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The Late Archaic: Shifts in Society and the Legacy of the Nebo Hill Site - Ep 10
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In this episode of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast, host Carlton Shield Chief Gover explores the Late Archaic period, a time of significant cultural and environmental change on the Great Plains. At the heart of the discussion is the Nebo Hill Site in Missouri, a key archaeological site that sheds light on the innovations and adaptations of Late Archaic peoples. Carlton examines the technological advancements, shifting subsistence strategies, and evolving social organization that defined this period.
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/10
Contact:
- Instagram: @pawnee_archaeologist
- Email: greatplainsarchpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
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.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 10 of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. I'm your host Carlton Shield, Chief Gover, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this exciting journey through the rich and fascinating histories of North America's Great Plains.
Recording and Scheduling Challenges
00:00:34
Speaker
If you're watching on YouTube and you notice I'm wearing the exact same getup and also with the exact same backgrounds because I am recording these episodes back to back here in early December. Just for those that are listening, the Archeology Podcast Network, Chris and Rachel are going on vacation. So the options were, we could do some back catalog episodes or you got to record ahead of time. And since this is only episode 10 and episode nine, we don't have much of a back catalog. So I decide, you know what let's go ahead and record some more episodes.
00:01:03
Speaker
didn't plan that, right? Because we had a huge NACPR summit here at the University of Kansas this week. So it's been busy. So if you can see the hollowed out look in my eyes on YouTube, it's been a long day. It's been a long week. So if I don't have the, the PIP in my step that you're used to, it's cause I am so ready for a beer in about 45 minutes. So with that, let's go ahead and get onto the episode.
Following Doug's Book Format
00:01:27
Speaker
but So today for this episode, episode 10, we're really, and as if for those that have read Doug's book,
00:01:34
Speaker
The archaeology on North America's Great Plains, I am very much following his book format. like You can basically follow along to the chapters of his book, to this podcast. That will change once we and start like narrowing down on more just like site assemblages.
00:01:51
Speaker
We are, as as the theme has suggested so far, like we're taking some broad view landscape approaches to the Great Plains, giving us that background to regional transitions, kind of starting to focus more on specific periods within the Great Plains, some case studies, you know just to get us like some background. And then we will get into, let's just look at one site, go through everything that's happened. But for now, let's just continue to build upon what's happening in the Great Plains at large.
00:02:21
Speaker
So episode eight, we looked at the early archaic, episode nine, we looked at the middle archaic and some of the more fascinating cultural developments in the Northwest Plains with the medicine wheels and Karens that are being built in Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, right?
Late Archaic Period and Regional Differences
00:02:41
Speaker
But now we're gonna look at the late archaic. And as this theme has continued,
00:02:48
Speaker
that most of the changes we see in the Great Plains socially and archaeologically happen along the Missouri River drainage and in the eastern part of the Great Plains. The western part of the Great Plains, by and large, stays the same. People are going out there to hunt, right? Bison, especially after the Palaeonian period when all the elephants are gone. Bison, bison, bison. So today we're going to look We'll come back to my neck of the woods here in Kansas. We're going to be looking around the Kansas City area in Missouri and Northeastern Kansas in the Late Archaic. So when is the Late Archaic right? The Archaic period itself
00:03:28
Speaker
approximately 7,200 B.C. to 500 B.C. The late archaic is approximately 1,200 B.C. to 500 B.C. And what we're starting to see now, right, Paleo-Indian period, you know, 1,300 to 7,200, that's a long stretch of time, archaic 7,200 to 500 B.C.,
00:03:51
Speaker
with early and middle, like our units of time, what differentiates these periods are getting smaller, they're getting tighter. So things are starting to change a little bit more rapidly. Here in the Late Archaic, right, this is a 700 year period that we're talking about changes.
Nebo Hill Site Significance
00:04:12
Speaker
So in particular, what am I talking about with, with I keep saying, I hope well, we're not looking at hope well, that's later. We're going to look at a place called Nebo Hill. Nebo Hill, for those that are inquiring, I am the Curator of Archaeology here at the University of Kansas, and the Nebo Hill collection is under my stewardship.
00:04:31
Speaker
it is right here. If you were to sit down in my seat here in my office and look out my door, you can see the drawers that we have in Nebo Hill. Nebo Hill is fascinating. So we're looking at Kansas City, Missouri. And then this late archaic changes a little bit down south at what we call the Wistar phase in Eastern Oklahoma. We still have generalized hunting and gathering.
