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The Environment of the Great Plains: Shaping the Archaeological Record - Ep 01
192 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of The Great Plains Archaeology Podcast, we delve into the unique and diverse environment of the Great Plains, exploring how its landscapes have influenced human history and shaped the archaeological record. From expansive grasslands to river valleys and rolling hills, the Great Plains have been home to a variety of ecosystems that supported the lives of Indigenous peoples for millennia.
Youtube: https://youtu.be/S9D3JZbNPbA
Links:
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains by Douglas B. Bamforth (2021)
- Archaeology on the Great Plains Edited by W. Raymond Wood (1998)
- Carlton's KU Anthropology Faculty Bio
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/great-plains-archaeology/01
Contact:
- Instagram: @pawnee_archaeologist
- Email: [email protected]
Affiliates
Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. Join me as we uncover the rich histories of North America's Great Plains, exploring the latest archaeological discoveries and past cultures that shaped this storied region. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 1 of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. I'm your host, Professor Carlton Shilcheap-Cover, and I am just absolutely thrilled to have you join me on this exciting journey through the rich and fascinating saving histories of North America's Great Plains.
00:00:40
Speaker
So as we kick off this podcast, we're going to take the first few episodes to dive into the background of the Great Plains archaeological region. And I want to do that just so we can set the stage for what kind of flora, fauna, and geologic and geographic features we can expect as we talk about sites and concepts later in the series, we will always have these episodes up front that you can go back to to maybe more familiarize yourself with with some of the larger things going on, right? so
00:01:21
Speaker
we're We're going to have to bear with it together as we you know navigate this this show. and I do want to mention there's the audio portion of this podcast available wherever you guys get your podcasts at, as well as you know the archaeology podcast network.
00:01:36
Speaker
Additionally, there is a video component to this podcast, which is available on the Archeology Podcast Network channel on YouTube. So it will be captioned. So if you have any friends, colleagues, family that are Deaf or Deaf Plus, they can go to the YouTube show and see the captions that will be so have transcribed of. So you know this is accessible to a broader audience. And the YouTube version is is a little bit, is is a little less edited. So a lot of my ah stutters or if I've redo something, I'll be available. So it kind of have like the built in bloopers. So yeah, but anyways, I just want to get right to it. So today on episode one,
00:02:16
Speaker
we're going to explore and talk about the geography of the Great Plains. So really, for the purpose of this first episode, right we're going to be talking about um geography, we're going to be talking about the landscapes, the flora and fauna that exist, especially during the Holocene. So that is the geologic epoch or epoch, I guess, that we are in today. And when we talk about the Ice Age or the archaeology further in the past, know we'll contextualize what the Great Plains would have looked like then.
00:02:45
Speaker
and so Without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. so I do want to mention the source material for today's episode. really comes from and For those that aren't watching on YouTube, I'm holding up Dr. Doug Bamforth's book, especially The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains by Douglas Bamforth from the University of Colorado Boulder, my dissertation advisor and mentor.
00:03:06
Speaker
So this volume came out in 2021, solo authored. It's all dug throughout the whole book. and This is what I used to teach with for my Great Plains archeology and anthropology classes, which are also modeled off of how he taught the classes. So, you know, just the caveat, a lot of this show really does come from the mentorship of Dr. Doug Bamforth, as well as others of my colleagues from the um Plains Anthropological Society and the Great Plains Regent.
00:03:32
Speaker
A lot of what we're talking about today is coming from Doug's book as well as I think another great resource to learn about Great Plains geography and some background information is of course archaeology of the Great Plains. This came out in like 1998. So it's ah it's a little dated, but like some of the first chapters about like the Great Plains setting, phenomenal resources. So this is archaeology of the Great Plains edited by Ray Wood and it is edited volume. Sweet's chapter has different contributors. So really,
00:03:59
Speaker
These two books, Archaeology in the North American Great Plains and Archaeology on the Great Plains, you know, absolutely must-haves for anybody who is interested in Great Plains archaeology. Additionally, another one that I've been reading recently, again, that I like, People in a Sea of Grass. This is by, edited by Matt E. Hill and Lauren Ritterbush. This also came out recently, I think, two thousand one, a lot of central plane stuff, but in terms of like, what's nice about geography and background, right? It doesn't really change no matter the volume or the paper. So, I mean, even though these, especially the Ray Wood volume is is a bit older, you know, the great planes, these are mainly the great planes. So, where where are the great planes, right? So, like, just to set just to set the tone.
