Mississippi Valley Prehistory

Woodland Era (500 - 900 A.D.)

SITE GUIDE
•	Introduction
•	Mississippi Valley Prehistory
•	Historic Native Americans
•	European Explorers
•	Project History & Background
•	Frequently Asked Questions
•	ORDER the CD!

Middle Woodland ceramic vessel from Arkansas

Increasing reliance on nuts and grains led to the development of new techniques for manufacturing waterproof, fired-clay pottery containers by 600 B.C. Used at first for boiling acorns to remove tannic acid and later for cooking grains, pottery technology revolutionized Native American food storage and preparation methods.

The Hopewell culture of Ohio and Illinois flourished between the first and fifth centuries A.D. and influenced populations across eastern North America. Trade in exotic goods and elaborate burials for community leaders were two hallmarks of this culture. A Hopewell-style log tomb was discovered earlier this century beneath a burial mound near Helena, Arkansas. The logs were oak, some measuring nearly four feet in diameter. The honored dead were buried with copper-covered pan pipes, conch shell drinking cups from the Gulf of Mexico, and necklaces and bracelets made of shell beads and wolf teeth.

Courtesy of Rare Books Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Native Americans began to use the bow and arrow towards the end of the Hopewell era. This was such an effective and efficient weapon that by A.D. 500 it had largely replaced the throwing stick and dart. The warfare between communities that early European explorers witnessed in the Mississippi Valley seems to have begun about the time the bow and arrow appeared.

Saltmaking. Courtesy of the University of Arkansas Museum.

The development of gardening and pottery technology stimulated population growth and led to the emergence of settled village life after 500 A.D. Corn, originally domesticated in Mexico, was adopted by many groups in the Mississippi Valley between 900 and 1200 A.D., but the shift to grain-based diets gave rise to a need to add salt to prepared food. The production of salt for trade became an important activity in southwest Arkansas where there are many natural salt springs.

Toltec Mounds. Courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.

Among the first to build large platform mounds in the Southeast were the Plum Bayou Indians who built the site now preserved as Toltec Mounds State Park near Scott, Arkansas around 750 A.D. Here, 18 dome- and platform-shaped mounds were built, two of which today stand 41 and 49 feet high, surrounded by a 5,298-foot-long, six-foot-high embankment with a ditch on its outer side. Several mounds are aligned with solstice and equinox sunrise and sunset directions. The Plum Bayou Indians hunted with bows and arrows, and raised maygrass, little barley, lambsquarters, squash, and corn in their gardens.

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