00:04:57
Speaker
And we're seeing some connections to groups to the east. And at Wistar phase, there's actually very little bison present. In fact, at these assemblages, we're finding lots of nuts deer in Turkey. That's not very Plains-like. And we're seeing like fish hooks appear made out of bone.
00:05:21
Speaker
We're seeing a little bit more connections going on in the southeastern part of the country. We're starting to see here in the late archaic, right? In middle archaic, we're talking about how we we can see these possibly discrete social groups and cultural groups develop.
00:05:37
Speaker
That continues, do not get me wrong, but what we're seeing in the late archaic are these social groups, these distinct social groups and cultures interacting with people far away other than their immediate neighbors. We're starting to see probably movement of people.
00:05:56
Speaker
So looking at the Nebo Hill phase and the sites, it has a lot of similarities to not only you know its immediate area, but the Sedalia complex, the Tittering Focus out in Illinois, but also some sites in Florida and Georgia.
Lithic Industry and Pottery Development
00:06:14
Speaker
And what are these similarities, you might be asking, what's going on? Well, one of the projectile points, they're different. They're they're they're not fluted.
00:06:24
Speaker
They're not notched, they're ovular, they're like these and they're long. And we start to see grooved axes. So like looking at these like really hard stones that we're starting to see like hundreds of man hours to put grooves in these basalt stones, but also manos and matatas.
00:06:44
Speaker
In silica polished hoes, we're seeing um um a broader lithic industry, lithic being, you know, human modified stones for tools. We're seeing them beyond just the hunting and gathering. We're starting to see lithic, a lithic industry develop. That is is, like I said, beyond hunting and gathering, or well really hunting, right? We're not talking about just knives and points.
00:07:11
Speaker
But we also see pottery for the first time. Fiber-tempered pottery in Nebo Hill in St. Louis, around the same time, we're seeing fiber-tempered pottery on the coasts of Florida, on the coast between North Carolina and Georgia.
00:07:34
Speaker
and along the Mississippi drainage in Louisiana and Alabama around the same time. Am I saying these are the same people? No. All these groups, we're seeing these pottery, are connected via waterways, but something is happening. Pottery is new. Pottery is fascinating technology, by the way.
00:07:55
Speaker
Pottery is one of those of what seems to be these natural human technological advancements that happen independently from one another all across the globe. From Japan, the Fertile Crescent, South America, the United States, pottery happens.
00:08:12
Speaker
everyone develops it independently. It's in the late archaic outside of Kansas City that we see the first evidence of pottery on the Great Plains, which is fascinating. And to see these connections with the Southeast are also incredibly fascinating. That something that's happening across the continental United States is speaking to, read you know,
00:08:41
Speaker
and continental connections. so And the discovery of, of you know, the the states that Nebo, the two major pottery types that appear at this time period, like Nebo Hill dates to 1750 BC, which is kind of late archaic. You know, but I do want to say like the pottery does appear first in the Southeast, but we have it along with Missouri River drainage outside of Kansas City, Missouri. So What is, what is going on? Well, the pot, like I said, the points are really distinctive and the fact that that we just, we have pottery, like that's just such a huge thing because like pottery suggests, right? Like not only do we have pottery, we have the grooved axes and we have the hose. Those are not things that full time mobile hunting gathering people have like a
00:09:35
Speaker
one of these grooved axes. Now it takes a long time to make, but they're heavy. So with pottery, like, especially with how fragile pottery is, like, could you imagine being a backpacker and carrying pottery with you the whole time? Like even the Walmart stuff that you buy, like the the plaster stuff, like that breaks, right? Like if you ever gone backpacking, you don't take topperware, you vacuum seal plastic bags.
Social Group Development and Sedentism
00:10:01
Speaker
Like that's what's one, it's going to be lighter, but two, that's what's going to survive.
00:10:06
Speaker
we're starting to see evidence of sedentism. people are staying in the same place longer. And this has been a theme that we've kind of been building to, right? When I've been talking about archaic and we're seeing these boundaries of social groups, and it starts to become more and more bounded. There appear to be distinct boundaries and homelands and territories. It's hard to see with just the points, but when you have fragile objects such as pottery and tools associated with agriculture, I'm not saying these people have agriculture by any stretch of the imagination.
