American Indian Ways of Life: An Interpretation of the Archaeology of Illinois and Adjoining Areas

by Thorne Deuel

INTRODUCTION

This paper is primarily planned for the layman, the beginning student of prehistory and others interested in acquiring a general understanding of how primitive man lived during his successive occupations of Illinois and neighboring areas in the more important archaeological periods. Most of the archaeological data for the [chief] cultures or ways of life are given in references in the accompanying bibliography of technical publications selected as those from which (in the opinion of the writer) the information can be most easily gleaned.

The reconstructions given of the cultural features, where not those ordinarily inferred from archaeological findings, are based on a study of the practices commonly found among [primitive people] now, or until recently, living in the same [stage] or [substage]. These are tentative conclusions resulting from a study of fifty tribes in the [Self-Domestication] (pre-farming) stage and forty in the [Plant-Raising] substage. Because primitive tribes which are under pressure from [people] with advanced food-draft-animal agriculture or with machine industry or which are in a transitional condition between two adjacent stages are disorganized or drastically changing a formerly stabilized mode of life, great care has been exercised in drawing general conclusions from their cultural features.

The reconstructions of the perishable objects shown in the drawings are generally in keeping with the [culture] in which they are exhibited but cannot be vouched for as to their detailed form. The handle of an adze, the shape of a cabin roof, the headdress of a tribal [chief] each served the purpose for which they were made and their exact form was and is of no more consequence in the culture than the fashions in women’s hats or the fins on an automobile are in our own. The details in cultures serve to set them apart from each other; it is the basic and significant features and subfeatures that determine relationships and permit the most useful classification.

The study mentioned above is still incomplete, but results so far obtained indicate:

1. That man in the same [stage] (and [substage]) of cultural development tends to invent and employ the same broad social and spiritual features, regardless of surroundings.

2. That where significant differences arise between substages of the same [stage], they are (at least sometimes) linked with peculiarities of climate and/or natural resources which the [people] have seized upon and exploited to the improvement of their economic situation.

3. That many details within these broad types of economic, social and spiritual features appear to vary unpredictably within the range of available possibilities.

The [stage] and criterion for each were proposed in an earlier issue (No. 6) of this series, Man’s Venture In [Culture], (Deuel 1950, pp. 5-12) as:

1. Natural Man ([Protocultural]), when “man” presumably employed sticks and stones as implements and weapons.

2. [Self-Domestication], following the discovery of the principle of the conchoidal fracturing of [flint] and its control, and the invention of tool and weapon types.

3. Farming or Food-Raising, due to the discovery that grains (grasses) and food-draft animals could be bred and raised in captivity.

4. Inanimate Power Machine (Machine Age), after the discovery of the availability of water and wind as sources for energy and the adaptation of animal-driven machines to utilize them.

Man in the wild or [Protocultural] [stage] is thought not to have reached the Americas. The oxlike mammals were not domesticated in America for drawing ploughs and vehicles, turning grain mills or to serve as a continuous food supply source. Consequently, we are concerned in the following discussion only with peoples in the [Self-Domestication] stage and the [Plant-Raising] [substage] of Farming.

In ordinary language, the word “[culture]” is used in a diversity of senses. In these pages it is used in one of two ways, the one employed being readily understood from the context. In a general sense, culture means the significant beliefs, customary activities and social prohibitions that are peculiar to man (together with the man-made tools, weapons and other material objects that he finds or has found necessary) that modify, limit or enhance in some manner, most of his discernible natural activities due to and arising from his physical animal inheritance and organization. Culture in a specific sense refers to the significant cultural features of a group or [period] under consideration.

For convenience, any cultural activity according to its dominant purpose may be spoken of as belonging to one of three aspects of [culture], (a) economic (technological and intellectual); (b) social (and political); and (c) spiritual (religious, artistic and recreational). To lesser degrees, most cultural activities have relationships with the two aspects other than the dominant.

Certain prevalent archaeological designations have been changed to remove time implications (e.g. “early” and “late” [Woodland] to Initial [beginning] and Final [end of an archaeological series]), or to shorten (e.g. “Tennessee-Cumberland” or “Gordon-Fewkes” to [Cumberland]).

