The FIRST NORTH AMERICANS an Archaeological Journey with I Go Illustrations, 26 in Color

BRIAN FAGAN

SUB Hamburg

A/553852 The FIRST NORTH AMERICANS An Archaeological Journey With i go illustrations, 26 in color

Thames & Hudson Contents

Preface 7

Chronological Table 10

Part I FOUNDATIONS

1 The Earliest Americans 13

Chronological table 12 Ultimate origins: genetics, teeth, and languages 14 The pre-Clovis question 18 Beringia and a tale of microblades2i Moving south 26 The world of Clovis 26 Mass extinctions 30

2 After Clovis 33

Hell Gap 33 Bison hunting on the Plains 35 The western interior 37 The Eastern Woodlands 43 Restricted mobility 47 The issue of sedentism 48 Burials and the lands of the ancestors 52

3 The Far North: West to East 55

Chronological table 54 The Paleoarctic tradition 55 Coastal adaptations: Ocean Bay and Kachemak 57 The Aleutian tradition 59 The Arctic Small Tool tradition 62 First settlement of the eastern Arctic 64

4 Foraging the West Coast 71

Chronological table 70 A diverse coastal world 71 Early settlement of the Northwest Coast 73 The Northwest: salmon, food surpluses, and exchange 74 South of the Klamath River 78

5 Before the Pueblos 93

Archaic societies 93 Maize comes to the Southwest 95 The beginnings of village life 102 Fremont farmers in the Great Basin 107

6 People of the Plains 111

Chronological table no The Plains Archaic 113 Bison jumps 114 Protohistoric times 117 Village farmers on the Plains 119

7 The Eastern Woodlands: Nuts, Native Plants, and Earthworks 127

A container revolution 127 Cultivating native plants 128 Late Archaic societies 130 Exchange and interaction 134 Cemeteries and burial mounds 137 Poverty Point 138 Part II APOGEE

8 The Far North: Norton, Dorset, and Thule 142

The Norton tradition 142 The Thule tradition in the west 143 The Dorset tradition of the eastern Arctic 147 Thule expansion in the eastern Arctic 152 Classic Thule 155 Post-Classic Thule 157

9 The West Coast: Not a Garden of Eden 158

The Late Period Northwest Coast 158 Links to historic peoples 159 The interior plateau 162 The California coast 165 The Medieval Warm Period 166 Northern and central California 167 Southern California coast 169

10 The Southwest: Villages and Pueblos 175

Chaco Canyon 176 Hohokam: the desert irrigators 181 Mesa Verde 193 Katcinas and warriors 198 Paquime (Casas Grandes) 200

11 The Eastern Woodlands: Moundbuilders 203

Chronological table 202 Burial mounds and the Adena complex 203 Hopewell2o8 Earthworks and cosmos 212 The Hopewell decline and effigy mounds 218

12 The Mississippian: Eastern Woodlands Climax 220

A triad of cults 221 Subsistence and exchange 223 Cahokia: a great chiefdom 225 Moundville 228 What were these complex chiefdoms? 231 Fertility and duality 231 European contact 233

13 The Northeast: Algonquians and Iroquoians 234

Algonquian and Iroquoian 234 Terminal Archaic 235 Woodland societies 236 Northern Iroquoian origins: Early Iroquoian 237 Middle Iroquoian 240 To European contact and beyond 245

14 Epilogue 250

The holocaust of disease 250 Furs and wampum 251 The Spanish borderlands 253