00:10:41
Speaker
But we're getting there. We can start seeing the stepping stones that people are getting to this. We have the toolkit developing that would be associated with the fully agricultural system. That doesn't come until later.
00:10:54
Speaker
we have We're starting to see some prerequisites for agriculture, horticulture. It's starting to show up. Now, Nebo Hill itself, it comes and goes. And it hasn't been super intensive. like if If you look up Nebo Hill in Plains Anthropological Society and Plains anthropologists, it's there. like A lot of early stuff from the 40s and 50s was very much on Nebo Hill. That stuff is wildly out of date, but it is still you know a work in progress.
00:11:23
Speaker
what is happening in the archaeological record. And so really for the theme, what what my takeaway is for you, my dear audience, what is Nebo Hill? Why is it significant? Pottery, number one, increased sedatism, number two, and a much more diverse artifact assemblage with the hoes, with the grooved axes and malls, and also we're seeing in places around Nebo Hill and in the eastern part of the Great Plains,
00:11:50
Speaker
There are sites and phases with much more woodland. Settle style, South settlement patterns and subsistence strategies. Right. Like when you don't have bison in a great plane site, that tells you something looks like, wait a minute, why aren't there bison? And like I said, with that phase in with Oklahoma, right? It's deer and doing a lot of nuts and stuff. That's very similar. What's going on in the East. So later kick pottery.
00:12:17
Speaker
distinct geographic areas, larger assemblages,
Bison Hunting Strategies
00:12:21
Speaker
but intercontinental interactions. And with that, we'll be right back with the second half of episode 10. So welcome back. I kind of blew through Niebuhill pretty quickly because, like, really, those are the takeaways from Niebuhill ceramics and some of the other, quote, stuff. So we're going to take the second half of this to, like, what else is going on in the late archaic? Like, what other big changes? It can't just be Niebuhill. And you're right.
00:12:45
Speaker
The Northwest Plains is becoming very dominant in bison kills. So we've talked about bison jumps in the middle archaic. The late archaic, they're continuing. And in increasing the amount of bison, they're running off cliffs. So head smashed in, in particular. We're seeing like three to four meters of bison, of dense bison bones. I just blue screen, sorry. so But at the Cobalt site in Wyoming, which is another bison jump,
00:13:15
Speaker
We're seeing not only jumps, but also royals are being killed or being utilized for bison kills. there are They're specifically tied to yonky points. Yonky points there are these projectile points that have these like side notches, but they have like ears at the bottom. And there's limited bone processing. And what we can look from the bones of these bison, it's often just meat just stripped from the bones, which is strange. Cobalt is up there in Northeastern Wyoming.
00:13:45
Speaker
But we're also seeing mortuary practices become more common. And when we look at Brackenkern and karen in Alberta, we're seeing like, Cremation occurring? like and And so like things tying back to the theme of increased social boundaries, how you treat your debt as a huge indicator for identity, then we're starting to see more of these mortuary practices specifically being tied to places and at regional levels. Once again, backing these
00:14:22
Speaker
assumptions and interpretations of we're seeing socially discrete units of people. right It's not just like a wild group of hunter-gatherers doing the same thing. Enough time has passed for migration where there are discrete boundaries. to and Not to say that those boundaries don't overlap. They probably they absolutely do, but we are seeing discrete social units. and really identity forming or if not hasn't already formed. And looking at the Kaplan Hoover site in Windsor, Colorado, which is a late late archaic set about 900 BC, we get like an early single fall kill site as those same yonky points present. And looking at these middle to late archaic changes overall, what is happening?
00:15:08
Speaker
In the northern northwestern plains, we have large-scale bison hunting increasingly tied to specific localities, and they are very much reliant on substantial human investment. Not only in terms of processing the bison,
00:15:25
Speaker
but also in developing the landscape to increase the probability of successful large scale bison kills. People in the Northwestern Plains are changing the environment to make sure they can kill bison effectively in a lot of them.
00:15:42
Speaker
Now, the variation in intensity of carcass processing, there is more intensity to the north and less to the south. That speaks to something, right? and So in the northern parts of the plains, you're going to expect to see more intensity in the southern part. Everywhere else on the plains, with the exception of Nebo Hill, of course, in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, basically people are doing the same kind of hunting from paleo Indian times. That doesn't change.