Technical terms have generally been avoided; but where it has seemed necessary to retain them or to use words in a special sense, they are explained in the text or can be found in the glossary. The terms [pattern] and [phase] are those generally employed in the McKern system of classification, for the larger groupings into which it is customary to place the “cultures” as determined from the typology of the [artifacts], their association in the [assemblage] and pertinent data recovered at a site (or local community) with due regard to circumstances of time and location of other sites nearby and over a larger area. The largest unit is the pattern which is made up of a number of phases. Cultural divisions smaller than these units are spoken of here as subcultures.

The approximate relationships of the archaeological units to the broader cultural stages and substages are given in Table I, [page 4]. The succession and coexistence of the archaeological units is indicated in the diagram “The Stream of [Culture]”, [p. 57]. The summary of “Characteristics of the Archaeological-Cultural Units” occurs on pages [70]-76.

This is a story mainly of Illinois when occupied by American Indians but it would not give a reasonably true picture without showing the known extensions of some of the cultures into surrounding areas and the probable intrusions from outside the state.

Of necessity in attempting a summary of the [archaeology] of Illinois and adjacent areas, the writer has had to lean heavily on the field work and reports of the many anthropologists who have contributed so much to the present understanding of the American Indian in the United States. To this invaluable source material and to these able scientists the indebtedness of the writer is acknowledged to be very great indeed. In the compass of a work of this type it is impossible to name them or give them credit for original or similar views, nor is it practicable to include in the bibliography all the publications used.

Acknowledgment of assistance is made especially to Georg K. Neumann, Joseph R. Caldwell and Melvin L. Fowler, Milton D. Thompson, Ruth Kerr, Nora Deuel and Orvetta Robinson for reading and discussing the manuscript from various viewpoints, to Dr. James B. Griffin for helpful information on the dates of sites and of archaeological data, to Irvin Peithmann, Southern Illinois University, for photographs furnished, for information on sites he had discovered and the privilege of visiting them in his company, to George Langford for photographs and data regarding the Fisher site, to Charles Hodge for all photographs reproduced not otherwise credited, and to Jerry Connolly, Bettye Broyles, Barbara Parmalee and Jeanne McCarty for their excellent drawings. Without all this considerable and valuable aid the publication could not have been completed.

TABLE II. RADIOCARBON DATES[1]

CULTURAL UNIT	C14 DATE	SITE	STATE	COUNTY
MIDDLE [MISSISSIPPI]	A.D. 1420±200	Crable Village	Illinois	Fulton
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI	1326±250	Nodena Village	Arkansas	Arkansas
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI	1156±200	Cahokia	Illinois	Madison
[EFFIGY MOUND][2]	1041±212	[Effigy] Mounds National Park	Iowa	Allamakee
HOPEWELLIAN	508±60	Twenhafel (Weber) Md.	Illinois	Jackson
HOPEWELLIAN	432±200	Rutherford [Mound]	Illinois	Hardin
HOPEWELLIAN	256±200	Knight Mound	Illinois	Calhoun
HOPEWELLIAN	214±250	Baehr Mound	Illinois	Brown
HOPEWELLIAN[2]	B.C. 48±160	Hopewellian Group Mound #25	Ohio	Ross
HOPEWELLIAN[3]	57±108	Wilson Mound	Illinois	White
HOPEWELLIAN	315±164	Havana Mound	Illinois	Mason
ADENA	423±150	Toepfner Mound #I	Ohio	Franklin
ADENA	697±170	Dover Mound	Kentucky	Mason
[ARCHAIC]	704±80	Poverty Point	Louisiana (N.E.)	W. Carroll Parish
ADENA	826±410	Toepfner Mound #II	Ohio	Franklin
ARCHAIC	904±90	Poverty Point	Louisiana (N.E.)	W. Carroll Parish
ARCHAIC	1624±300	Kays Landing	Tennessee	Humphrey
ARCHAIC[2]	2170±215	Indian Knoll	Kentucky	Ohio
ARCHAIC[2]	2360±270	Annis Mound	Kentucky	Butler
ARCHAIC	2765±300	[Modoc Rock Shelter]	Illinois	Randolph
ARCHAIC	2812±250	Perry Site	Alabama (N.W.)	Lauderdale
ARCHAIC	2950±250	Annis Shell Mound	Kentucky	Butler
ARCHAIC	3325±300	Modoc Rock Shelter	Illinois	Randolph
ARCHAIC	3352±300	Indian Knoll	Kentucky	Ohio
ARCHAIC	3646±400	Oconto Old Copper Site	Wisconsin (E.)	Oconto
ARCHAIC[2]	3657±164	Modoc Rock Shelter	Illinois	Randolph
ARCHAIC	5194±500	Eva Site	Tennessee	Benton
ARCHAIC	5556±400	Oconto Old Copper Site	Wisconsin (E.)	Oconto
ARCHAIC	5945±500	Graham Cave	Missouri	Montgomery
ARCHAIC	6204±300	Russell Cave	Alabama	Jackson
ARCHAIC[2]	6219±388	Modoc Rock Shelter	Illinois	Randolph
ARCHAIC	7310±352	Graham Cave	Missouri	Montgomery
ARCHAIC	7922±392	Modoc Rock Shelter	Illinois	Randolph
PALEO-INDIAN ([Folsom])[2]	7934±350	Lubbock Site	Texas (N.W.)	Lubbock
PALEO-INDIAN (Sandia)	18,000	Sandia Cave	New Mexico (Center)	Bernalillo
PALEO-INDIAN (?)	22,000	Tule Spring Site	Nevada (S.E.)	Clark
PALEO-INDIAN ([Clovis]?)[4]	35,000	Lewisville Site	Texas	Denton

