true position and thus place its origins in Early Woodland.

During its long history, a number of changes may be seen in the form and decoration of Swift Creek pottery. The commonest vessel shape consists of a deep jar with slightly flaring rim and nearly conical base. Many of the earlier pieces had four small bumps at the point of the base, as a sort of reminder of the feet which were common, also, on earlier pottery in nearby areas; these disappeared in the later examples. The lip of the jar, too, was only crudely finished in the earliest forms, being left rough and irregular or sometimes haphazardly notched or scalloped with pressure from the potter’s finger. In time the edge tended to be pushed out a little; and this gradually developed into a smooth outward fold of the lip and finally a collar of smooth clay about an inch in width about the rim. This extreme “folded rim,” however, occurs after the Master Farmer period shortly to be described.

As for decoration, no description can adequately convey the wealth and variety of complex and often highly attractive designs with which Swift Creek pottery is stamped. The fragments illustrated give some idea of the general effect obtained, but only a painstaking reconstruction of the entire stamp can do them adequate justice. Intricate and beautifully proportioned combinations of curved and straight lines are numerous. Despite the cruder efforts which are naturally common, one is constantly surprised at the artistry exhibited in even the less expertly conceived decorative motifs.