Crossroads, p. 7
THE ARCHAIC ERA
(8000 B.C. to 500 B.C.)
As the changing climate-- and the changing flora and fauna-- ended the Upper Paleolithic hunting way of life in eastern North America, a new way of life developed. It was based heavily on the gathering of plant foods and on fishing, both minor sources of food for the Paleo Indians, and on the hunting of white tailed deer and smaller game now that the big animals were gone. This period, when people lived as gatherers, fishers, and hunters rather than mainly as hunters, is called the Archaic era. It lasted for 7,500 years.
(The white tailed deer
provided food, clothing, tools and weapons for the Indians of the Eastern
Woodlands from the Dalton era on. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago
brought changes in climate and changes in flora and fauna. Most of the big
game animals of the Ice Age disappeared quite suddenly, leaving only the
white tailed deer, the moose, and the bear in Eastern North America.).
The first 2,000 years of the Archaic era were probably the most stressful that human beings endured in North America in prehistoric times. Populations seem to have declined nearly to the point of extinction.
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