[1]These dates are selected as giving a significant picture of sequence and contemporaneity of cultures. Dates based on shell specimens are excluded on account of their general unreliability. Adena sites are not included after 400 B.C. These are burial mounds and with their inferred customs may be present in two or more cultural units rather than constitute a feature characteristic of one.

[2]An average of at least two dates for this [period].

[3]Average of three out of four dates. Libby’s second date disregarded as widely out of line.

[4]Two samples gave identical results. Cultural identification as Clovis based on single spearhead is doubtful.

PALEO-INDIANS, BIG GAME HUNTERS, DISCOVER A NEW WORLD (50,000? to 8,000? B.C.)[5]

Man probably discovered America as early as 50,000 years ago and gradually occupied the two continents in the succeeding millenia. The first discoverers of the New World were of Mongolian racial stock as are the American Indians. They crossed from Siberia to Alaska over an existing land bridge, over ice, or possibly by wading or by boat over the shallow sea in the wake of mammoth, mastodon or musk ox herds on whose flesh they lived. Following in the path of the huge animals, they made their way possibly up the Yukon from its mouth to the divide, thence down into the Mackenzie Basin, and along a great river where now exist a chain of lakes and so into the [Mississippi] Valley.

The migrants trailing each herd doubtless traveled in their several ways in [family] groups, uniting from time to time to trap and kill one of the great shaggy beasts. When the animals stopped, the families bedded down nearby in the most sheltered spots available taking care not to lose touch with the herd. These were wanderers, not explorers, nor were they seeking new homes; they were hunters that traveled where the herd led.

Fig. 1. [Archaic] [flint] drill, [stone] hammer, and flint scraper as used in Archaic [period] and their modern steel counterparts. (B.B.)

Fig. 2. Paleo-Indians attack a mired-down mammoth. (B.G.P.)

Fig. 3. Paleo-Indian [spearheads] from the William Small collection. A, B, and C are [Clovis] points; D, a [Folsom] point. All are from Illinois.

Their belongings, by our standards, were pitifully few, their way of life laborious, full of hardship and danger, but their needs were simple and their means of meeting them doubtless seemed ample to these hardy hunters. The [chief] weapon was a thrusting spear with a chipped [flint] head and a long shaft to keep the hunter as far from harm’s way as possible when attacking the dangerous animal. The narrow width of the spearpoint made it easy to withdraw from a wound and attack again. Our evidence that the Paleo-Indians (as the Big Game Hunters are commonly called) lived in Illinois are these same [spearheads] ([Clovis] and [Folsom] types), usually grooved or fluted lengthwise of the blade, which are scattered over much of the Illinois prairie as isolated finds. No campsites of this [people] have yet been discovered in Illinois, as they have been in Pennsylvania, Alabama and several southwestern states. We can only surmise that in Illinois the hunters also had [stone] hammers and chipped flint scrapers as they had elsewhere.

Having arrived in the great central valley between the Rocky Mountains and the eastern ranges, the herds probably moved slowly from one browsing ground to another in the open corridor between glaciers. It may have taken them many years to reach what is now the United States. Eventually the herds wandered back and forth across the [Mississippi] Valley, and some favorable spots came to be used as camping grounds again and again by the same or different families. Such places would appeal immediately to the campers because of their protection from rain and the piercing glacial winds, the presence of a plentiful supply of wood and water. The possibility of our gaining a better knowledge of Paleo-Indian life in Illinois rests on the discovery of such a site, difficult now to recognize because it may no longer provide wood, water, or shelter of any sort.