00:04:40
Speaker
What are we looking at in terms of where is this place, right? So the Great Plains region, many of us have a concept that it is flat and boring and we will, we'll, we'll investigate that together, fellow listeners. So just a couple to list, you know, a number of States and Canadian provinces in which have Great Plains regions. You know, first we have Alberta, we have Saskatchewan, a bit of Manitoba, like the southwest portion of Manitoba is Great Plains, Montana, North Dakota, Eastern Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Eastern Colorado, like basically the front range over to Nebraska and Kansas. And then we get Kansas, right? Eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma, and then Texas. Now, this is the Great Plains region.
00:05:26
Speaker
and it is very much a north to south axis that it is it is really long and it is the crossroads for cultures from the great lakes the southwest the southeast the rocky mountain region right so order for individuals, cultures, and societies to interact with each other on the other side of the continent. They have to go through the Great Plains, and we'll get to that a bit later. Now, there is the Prairie Peninsula, and we'll talk about prairies here in in a moment. And there's states like Illinois and Indiana and parts of Minnesota, they contain
00:06:04
Speaker
and They have the prairie peninsula that goes through them, but they're not Great Plains region. So they do have prairie, but prairie doesn't necessarily equate to the Great Plains. So for those that might've heard, well, there's prairie where I live outside of Indiana. Like, yeah, that's great, but that's not Great Plains. So cool.
00:06:20
Speaker
Now, that's a lot of land mass to cover, right? That is many different states with different climates, different animals, different ecosystems. So the way archaeologists and anthropologists have divided the Great Plains, we have five primary geographic divisions.
00:06:45
Speaker
um that kind of set the tone for, this is the part of the Great Plains that I study. And the first one is being the Northwest Plains. The Northwest Plains, that's those are Canadian provinces. So Saskatchewan, Alberta, as well as the Eastern Habs, basically anything that's not mountains from Wyoming and Montana, their eastern border to where you begin to go uphill in mountains, that's the Northwest Plains. Then we have the Northeastern Plains.
00:07:15
Speaker
So that is... Manitoba, North Dakota and South Dakota. All right, so that that's our that's our Northeastern Plains sub region. So the entire states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and then basically up to Winnipeg and Canada, that area and and southeastern Saskatchewan. Then we have the Central Plains through this podcast. I'm a Central Plains archaeologist. I will talk a lot about the Central Plains in this show um in the Central Plains. This is Nebraska, Kansas, eastern Colorado.
00:07:47
Speaker
basically, Denver to Nebraska and Kansas. We also get northwestern Missouri and western Iowa in this region, just on the opposite side of the Missouri River from Nebraska and Kansas. This gets captured into the Central Plains region.
00:08:03
Speaker
um Then we have the Southern Plains. And Southern Plains is Oklahoma, Texas, and Eastern New Mexico. That is our Southern Plains region. And if you're following along and catching on, I've already named like all the states and regions, and we've only got four geographic divisions, right? So what's the fifth? And the fifth the fifth is very specific. but's It's like a subregion within the Northern Plains, and that is what we call the Middle Missouri region. So this is archeology along the Missouri River.
00:08:31
Speaker
in North and South Dakota. So basically once the Missouri River hits Sioux City, Iowa, the middle Missouri region ends. So a lot of stuff happens in this region in North and South Dakota along the Missouri River, which really kind of demanded it having its own subset, because what's going on in the Missouri River up here in this um in this region, in this northeast region of the plains, is very different from what's going and going on outside of there, that the Middle Missouri has its own region within the Great Plains.
00:09:03
Speaker
So yeah, that's those are the regions. So throughout this show, right, we're going to talk about, and when we talk about sites, I will say, oh yeah, so this is in this region of the Great Plains. And so now you have that concept of where where we are. So, you know, once in, we're just kind of doing the background. This is like day, week one of archaeology, the Great Plains lecture, right, where everyone's just getting settled in from coming back from break.
