Mississippian Period (1000 to 1520 AD): The Mississippian Period is characterized by peoples who practiced maize agriculture, lived in chiefdoms, had populous villages and zones of dispersed housing, and constructed earthen mounds in some of their villages. Mound building flourished and the first coastal shell middens and rings were constructed.
A Woodland Period assemblage would include textile marked, check and complicated stamped pottery and triangular points. Pottery technology improved allowing containers to be made in a variety of shapes and sizes for cooking, storing and serving food. Woodland Period (3,000 BC to 1000 AD): The Woodland Period is characterized by increasing horticultural expertise, use of ceramics, and increasing sedentism and social complexity, when compared to the previous Archaic period. In South Carolina, an example of an Archaic Period site is the Spanish Sea Pines Mount.
During this period, the first inland shell middens were constructed and long-distance trade was established. Important Archaic cultural developments included the use of notched and stemmed projectile points, the atlatl, containers of stone and pottery, and ground and polished stone artifacts. This period is characterized as a mobile gathering-and-hunting life and a mostly egalitarian social organization. In South Carolina, an example of early Paleoindian site is the Allendale Paleoindian Site (Topper site).Īrchaic Period (8,000 to 3,000 BC): The Archaic Period begins as the environments changed to resemble modern environments. Early evidence of these peoples includes “Clovis” points, which are long, fluted chipped stone projectile points. Hunting-and-gathering peoples tend to live in social groups that consisted of between 20 to 60 people, were relatively non-hierarchical and politically egalitarian. People during this period were nomadic hunter-gatherers who subsisted on foods obtained from the wilds, from foraging and hunting species that are not domesticated. Paleoindian Period (12,000 to 8,000 BC): The Paleoindian Period refers to the time period when people migrated to the North American continent. Although somewhat controversial, evidence is mounting that humans occupied the Americas earlier than previously thought. Pre-Paleoindian Period (17,000-12,000 BC): The Pre-Paleoindian Period refers to Native American occupations of the New World that date to the time before Paleoidian or Clovis. These time periods often overlap and archaeologists frequently further divide these cultural periods for more a defined understanding of culture change. A cultural period is a length of time defined by having similar features or conditions in South Carolina these are commonly defined as including the Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Therefore, in order to interpret archaeological sites and artifacts, archaeologists and anthropologists identify basic shifts in culture, social organization, and subsistence methods in Native American life. Native American lifeways differ regionally based on the environment, access to resources and cultural traditions.
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