Chapter Four The Rise of Townlife, 1,100 to 500 Years Ago 1,100 to 500 1,000 years years before present before present A.D. 1300 A.D. 1492 |||| Late Woodland Crop cultivation Settled towns European Phase in Chesapeake in Chesapeake contact region region AN ECOLOGY OF PLACE blue crabs, bay barnacles, and freshwa- SIGNIFICANT AND PEOPLE ter grass shrimps–are also considered zooplankton. Plankton provide food for EVENTS other Bay creatures such as bottom ▫ Ⅺ 1,000 years before PLACE dwelling common clam worms and present–corn, squash, beans, and tobacco By the beginning of what archeologists American oysters. These and other inver- become important call Late Woodland times, by 1,100 years tebrates spend most of their lives in the cultivated crops in the deeper benthic waters of the Bay. Fish region and bow and ago, diverse ecosystems had developed arrow introduced in the Chesapeake region (see Map 5). At such as Atlantic menhaden feed on ▫ 1300 AD–people begin the region’s center stood the Bay, which these and other organisms. In turn, those building settled towns by then was filled out into its present fish become food for larger fish, such as and Potomac Creek spot, American shad, and striped bass. culture, ancestors of form. Its waters were wide, shallow, calm, the Piscataways, move and clear. The Bay supported a vast and More than two hundred different fish into lower Potomac Valley complex food chain. Just as it does now, species are believed to have lived in Bay the base of this food chain consisted of ▫ 1492 and 1497– Euro- waters during Late Woodland times. peans first discover the floating microscopic aquatic plants Each species favored particular Bay envi- Caribbean and Canada, called phytoplankton and tiny animals ronments and conditions at various respectively called zooplankton. All plankton are times of its life. Only thirty-two of these highly sensitive to seasonal changes in species lived their entire lives in Bay light, temperature, and water quality. One waters. Most others were migratory fish, drop of water can contain thousands of spending part of their lives in freshwater plankton. They can live either alone or in and part in saltwater. Anadromous groups. Under certain conditions, for species, such as American shad, example, masses of phytoplankton can appeared each spring to spawn in fresh- gather to form large mats that float on water reaches of Bay tributaries. the surface of Bay waters. Catadromous species, such as American The Bay’s zooplankon range in size from eels, migrated down freshwater rivers to tiny single-celled protozoa to larger breed in the open ocean. The remains of groups of cooperative, specialized cells. these fish and all others that died in the Life forms such as sea nettles and other Bay were eaten by scavengers, such as jellyfish are actually communities of blue crab and horseshoe crab. interdependent zooplankton cells. Tiny As for plants, meadows of salt marsh immature organisms–such as larvae of cordgrass and other salt tolerant plants An Ecology of Place and People 39 Map 5: The Rise of Townlife, 1,100 to 500 Years Ago KEY LOCALES District of Columbia Virginia Nacochtank Bluefish Beach Boathouse Pond Maryland Bull Hill Run Upper Bare Island Rockshelter Accokeek Creek Slackwater Camden Blue Rock/Nace Chicone Ferncliff Wildlife and DeShazo Schultz-Funk Wildflower Preserve S Murry Conowingo us qu Shenks Ferry Flowerdew Hundred eh an Gilpin's Cumberland n Governor’s Land a Falls R Conowingo Duck’s Run iv Great Neck er Hughes Hatch Juhle er v Jordan’s Point n i i a R Lankford t Long Green Creek n Rosenstock r Little Marsh Creek u and Sweathouse Branch e v o Natural Area i Locust Neck y R M r Potomac Creek c P te h a s t a e Catoctin Ridge c t h u C Posey/Indian Head o a o p n sc Taft S o o Riv er r Ritter M e v White Oak Point Harper's Ferry Gap i Rosenstock Kent R Sugar Loaf Island k Mountain n Thomas a Shepard Waveland t Shepard p Farm o h Wessel er Solomons Duck's C Winslow iv Run Stearns Hughes Manassas Gap Potomac RiverNacochtank ke R in a P Thomas t tico n a n u t a o u N x Waveland Farm M Thorofare Belt Woods e n Gap n u t Locust Neck Wessel R R l l i Chicone u Taft v r e B Battle Creek Winslow e r v Lankford i Thornton Gap Accokeek Cypress Swamp R Creek NHL h Calvert a Little Marsh iver Pennsylvania o Cliffs d Creek Cumberland n Preserve a s oke R Blue Rock/Nace n n Stearns Solomons e i a h t S n R Posey/Indian Head ocom P Murry u a Juhle o p p Potomac Creek M a Schultz-Funk h e annock g DeShazo Caledon d R i Potomac Ri