00:09:25
Speaker
coming into school for the first time. So we're setting the stage. So like I said, not every episode is going to be like this, but especially at the beginning of the show, as we get started, you know, we're, we're doing the background right now, everybody. Like the point of this is we're going to, we're going to learn about the great planes together. And the great planes is known for being grassland, right? We think of the great planes as a sea of grass. And, but there is variation in great planes, grasslands.
00:09:54
Speaker
So, you know, when we talk about the grasslands and we talk about vegetation. The big thing is climate controls vegetation. And subsequently, vegetation controls animals, and more importantly, controls agricultural potential. So these are all very critical, right? Climate dictates vegetation, and vegetation dictates what animals can sustain themselves in a region. And then also, the subsequently, when humans bring agriculture, specifically like maize-based agriculture to the Great Plains, what's going to be more most profitable to a maize-based economy?
00:10:29
Speaker
So the Great Plains not only is a crossroads in North American regions for people interacting and in trading and exchanging ideas and goods with another, it's also the crossroads of many different kinds of climatic conditions. So like to the north, we have continental polar air, which is dry cold and dry. Just to the south in Mexico, we have the continental tropic, which is hot and dry. To the east, we have maritime polar, which is cold. moist you know so like a lot of different weather patterns that shape, that create the climate, right? That's what the climate is. They're all mixing here. So there's a lot of different environmental factors that are shaping the environment. And as such, you know the mean annual preci precipitation of this region is varied. It is
00:11:20
Speaker
wetter, the more east you go on the Great Plains, specifically the more southeast you go, and you get less precipitation the more west you go, right? So think of the difference, like same time of year in July, do you want to be in eastern Kansas?
00:11:36
Speaker
or do you want to be in eastern New Mexico? right Do you want to be in northern Montana or do you want to be in southwest Texas? right so Because you know we do have this longitude focus with the Great Plains, it is long north to south. you know It is longer than it is wide. The Great Plains is hot dog style. It's very susceptible to latitudes and changes in latitude, but there is substantial difference going east to west and west to east right because the Great Plains on the west is bordered by the mountains.
00:12:04
Speaker
You are going up in elevation the further west you go. If you've ever taken a cross-country trip, you burn more gas going to Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, Montana than you do coming back down towards the Missouri River or Mississippi because of that increase in elevation. so There's that east to west dynamic. and you know We get seasonality in the Great Plains. right you know and Seasonality means you get more precipitation, more mean precipitation, average precipitation in warmer seasons. right So like summer and spring. And with that, we're going to stop talking about rain. And we are going to take a quick break on episode one of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. And we'll be right back. And we're going to talk more about about grass. We're going to talk about grass and animals, exciting stuff, exhilarating stuff. So we'll be right back after these sweet, sweet messages from the Archaeology Podcast Network and its affiliates. Stay tuned.
00:12:58
Speaker
Welcome back to episode one of the Archaeology of the Great Plains podcast. I'm still your host, Carlton Gill, Chief Goverr, professor at the University of Kansas. And we're we're going to talk about grass now, everybody. We're getting into grasses, right? So we know the Great Plains is grasses. And just to like real quick go over it, right? We have three different kinds of grasslands that exist on the plains. And these these are important for human behavior and when you get to the archaeological record, what is dictating and determining it from an environmental standpoint where people are choosing to live to the east, the closer you get to the Missouri River and on the Missouri River, right? That is your tall grass prairie. So it is a bit more arboreal. There's more trees. The grasses are taller. There is more vegetation production.
00:13:44
Speaker
In this region, the further west you go, so really we're talking about like central Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, as we're getting towards the mountains, right? We're getting away from the Missouri River to the east, we're heading towards the mountains, and in the center of these Midwest states, Nebraska and Kansas in particular, this is our mixed grass prairie.
00:14:03
Speaker
This is the stereotypical you know little house on the prairie environment. It is both a mix of, as as the name suggests, your tall grasses and and your short grasses, and then you get to the short grass step. like Along the Rocky Mountain Front Range, this is where your buffalo grass is. This is where grass is you know ankle height, maybe shin height. Whereas mixed grab grass, we're talking about your knee height, and then tall grass further to the east.
00:14:30
Speaker
your hips and shoulders, right? So this is our short grass steps. So this is the, you know, when we think Cowboys and Indians, we think of like nine, uh, 1800s, late 1800s, Indian wars were the Lakotas.