00:16:10
Speaker
But in the eastern part of the plains is is, again, where we begin to see a lot more local variation, but there's a lot of similarities in the assemblages with the east. So western part of the plains, pretty much doing the same stuff that they've been doing since paleo-Indian times. Eastern part of the plains. One more variation.
00:16:35
Speaker
And their assemblages look very similar to Southeastern Midwest archeology, right? There's deer, corn, stuff like, not corn, sorry. I meant to say acorns and forgot to add the acorn part, of the A to the acorn part. This is important for what comes in the Woodland period, and which we'll dive into in the next episode, I think. Although like I'm already, ah to be honest, everybody, my my brain is fried. It has been a long week.
00:16:58
Speaker
so I know this episode is not going to be my best. and Frankly, the archaic period, I think I prefaced this before in terms of Great Plains archaeology. The archaic period is is my least ... I don't know very much about it, fundamentally. This is very much just like you know Doug's book. right like i I can continue speak to Paleo-Indian in Hell Gap. I went to Wyoming for my master's. I know Paleo-Indian. I know that literature very well. um you know My PhD is all on Plains Village Farmers.
00:17:28
Speaker
and social identity and ethno-genesis and radiocarbon work. The archaic exists between those two points, and it shows in these podcast episodes where I'm going through Doug's book, like, looks like he's at the major points. It's much more difficult for me, just to be honest.
00:17:44
Speaker
their cake. That, that is my weak link in, in archeological history, but tying this back to themes that are continuing on from in the middle of character click in the middle archaic episode that we talked about in episode eight, right.
Geography, Climate, and Cultural Development
00:18:02
Speaker
Or episode nine, sorry. And eight, we're seeing regional differences, not only the processing of bison, but even like we talked about the roasting pit features, the prevalence of them south versus north. so We can look at this from an overhead view as, well, there's some environmental determinism at play here, Carlton, now and I'm not disregarding that.
00:18:27
Speaker
like our or one of early episodes, or just on the geography and climate of the Great Plains, that affects, it does have an effect on cultural development. But as time progresses and people become more specialized and regionally focused, those differences become, you know, much more readily available to be seen between sites, between like Alberta and Texas, right? We see in the middle archaic people in the Northwest part of the Plains, Montana, Wyoming, Alberta,
00:18:58
Speaker
They're having a very obvious cultural development in the Great Plains with the medicine wheels and the cairns. The eastern part of the plains near the Missouri River, there is connection with eastern populations in the archaeological record, probably through the river ways of some way, shape, or form.
00:19:22
Speaker
There are roasting features between the south and northern part of the plains. There's a difference in intensity. Now they're butchering bison, right? Like in the north, it gets colder quicker and like very much submit it maybe the readily available gathering subsistence practices are not at, you know, they're growing seasons not as long, which I'm not saying they had agriculture, but I am saying the availability of, of gatherable plant life is not as broad as it would be in the south or to the east. Therefore you have to,
00:19:53
Speaker
kill a lot of bison, process a hell of a lot of bison to make sure you can get through those horrendously difficult winters up north. So these are all playing in the past to, once we get closer in time and as agriculture does take place, there are differences in the communities and populations already that then become exasperated as time continues, right? So it's like, you know, you look at a van diagram or or a tree of life or something, right?
00:20:23
Speaker
The archaic period is really overall when we do start seeing the divergences of populations from Paleo-Indian times that we can distinctly see in the archaeological record through the features, through the different cultural practices of subsistence strategies and cultural material. And as time progresses, we get to the Woodland period and then definitely the Plains Village period, there are really distinct social units. And so this is just me kind of reinforcing like the archaic is really that time from early, middle, late.
00:20:52
Speaker
that these differences are beginning, these separations are occurring, and that they are distinct enough that they can be seen in the archaeological record.
Conclusion and Holiday Greetings
00:21:00
Speaker
So I guess that's like my TLDR of the archaic period. and Things are changing. People are specializing in their different areas. We're seeing culture appear. That's the archaic. And with that, I'm going to go get dinner. It's been a week.
00:21:13
Speaker
everyone you all enjoy have a happy holiday season. This episode is coming out on the day after Christmas. So I hope everyone who follows that holiday had a happy, happy Christmas. I will see you all next time back in January after the new year. So long.
00:21:32
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.
00:21:57
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. 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 chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.