There are in southern Illinois a number of simple linear [stone] piles known locally as “stone forts,” all in the same type of land structure. Each forms an obstruction five to fifteen feet in height across a narrow neck or ridge leading to the plateau top of a near-vertical-sided “promontory” projecting out into a stream valley, making an excellent corral, with no fence necessary except across the entrance. They may have been used in late Paleo-Indian times and on into the [Archaic] [period] for impounding large game and/or driving them over the cliff.

[ARCHAIC] MAN, FIRST SETTLER IN ILLINOIS (8000 to 2500 B.C.)[6]

We have reason to believe that the Big Game Hunters wandered over Illinois and the adjoining states during the last advance of the glaciers. Around 12,000 B.C. the climate in the Midwest became milder, the glaciers “retreated,” and the mighty torrents—the [Mississippi], the Ohio and the Illinois that had torn irresistibly down their valleys—shrank into smaller, less turbulent rivers that occupied but a fraction of their former beds. The great shaggy mammoths, musk oxen, the ground sloths and the giant beavers moved westward toward the mountains or to the north.

Some of the Big Game Hunters with their families may have followed the retreating glacier and the herds; others stayed behind in country to which they had grown attached. With the great herds gone, the human families remaining in Illinois had to hunt the game animals that now frequented the area—deer, elk (wapiti), bear and smaller mammals. The large hunting party was no longer practicable. The game roamed over the country singly or by twos or threes and had to be stalked by one or two hunters. Families were compelled to live widely separated one from another in order to secure ample food throughout the year. Thus developed a new way of life which we call the [Archaic] [phase] or [culture].

The hunter, as time passed, learned the secret habits of the deer, bear and raccoon and the more sluggish fishes. His wife and daughters learned the haunts and ways of the smaller animals, the rodents, turtles and lizards, discovered where edible greens, wild tubers, nuts and fruits grew and where mussels and snails abounded in creeks and rivers. With increasing knowledge [Archaic] man made better and fuller use of his changed and changing surroundings, food became more plentifully available, life easier and less hazardous though still very difficult from our standpoint.

Fig. 4. Hafted primitive [stone] adze and grooved [ax], with modern steel-bitted ax in the background. (B.B.)

With new needs and some leisure from the labor of providing food, [Archaic] man invented specialized devices, new methods of making tools and weapons, the more skillful among them shaping the objects carefully into symmetrical forms pleasing to the eye of others and strangely satisfying to the maker.[7] He pecked a hollow in both sides of his cobblestone hammer so he could grip it securely and use it more skillfully. He pecked and ground diorite and granite into adzes, hatchets (celts), and axes with a groove for hafting. These were a decided improvement over flaked choppers. He ground and polished banded and highly-colored shale (“slate”) into prismatic and cylindrical spearthrower weights and bored them with a tube, sand and water. His own person he decked out with necklaces and oval pendants (made by boring a hole in smooth flat waterworn pebbles) and with bone ornaments cut to shape, ground, engraved and polished. These he and his wife wore as had their forefathers but not the skin robes of glacial times.

As life grew easier, the [family] or local group increased in size. Sons brought their wives to the family dwelling place and built windbreaks near those of their parents. With food abundant the little settlement became a small cluster of households or a [hamlet] consisting possibly of sixty to seventy persons.

If [Archaic] Man Was Like Present-Day Archaic Tribes[8]

Fig. 5. [Rock shelter] near Cobden. Such shelters were used by [Archaic] and succeeding peoples. (Photograph by Irvin Peithmann)

If [Archaic] man in Illinois lived as do present-day Archaic peoples, the [family] or local group, though they restricted themselves during most of the year to their hunting grounds which they guarded jealously from trespassers, did not camp continuously in one spot. At appropriate seasons of the year they rotated from one [hamlet] site to another to take advantage of the food resources of that locality. In winter perhaps they moved to a [rock shelter], like that of Modoc in Randolph County, Illinois, near the wooded valleys of streams emptying into the river where deer and elk sought protection from the rigors of winter; in spring to upland lakes for duck and other waterfowl; and in autumn to wooded parklands to harvest acorns, hickory nuts, and berries. The spot chosen for each hamlet location was generally one that had been so used at that same season from time out of mind by the family and its forebears.

