Transcript Early Native Americans of Oklahoma

Native Americans of Oklahoma
Ancient Peoples
Big Game Hunters
• 25,000 (?) B.C. to 5000 B.C. – PaleoIndians – the old ones – cultures were
spread across the Americas and lasted
several thousand years.
• Burnham Site, Woods County, northwestern
Oklahoma – possible evidence (flakes near
a bison skull) of people from twenty-eight
to thirty-four thousand years ago.
Big Game Hunters
• Cooperton mammoth kill site in Kiowa
County indicate dates from seventeen
thousand to twenty-one thousand years ago.
• Broken bones consistent with human
activity, as well as rocks that could have
been hammer stones, and an anvil stone
were found.
Clovis People
• Clovis site in New Mexico.
• Hunted wild game, collected edible wild
plants.
• Made many types of tools – scrapers, drills,
and knives, but best known for their spear
points.
Clovis Spear Points
• Many clovis points
have been found in
Oklahoma.
• The Domebo site in
Caddo County yielded
many mammoth bones
and spear points.
• Mammoths have been
extinct 10,000 years.
Cooper Bonebed Site
• Cooper Bonebed in Harlan County, OK.
• Dates between 10,200 and 10,800 years
ago.
• Residents noted bones sticking out of an
eroding bank on the North Canadian River.
• In 1992, archaeologists began looking at the
site, and in 1993 found a Folsom spear
point.
Folsom Spear Points
• Different shape than the
Clovis points.
• Were made from stone
normally found near
Austin and Amarillo,
Texas, as well as NW
Kansas.
http://www.nps.gov/alfl/
• Suggests mobile groups.
Cooper Bonebed
• Residents noticed bones sticking out of North
Canadian Riverbed.
• Dates to 10,200 to 10,800 years ago.
• Archaeologists arrive in 1992, by 1993 find
Folsom point fragment.
• Most startling find was the discovery of a bison
skull with a red zigzag painted on it, suggesting
clear evidence of ritual (dance and/or song?)
Cooper Bonebed
• http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mam
moth/issues/vol21_for_12_2008/vol21_num
2.pdf
The Foragers
• 5000 B.C. to A.D. 1
• More in wooded, eastern Oklahoma
• Used wooden digging sticks with firehardened tips.
• Made baskets, nets, and string from plant
fibers
• Domesticated dogs
The Foragers
• Used axes, hammerstones to shape tools,
completed final forms by using sandstone,
or sand.
• The first evidence of the Atlatl, or dart
throwers appear in this period.
• http://www.thunderbirdatlatl.com/articles/to
ur/tour3.html
Calf Creek Culture
• Between seven and four thousand years ago,
the state experienced warm conditions and
drought.
• The Calf Creek people adapted to this
culture.
• Hunted bison, small game, gathered edible
starchy plants plentiful in drought
conditions.
Calf Creek Culture
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Spearpoints
Knives
Scrapers
Deep hafting notches
Due to drought conditions, limited
knowledge exists about these people.
Early Farmers
• A.D. 1 to A.D. 1000
• Sunflowers, native squash and gourds,
various weeds with seeds that could be
harvested.
• Grand River in NE OK, Ouachitas in SE
OK, Canadian and Washita Rivers in
Central, OK, and the Cimarron River in the
Oklahoma Panhandle.
Early Farmers
• Ground corn and other foods in sandstone
grinding basins.
• Pottery starts to come into play.
• Tools of stone and wood.
• By A.D. 500, small farming villages exist
along the Arkansas, Verdigris, and Grand
Rivers.
• Prairies were unsuitable for farming.
Early Farmers
• Selected places where mixed forest and
prairie existed.
• Prairies were mainly for hunting bison,
deer, and other game.
• Early houses included poles driven into the
ground for a framework, cane walls,
thatched roofs. Circular hearths, and trash
pits were common.
Plains Village Farmers
• A.D. 800 to A.D. 1400
• Bows and arrows used widely for game
• Population expanded due introduction of
three sisters from the south:
– Beans
– Corn
– Squash
Plains Village Farmers
• Food stored in underground cache pits.
• Farming implements made from buffalo
shoulder blades (hoes), and deer jaws
(sickles).
• Cook pots were used that could two or three
gallons.
• Clay figurines.
Plains Village Farmers
• Buried their dead in cemeteries near
villages. Allowed for study pre-NAGPRA.
• Men averaged about 5’6” and women
averaged about 5’1”.
• Healthy.
• Half of all deaths occurred between birth
and age four.
Plains Village Farmers
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One third of the population lived beyond age 30
17 percent reached the age of 50 or 60
Major maladies included tooth decay and arthritis
Body was usually placed in a curled up position
facing east.
• Prominent people may have been buried with a
few items such as pots, or items they used in life.
Roy Smith Site
• From 1250 to 1450, people inhabited this
site in Beaver County along the Beaver
River in the semi-arid high plains region.
• Walls were built of stone.
• Cook rooms
• Articles found that indicated trade with
other plains and southwestern people.
Caddoan Mound Builders
• A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1500
• Spiro is one of the most important
Mississippian sites in North America.
Located in eastern Oklahoma, the site is
characterized by three types of mounds; one
burial mound, two temple mounds, and nine
house mounds; ceremonial plazas and
supporting city environs.
Spiro Mounds
• http://archaeology.about.com/gi/dynamic/of
fsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=archaeology&cdn=
education&tm=22&gps=51_26_1020_572&
f=00&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//ww
w.ou.edu/cas/archsur/counties/leflore.htm
Spiro Mounds
• http://archaeology.about.com/gi/dynamic/of
fsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=archaeology&cdn=
education&tm=50&gps=57_40_1020_572&
f=00&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//lith
iccastinglab.com/gallerypages/spirocraigmoundpage1.htm
Early Historic Buffalo Hunters
• A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1700
• After 1500, the climate in western
Oklahoma became too dry for farming, and
people turned to buffalo as their primary
subsistence.
• People lived in tipis to follow the buffalo.
• Horses did not reach Oklahoma until around
1700.
Early Buffalo Hunters
• Hunted the buffalo on foot
• Eastern Oklahoma had a wetter climate,
which farming easier, but
• Eastern OK farmers would make periodic
hunting trips to the west for buffalo, then
returned to their villages.
• Archaeologists have found many buffalo
bone tools from this period.
Formation of Modern Tribes
• Plains tribes had diversified enough to have
different customs, beliefs, and languages.
• Different tribes communicated with Plains
sign language.
• Plains Apache – Na-I-Sha
• Ancestors of modern Wichita (Ouasitas,
Taovayas, Tawakonis, Iscanis)
• Caddo
Sources
• Brooks, Robert L. and Claudette Marie
Gilbert. From Mounds to Mammoths: A
Field Guide to Oklahoma Pre-History. 2nd
ed. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2000.