Crossroads, p. 19
THE WOODLAND ERA
(500 B.C. - A.D. 900)
The collapse of Poverty Point culture marks the end of the Archaic era. The beginning of the Woodland era coincides with the appearance, finally, of a climate similar to our climate today, and with the full development of the vast forests of eastern North America.
The most obvious technological advance of the Woodland era was the widespread use of pottery. But pottery is basically just a reflection of a major innovation in food preparation, an innovation that made the hundreds of thousands of bushels of acorns produced in the Southeastern forests each year fit for human consumption. Someone discovered that the tannic acid that makes acorns bitter and undigestible could be removed by shelling them and then boiling them in a pot of water, changing the water each time it became light brown. This process takes about an hour and requires a good supply of clay pots.
(The changes in culture
that distinguish the Woodland era from the Archaic are the appearance
of pottery, the development of horticulture (gardening) based on native
North American plants, the appearance of small villages, and the appearance
of burial mounds. In the Woodland era, distinct cultures began to appear
in the different geographical regions of Arkansas: The Baytown people
in the northern Mississippi Valley of northeast Arkansas, the Tchefuncte,
Marksville, and Coles Creek people in the Mississippi Valley
in southeast Arkansas, the Fourche Maline people in southwest Arkansas,
and , probably, a distinct group in the Ozarks. These people probably spoke
different languages and were almost certainly the ancestors of some of
the different tribal groups that were in Arkansas when the Europeans arrived.
The Fourche Maline people were the ancestors of the Caddo of southwest
Arkansas and the Coles Creek people were probably the ancestors of the
Koroans and Tunicas of southeast Arkansas).
(A woman of the Woodland era gathering seeds in
a woven bag. Gathering seeds was probably
- one of her main occupations, along with collecting nuts and gardening.)
(These very rare specimens
are pots of the type Williams Plain (almost never found whole) made
by the Woodland era people, of southwest Arkansas, the
Fourche Maline people,about A.D.200).
- (It is safe to say that tobacco was also grown in early Woodland era gardens, and may have been one of the first plants grown in Eastern North America. The Poverty Point people were probably the first in Eastern North America to use and grow tobacco, which they smoked in short cigar-like stone pipes. By the beginning of the Woodland period the "platform" or "monitor" style of pipe shown in this slide had evolved).
