Early Woodland - 3,200 to 2,390 BP
If one uses the traditional definition of pottery introduction being equated with a Woodland tradition, then the earliest Woodland sites would be those found along the South Atlantic coast that have produced fiber-tempered pottery dating as early as 5,000 years ago (4,500 rcbp). However, these sites are essentially Late Archaic seasonally occupied coastal base camps with a material cultural assemblage equivalent to that found on Archaic sites, and differentiated only by the addition of fiber-tempered pottery.
Researchers in the Southeast are attempting to define the beginnings of the Woodland period using not only the appearance of pottery but evidence of permanent settlements, intensive collection and/or horticulture of starchy seed plants, differentiation in social organization, and specialized activities, to name just a few topics of special interest. Most of these cultural aspects are clearly in place in parts of the Southeast by around 3,200 years ago (3,000 rcbp). The time period between about 5,000 and 3,200 years ago (4,500 and 3,000 rcbp) should be considered a period of gradual transition from the Archaic to the Woodland.
Beginning around 5,000 years ago (4,500 rcbp), the Stallings Island culture established itself as a Late Archaic shellfish-collecting society that utilized the riverine and coastal environments, probably on a seasonal basis, leaving evidence of their occupation in the form of large shell middens. This cultural group used an Archaic material culture, but also created the first ceramics known in the United States. Called Stallings Island, these ceramics were named after a major shell midden site on an island in the Savannah River near Augusta, Georgia.
The Stallings Island ceramics generally contained Spanish moss as a tempering agent, and the forms consisted of simple shallow bowls and large, wide-mouthed bowls, as well as deeper jar forms. Most ceramics were plain, although some with punctated surface decoration were found. Stallings Island pottery dates from about 5,000 to 3,200 years ago (4,500 to 3,000 rcbp), and ceramic finds range from the Tar River drainage in North Carolina, southward to northwest Florida. Contemporary with Stallings Island pottery along the South Atlantic coast are other fiber-tempered wares, such as Orangeware from sites in northeast Florida and southeast coastal Georgia (3,500 to 2,600 years ago, or 3,200 to 2,500 rcbp). Orange period sites have been located at Canaveral National Seashore, Fort Matanzas National Monument, and Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. An unusual type of settlement pattern associated with fiber-tempered wares and found in this area are "shell rings." Nearly three dozen of these ring-shaped settlements have been identified as representative of permanent, stable village life by about 4,000 years ago (3,600 rcbp).
By 3,200 years ago (3,000 rcbp fiber-tempered ceramic technology appears to have spread throughout much of the Deep South from the South Atlantic coast to the Okeechobee Basin area of South Florida. During the early Gulf Formational period 4,500 to 3,200 years ago (around 4,000 to 3,000 rcbp) of Alabama, middle Tennessee, and eastern Mississippi, fiber-tempered ceramic technology was acquired as a by-product of trade between the Stallings Island and Orange cultures of the South Atlantic coast and the Poverty Point culture of the lower Mississippi River Valley. It was during the Gulf Formational period that fiber-tempered ceramics were replaced first by plain, then by fabric-impressed, and, later, by cord-marked sand-tempered Alexander ceramics. Poverty Point sites in Louisiana and western Mississippi exhibit the first major residential settlements and monumental earthworks in the United States. Although the Poverty Point culture is not well understood in terms of social organization, it was involved in the transportation of nonlocal raw materials (for example, shell, stone, and copper) from throughout the eastern United States into the lower Mississippi River Valley to selected sites where the materials were worked into finished products and then traded. While specific information on Poverty Point subsistence, trade mechanisms, and other cultural aspects is still speculative, the sites nevertheless exhibit specific material culture, such as baked clay objects, magnetite plummets, steatite bowls, red-jasper lapidary work, fiber-tempered pottery, and microlithic stone tools.
In Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, fiber-tempered pottery from the 5,200 to 3,200 years ago (4,500 to 3,000 rcbp) period is not usually found. This area appears to have functioned as a transitional cultural area through which ceramic influences from the Ohio River Valley and the Middle Atlantic were introduced into the Deep South. For example, northern-inspired grit-tempered plain, fabric-impressed, and cord-marked Early Woodland pottery first appeared in central and eastern Kentucky around 3,200 to 2,600 years ago (3,000 to 2,800 rcbp), and, by the end of the Early Woodland period 2,600 years ago (2800 to 2500 rcbp), it had replaced fiber-tempered wares throughout the Southeast.
With the introduction of these northern-type ceramics came isolated mortuary sites with grave offerings. Some of the best examples of earthen enclosures and burial mounds dating to the Early Woodland Adena complex 2600 years ago (circa 2500 rcbp) were identified in the Ohio River Valley of Kentucky. Early Woodland projectile-point styles from Kentucky include Kramer, Wade, Gary, and Adena. These new ceramics later appeared in the mountains of western North Carolina during the Swannanoa period 2,600 to 2,390 years ago (2,700 to 2,300 rcbp).
Although plant domestication occurred sporadically in the Late Archaic, even possibly as early as the terminal Middle Archaic, generalized plant domestication, or horticulture, appears in Kentucky throughout the Early Woodland with intensive collecting of starchy seeds and tubers. These appear to have included sunflower, maygrass, sumpweed, giant ragweed, and knotweed.
As already noted, the Early Woodland of central Tennessee, interior Mississippi, and Alabama, began with the introduction of fiber-tempered ceramics in the Gulf Formational period from the South Atlantic coast Stallings Island and Orange cultures. By the mid-Early Woodland period, Gulf Formational cultures developed their own fiber-tempered pottery styles, such as Wheeler, which was in turn replaced by the sand-tempered Alexander series. This area also participated in long-range exchanges with other areas of the Deep South in steatite, sandstone, Tallahatta quartzite, and ceramics.
Eastern North Carolina, during the Early Woodland period 3,200 to 2,390 years ago (3,000 to 2,300 rcbp), exhibits both Southeast and Middle Atlantic influences called New River and Deep Creek, respectively. The Early Woodland New River, found south of the Neuse River, appears to be a continuation of the Stallings Island, Thom's Creek, and Deptford cultures from Georgia and South Carolina. Meanwhile, north of the Neuse River, the Early Woodland Deep Creek culture produced Marcey Creek plain and cord-marked ceramics much like those from Virginia.
The Early Woodland Deptford ceramics appear to have developed in Georgia 2,600 years ago (circa 2800 rcbp) out of the Early Woodland Refuge phase (3,200 to 2,600 years ago, or 3,000 to 2,500 rcbp) and spread north into the Carolinas and south into Florida. Deptford ceramics continued to be made and found on Middle Woodland sites in the Southeast up through about 1400 years ago. Subsistence for the coast and coastal plains of Georgia and the Carolinas appears to have followed a transhumant (or seasonal) pattern of winter shellfish camps on the coast, then inland occupation during the spring and summer for deer hunting, and fall for nut gathering.
In northern Georgia the appearance of Dunlap fabric-marked ceramics 3,200 years ago (circa 3,000 rcbp) marks the beginning of the Early Woodland Kellogg focus. These types of ceramics are replaced by Middle Woodland ceramics (Cartersville plain, checked, and simple stamped) after about 2,390 years ago (2,300 rcbp).
By around 2,600 years ago (2,500 rcbp), the Poverty Point culture was replaced by the Tchula/Tchefuncte Early Woodland culture, which existed in western Tennessee, Louisiana, southern Arkansas, western Mississippi, and coastal Alabama. The sites of this lower Mississippi River Valley culture were small village settlements. Subsistence continued to consist of intensive collecting of wild plants and animals, as with the preceding Poverty Point culture, but for the first time quantities of pottery were produced. There appears to be a de-emphasis on long-distance trade and manufacture of lithic artwork noted in the earlier Poverty Point culture. The Tchula/Tchefuncte Early Woodland culture appears to have coexisted with some Middle Woodland cultures in the lower Mississippi River Valley.
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