Lost in Time

<v host>It was cold, bitter cold when they came across. <v host>Before they came here, they wondered for centuries. <v host>Today we know them as centuries hence we shall be known. <v host>Not so much by heroic deeds or grand gestures. <v host>But mostly by the little things that are lost or left behind. [music] Who <v host>were these people? <v host>Why did they come here? <v host>Where did they go?

<v host>How did they live and die? [music] <v host>The saga begins in the midst of an Ice Age, perhaps 40,000 <v host>years ago. For centuries, massive glaciers had pushed southward <v host>from the Arctic, burying half a continent. <v host>So much of the Earth's oceans were trapped in the ice that the sea levels <v host>dropped and the icy Arctic waters separating America from Asia <v host>drew back, exposing a land called Berengia. <v host>The oceans receded, a broad,

<v host>plain merge and rich soil gave birth to a variety of life. <v host>Herd animals grazed the tough grasses of this arctic tundra, mammoth <v host>and musk ox, elk and caribou. <v host>They were, of course, followed by their natural predators, wolves, lions, bears and man. <v host>Hundreds <v host>of miles of glacial ice blocked passage to the south. <v host>But at least twice during the thousands of years that were the Ice Ages, <v host>the ebb and flow of the glaciers opened both Berengia and the <v host>ice free route south. <v host>When Beringia laid dry the corridor to the South lay open. <v host>Man begin his trek through the ice. <v host>Pursuing the migrating birds from the grasslands near the Arctic Circle,

<v host>up into northern pine forests and on to the high plains of the Missouri <v host>Valley, man's nomadic wanderings eventually led him to <v host>the woodlands of the Southeast. <v host>It was a migration measured in millennia which brought these ancient <v host>hunters to the Tennessee Valley of northern Alabama. <v host>At least twelve thousand years ago. <v host>[music] [heavy breathing] Where <v host>there once stood a living man. <v host>We have only a fire cracked rock, a stone tool, a charred <v host>bone, few tangible remnants of these ancient people survive.

<v host>Most of what was theirs, baskets and skins, cordage and sinew traps <v host>and snares have long since disappeared, decayed before the onslaught <v host>of time. <v host>Only the stone tools remain to unschooled eyes. <v host>These implements may seem nothing more than formless bits of broken rock. <v host>In fact, their shapes are quite intentional and utilitarian, <v host>and their variety and efficiency are remarkable. <v host>There are scrapers, knives, gravers and drills, <v host>chisels and choppers. <v host>And there are the points given names like Clovis, Redstone, <v host>Cumberland and Quad after the sites where they were first discovered. <v host>Each of these beautifully crafted pieces of weaponry is tangible <v host>evidence of man's presence at least 12,000 years

<v host>ago. [music] It was the timewhen mammoth and mastadon, giant <v host>sloths and bison, saber tooth cats and even camels <v host>roamed the forests and grasslands of the South, and men hunted <v host>these beasts, the largest mammals ever to walk the earth. <v host>[sound of rock breaking] To <v host>disable and kill his prey, the ancient hunter used a heavy stoned <v host>tipped spear, which he held and thrust or threw over <v host>short distances. To make the point man worked chert, <v host>a native stone which breaks and fractures like thick glass. <v host>Once a rough shape, a pre-form has been struck from a larger piece of stone.

<v host>It is percussion play. <v host>Striking this pre-form with a baton, the bone or antler, large <v host>flakes of stone are removed, and the point given a definite shape. <v host>The point is finished by pressure flaking, pushing a fine tip bone <v host>tool, against the stone, to remove small flakes and sharpen <v host>the edge. <v host>When this point is hefted, bound tightly to a spear shaft, <v host>it becomes a lethal weapon. [nature noises] [music] <v Speaker>Both the weapons and the society.

<v Speaker>These ancient hunters were efficiently equipped for survival. <v Speaker>They traveled light carrying little beyond the most essential tools and weapons, <v Speaker>built no permanent structures and kept their band small, usually <v Speaker>30 or so family members. <v Speaker>So there a few mouths to feed and few people to move. <v Speaker>These nomads had mastered the subtle signs and cycles of plants and animals. <v Speaker>They knew the time and place of spawning runs, the paths of herd movements <v Speaker>and the location of the richest natural harvests. <v Speaker>In the Southeast, these hunters migrated through the Tennessee River Valley. <v Speaker>Then, as now, the bottomland was rich and fertile. <v Speaker>Plant food was abundant and game trails criss crossed the forest, <v Speaker>stopping its springs, sinkholes and small oxbow. <v Speaker>On the ridges overlooking these spots where he could command the approaches, watching <v Speaker>for danger and waiting for prey.