00:14:43
Speaker
Cheyennes and Arapahoes or the focal point against the U.S. Calvary, and they're you know out in Colorado and Wyoming. These are the kind of environments we're talking about, so the short grass prairie step. But there's more than just grass in the Great Plains. like There are trees. They do exist. I've seen them. It's not like Iceland, especially the closer you get to water systems. right And I know this might For many of our listeners, you're thinking, OK, where the hell are we going with this? Of course, there's trees. But in terms of how environment dictates, we're not dictates. That's always bad. That sounds like environmental determinism. um As far as how the environment does impact human decisions and human behavior, right we do have trees in the area, which are important to make for making tools. right So handles and staves for bows, adlatls, like wood is important. to
00:15:35
Speaker
And especially in this region, especially in like the southeast, kind of great plains, we get Osage Orange, which is a very incredible wood for bow making. So we have a lot of that. you know The closer you get to water, the more dense vegetation is going to be, the more agricultural output you're going to have, as well as that's where the location of trees. And the height of the grass. right Why do we have short grass prairie to the west?
00:15:56
Speaker
tall grass prairie to the east. Well, that's dictated by precipitation, right? It is wetter the further you go to the east, it is drier the further you go to the west, right? So this local variation in grasses is very much dependent on local variation and precipitation. so But it's there's not a standard ah way to do this, like the Nebraska Sandhills, which is in north western Nebraska. So what would you expect to be a dry environment? There's the Nebraska Sandhills, which are a natural aquifer, which make it less dry than the surrounding areas, like it is an oasis within western Nebraska. And we also see you know more drought-like areas in in other parts of Nebraska, Kansas,
00:16:31
Speaker
in South Dakota that other that are that are drier than the surrounding area. So even though there is a theme, the further east you go in the Great Plains, they're closed the closer you get to the Missouri River, the wetter it's going to be, there are exceptions to the rule like everything else in life.
00:16:50
Speaker
But the Great Plains is also known for like hazards, tornadoes, of course. Drought, we can think of the Dust Bowl, but tornadoes are are a big feature. And we'll talk about tornadoes in in particular in a future episode as we talk about architecture in the Great Plains and how people are choosing architectural styles. So like stay tuned for that. And of course, like where do we find tornadoes?
00:17:13
Speaker
They're huge in the Great Plains. Oklahoma is the big spot. That is the average number. But then like Kansas and Nebraska are also big indicators for tornadoes. So keep that in mind. This is tornado country. Canada, not so much, but the Central Plains and the Southern Plains, that is tornado country.
00:17:31
Speaker
Floods are also a big part of Great Plains lifeways, especially on the Missouri River Nittributaries. It does flood. And we will talk about floods as we will talk about tornadoes and how people choose where to live once we get to that point. So yes, this sounds silly, but this first episode on the background is contextualizing what we're going to see in the archaeological record as people respond to environmental factors.
00:18:03
Speaker
We also get insects, fires, another big one. And just just to kind of like summarize what we are seeing in terms of climate and vegetation, you know it it varies systemically. You have more precipitation, more foraging potential to the east, less to the west. And you get hotter, more sparser, and more unpredictable plant growth to the south, and less to the north. So right the further north you go, generally the cooler it's going to be. The further east you you go, the more wetter it's going to be.
00:18:32
Speaker
so where we are, what sub region in the planes will have different environmental factors. um But topography, right? We're kind of closing out the environment, but now we're going to talk about like more geographic features on the plains. Topography, everyone thinks of ah of of the Great Plains as flat. It's not flat. you know It's dictated by negative erosion topography. right so The topography on the Great Plains is very much driven by rivers.
00:19:08
Speaker
So, you know, and they and they're hidden, you know, that's the cool part is like, if you ever really walk the walk the landscape like canyons appear out of nowhere that you wouldn't see before. So like these river systems carving through the Great Plains are dictating the kind of topography that we have. And our major rivers on the plains.