R i State Park ver Shenks Ferry R a ver pi e r e da Ri v White Oak u n Slackwater l Point B Smith Island Upper Bare Island Montpelier Boathouse Pond Rockshelter Forest Camden NHL Rappahannock BluefishR Beach Tangier Island M C at ta iver h po ni e R s iv e a Virginia Rockfish Gap P r a p Coast mu n e ke Reserve y R a ive k r e s B n Jame i s River ta n a u o y M Yo e rk g Flowerdew R id i Cape iver Hundred v e r R Charles e lu B Governor's attox R Bull Hill Run Hatch Land James River Gap J am Jordan's e Cape ppom Point s A Riv Henry er Seashore Great Neck Charles Natural Area C. Steirly Natural Area Great Dismal Swamp LEGEND Archeological Site © National Natural Landmark ■ Natural or Cultural Feature National Historic Landmark Bay Plain 0 5 10 25 50 miles Piedmont 0 5 10 40 80 kilometers North 40 CHAPTER FOUR: THE RISE OF TOWNLIFE flourished in tidal marshes bordering dered hawks, turkey vultures, bald Chesapeake Bay waters. Nourished by eagles, barred owls, and others–lived rich sediments, these few species grew there too. Bald eagles, for example, abundantly, molested by few natural avidly hunted waterfowl and fish in the predators, and provided shelter and sus- Bay and its tributaries. Turkey vultures, in tenance for many of the region’s animals. contrast, feasted on the corpses of all dead animals. Birds too flourished in the Bay. Bay marshes were important feeding and Passenger pigeons, other dove-like birds, breeding areas for waterfowl. Several and a wide variety of songbirds and species of ducks, geese, and swans other seed, berry, or insect-eating species feasted on aquatic vegetation and over- also made their homes in Coastal Plain wintered on the Bay. Sea ducks and and Piedmont forests. Current estimates other birds that lived mainly on open suggest that over three hundred distinct waters fed on clams, blue crabs, mud species and subspecies of birds, includ- crabs, crayfish, fin-fish, insects, and ing over thirty-seven species of water- aquatic plants. fowl, lived in or passed across the Chesapeake region during this period. The Bay saw a lot of bird traffic, as it stood at the center of what is now called Birds were not the only animals filling the Atlantic Flyway. On their fall flights Chesapeake Bay skies. Clouds of salt south, large flocks of waterfowl stopped marsh mosquitoes and salt marsh green- in the Bay to rest. Surface-feeding or dab- head flies rose over tidal marshes during bling ducks, such as American coots and warmer months. Farther inland, many lesser scaups, began arriving in August. kinds of worms, beetles, and other Migratory flocks of black ducks, brants, insects fed on plants, carrion, and living canvasbacks, mallards, wood ducks, and flesh. Fleas, lice, deer flies, midges, mos- other larger dabblers first began arriving quitoes, and other small biting insects in early September and crowded into made meals of animal blood. Bees, but- Bay waters between early October and terflies, and flies pollinated flowering the middle of November. Snow and plants. And in the mixed oak, maple, Canada geese, diving ducks such as dou- and pine forests that bordered Coastal ble-crested cormorants and hooded mer- Plain marshes and Piedmont hydrosere gansers, and a variety of other waterfowl wetlands, insects were the most numer- also arrived during these months. Some ous of the many animals that made their stayed for many weeks; others continued homes there. on after only a brief stop in the Bay. A variety of southern mixed hardwood Few migratory birds of any type could be forests grew within the Coastal Plain. found on Chesapeake Bay waterways Most were mature forests of old adult between late February and April. In the trees dominated by ancient giants hun- spring, the birds came back in the same dreds of years old and hundreds of feet order and on the same routes, migrating high. Assessing the effects of more than north to breeding grounds that for most four hundred years of logging, scientists were in Canada. currently estimate that the mature forests of the Late Woodland era stood as much Bottomland and flood plain forests in as fifty feet higher than those living in the both the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont region today. The tops of these trees also became key habitats for many bird tended to grow together into vast species, and forested uplands and wet- canopies, which prevented the sunlight lands provided nesting and resting spots from reaching and sustaining other for neotropical migratory birds that bred plants below.