Fig. 6. Primitive woman carrying a load with the aid of a [tumpline]. (J.C.)

It is probable, as among most primitive peoples, that men did only work thought suitable to men, and women that appropriate for women. Men made the weapons and tools they used, did the hunting and fishing, and the fighting (when quarrels developed into feuds or wars between local groups of the same tribe). The rest of the labor fell to the women—caring for the children, collecting edible plants, clams and small animals, preparing the food, and carrying burdens. All work was done by hand; loads were carried on the back. It is possible that boats, perhaps of [dugout] type, were used as among present-day [Archaic] peoples living on waterways. There was no other [specialization] and each “[household]” provided for the needs of all its members to the best of its ability. No food was grown and no domestic animal except the dog was known.

Once or twice a year when food was easily and bountifully available, local groups from nearby hunting territories met together for religious rites. These local groups spoke the same dialect, had the same way of life, and considered themselves a unit or tribe. They had no political form of government but were kept in order through habits formed by early training and by extension of the kinship system to the whole tribe. Thus the tribal elders were considered fathers and mothers, and to them were due obedience and respect, just as children they had been taught to regard their own blood fathers, uncles, and other older relatives. The elders knew the tribal customs; and to be accepted as a tribal member, boys must respect, learn and conform to these customs.

The object of these annual gatherings was to teach the young the tribal customs and to perform solemn ceremonies, the purpose of which was to insure the security and well-being of the tribe, a continuing abundance of the favorite foods, and to express gratitude and thanksgiving to unseen Spirits who watched over the game animals (and possibly the edible plants) for the blessings received during the past year. These gatherings and cooperative undertakings served, on the one hand, as a welcome change from the usual daily grind and afforded opportunities for the young to get acquainted and choose mates and, on the other, to unify the language and customs of the constituent local groups, to enhance the influence of the tribal elders and keep fresh in the minds of all the history of the tribe, the importance of its activities, and its [sacred tradition], all essential to the way of life of dynamic [Archaic] peoples of recent times.

Fig. 7. [Fertility rites] were probably performed by [Archaic] peoples to ensure the abundance of game animals for the next year. (J.C.)

Fig. 8. [Archaic] weapons: A, Hidden Valley type spearhead; B, prismatic atlatl weight of polished red shale; C, throwing a spear with an atlatl; D, socketed antler spearhead; E, short thrusting spear or javelin. A, B, and D are from Modoc Shelter in Randolph County, Illinois.

In the later (Medial) [Archaic] [period] at Modoc, the dead were buried in the floor of the [rock shelter]. Burial probably indicates a belief in life after death. Care in preparing the body for burial, in the funeral rites and burying, and in the customary mourning thereafter was highly important so the dead man could go promptly to the spirit world in peace and not remain in the neighborhood to disturb his kinsmen. Immediately after the burial, it is probable that the little settlement removed to a distant location as is customary with peoples in this [stage] of [culture].

The rites for important dead in the Terminal [period] probably began with the conventional mourning of relatives, with painting the body with red ochre and grease and adorning it with the dead man’s [jewelry], followed at the appropriate time by the conveyance of the body to the grave side, where the corpse was deposited in a pit together with personal [insigne] and weapons. The grooved [stone] axe, large [spearheads], daggers, bannerstones, [spearthrower] with weight and more rarely copper articles were placed alongside or on the corpse. In some instances large stones were laid upon the grave probably for one or more of the following reasons: (a) to mark the grave of an important tribesman; (b) to keep the body from being disturbed by animals; and (c) to hold the dead man’s ghost until he departed for the spirit world.

Fig. 9. Grooved [stone] axes are frequently found in [Archaic] graves but were not buried with the dead after this [period]. (J.C.)

It is very probable that, on occasions of social and religious import, Modoc man and other [Archaic] tribes in Illinois bedecked themselves in their best paint and [jewelry]. Possibly the colorful and intriguing bannerstones, which were undoubtedly developed from the [spearthrower] weight, were carried or worn by the local group headmen who had won that right because they were skillful hunters, courageous fighters, or learned in the tribal customs and beliefs and thus recognized by the tribe as leaders for the time being.

Fig. 10. Anculosa shell necklace with flat pendant of water-worn [stone] from the [Archaic] [period]. Anculosa necklaces were worn by many Illinois peoples probably up to the European contact period.