00:19:27
Speaker
know, what are we talking about? And they'll they'll come up a lot. We have the North Saskatchewan River, the Missouri is a huge one, the Platte, Nebraska, Republican in Southern Nebraska, Northern Kansas, the Smoky Hill in Kansas, the Arkansas in Kansas, and then it leads into Oklahoma, the Canadian, which the Canadian River, which goes into the Northern Texas and into Oklahoma and the Red River peco and the Pecos. All right. We also know the big you know, part of these rivers, right? The Missouri is is awesome and it's huge. um in In the plains in general, rivers are not necessarily deep, but they are wide.
00:20:02
Speaker
in Nebraska, like the Loop, Republican, Niagara, these rivers are filled with sand. Like you can go through some of Lewis and Clark's original internals and they're just not navigatable but navigatable navigable. They are very difficult to watercraft. So that's why they kept going up to Missouri, right? So even the rivers are pose a challenge. But we also have, you know, physiographic features on the Great Plains that that stand out, that a lot of folks and cultures in the past, you know, refer to. We have Cypress Hills in Canada, in the High Plains region, right up in western Nebraska, Kansas.
00:20:45
Speaker
In Texas, we have the Black Hills in South Dakota, the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, the Nebraska Sandhills, which I mentioned before, ah the Flint Hills in Kansas, Yano Escado in Texas, and the um Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma. So like we do have positive topography right in these areas. This place isn't just completely, completely flat. you know And that kind of goes with, when we look at the Bighorns or the Black Hills,
00:21:14
Speaker
That change in elevation, the topography, this positive topography, you know is creating environmental ecosystems that are unlike what's in the rest of the Great Plains. A lot more trees, it's a little bit wetter, and so there's access to different environmental and animal resources that we have to keep in mind.
00:21:32
Speaker
And with that, right, another major thread ah or lines of thread that interweave into this in this tapestry of the Great Plains is locations and major sources of flakable stone. Like where are people getting their raw materials to make tools out of? And there's a number of places on the Great Plains that become centers of human activity throughout, you know,
00:22:01
Speaker
over 15,000 years people have been here. You get Knife River Flint from North Dakota. We have the White Kelsedne group, which is in South Dakota, Eastern Wyoming, Northeastern Colorado, Smoky Hill Jasper in Nebraska, Kansas, Flint Hill in Florence A. Church out of Kansas, Burlington Church out of Western Iowa,
00:22:23
Speaker
Alabates, Agate, Tekovas, Chap, Jasper, and Edwards Plateau Church all coming from Texas. So like and ah from a north to south axis, they're major centers of raw material collection areas that people will continually visit over time, right? Even though we do have, you know, limited positive topography on the Great Plains, there's still access to rocks um that people need in order to make stone tools.
00:22:53
Speaker
you know Additionally, even though we have these major sources of stone tool material, there is definitely surface exposure of secondary stone on eroded ridges, as well as deposits of cobbles made by glaciers during the last Ice Age. So even though we have our major sources of exposed stone tool material of church, Kelsidines,
00:23:12
Speaker
Flint's, Jasper's, what have you. There are other areas in which people can procure stone tool stone tool material on the Great Plains. um Rivers, of course, are are a huge one. And that's a lot to go through. right in In a 30 minute podcast episode, it really did like a crash course into the geography and climate of the Great Plains, right? So those are kind of the two big things that the takeaway is like, what are the Great Plains? How are they subdivided? What does the environment like? What kind of resources do people have access to? Because all these things shape but human behavior and human culture.
00:23:52
Speaker
as we go through time, right? So I thought this episode was very important. And so what's going to happen here on the next episode, we're really going to start looking into the flora and fauna of the Great Plains, right? You know, so.
00:24:09
Speaker
we're going to start keep setting the stage for humans. ah And I appreciate you guys bearing with me as we go through as we go through the show. So these are just the background episodes. We will get into archaeology very, very soon. So with that, thank you for joining me for episode one of the Great Plains archaeology podcast. I cannot wait to explore the mysteries of the Great Plains with you.
00:24:32
Speaker
Our next episode will dive into the flora and fauna of the Great Plains. But until then, Jira listeners, keep your curiosity alive and your mind open to the stories waiting to be discovered beneath the prairie. I'll see you all next time. Thank you.
00:24:51
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Great Plains archaeology podcast. You can follow me on Instagram at Pawnee underscore archaeologist, and you can also email me at Great Plains Ark Podcast at gmail dot.com. And remember, anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie. American author Willa Cather.
00:25:17
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.