<v Speaker>Men make. <v Speaker>We don't know a great deal about the paleo Indians. <v Speaker>We've got archaeological sites, stone artifacts, but the bulk of <v Speaker>their material culture, the calf bone and ivory wooden tools, basketry, <v Speaker>all of these have been lost for thousands of years. <v Speaker>How then can archaeologists say anything positive about these people? <v Speaker>Well, for one thing, we know the paleo Indians were hunters and gatherers. <v Speaker>Therefore, we can study the life ways of modern hunters and gatherers, the Bushmen of the <v Speaker>Kalahari or the Eskimo from these people. <v Speaker>We can make analogies from these analogies. <v Speaker>We can create models, models which help archaeologists to understand or at least to <v Speaker>explain the ways in which the paleo Indian should have lived. <v Speaker>As a result of this, we can say very positively that they lived in small bands, <v Speaker>that they followed the herds. We can even make suggestions about their social systems. <v Speaker>The paleo Indians forged a culture that was in balance with their environment.

<v Speaker>When these ancient hunters first came to Alabama, North America <v Speaker>was locked in an ice age. <v Speaker>But the glaciers began their retreat around 11000 B.C. <v Speaker>and over the next three millennia, that world would die and be <v Speaker>reborn in a different shape and form. <v Speaker>The sea level rose grassland. <v Speaker>The huge Ice Age mammals vanished, prey to extinction. <v Speaker>In the Southeast, where the impact of the Ice Age had been less dramatic, <v Speaker>man had already begun his adaptation to the present day climate and environment. <v Speaker>His culture underwent a gradual and continuous change into a form

<v Speaker>archeologist called the archaic. <v Speaker>During this archaic period, Indian bands became larger and more settled, <v Speaker>and they began to discover new ways of using their natural bounty around. <v Speaker>People have always gathered a. <v Speaker>But does the great piece of the Ice Age died away, the ancient hunters <v Speaker>became harvesters as well. <v Speaker>An elephant or a mammoth might furnish food for a week. <v Speaker>A rabbit is barely a meat. <v Speaker>But the eastern woodlands and streams yielded an ample supply of vegetable <v Speaker>foods and shellfish, which provided a stable base for the Indian diet. <v Speaker>The man continued, but Indians became increasingly efficient gatherers <v Speaker>of the natural harvest. <v Speaker>This development is marked by the appearance of plant processing equipment, <v Speaker>ground stone axes, Malone Stone bowls and other tools of bone <v Speaker>and shell plant remains also appear.

<v Speaker>These suggests that men may have eaten blackberries, <v Speaker>cherries, yams, plums and cattails, <v Speaker>sunflower seeds and hickory nuts, walnuts and acorns. <v Speaker>Evidently, man adapted quite well. <v Speaker>The increased importance of vegetable food did not alter the need to. <v Speaker>But the large lumbering Ice Age pieces were replaced by the swift, <v Speaker>shy animals of the forest. <v Speaker>And so the tactics of the hunt changed. <v Speaker>Hunting bands continue to seek out gain, but gone with a team effort <v Speaker>to subdue large animals. <v Speaker>In their place was the solitary stalking <v Speaker>its prey in the forest with within. <v Speaker>Called by its @stake name, this device added a lever to the simple spear

<v Speaker>mechanism, intensifying its killing power, great strength was no <v Speaker>longer required to make a fatal wound. <v Speaker>Hunting was no longer restricted to those of superior physical ability. <v Speaker>The atlatl allowed more Indians to join the hunt and increase its yield. <v Speaker>Since most of the atlatl was made from wood, none of the original weapons <v Speaker>have survived. <v Speaker>But the bone book and the mysterious Bana's stone clue archaeologists <v Speaker>to the use of the device. <v Speaker>Dr. Craig T Shelton. <v Speaker>Atlatl weight or band or Stone is a good example of how archaeological field techniques <v Speaker>can help us to understand the past. <v Speaker>When originally found in the 19th century, these perforated stone objects <v Speaker>were called banner stones because they were thought to have been mounted on the ensuing <v Speaker>wooden shafts or sticks and used as weapons.

<v Speaker>They actually knew very little about them because these objects were simply found either <v Speaker>on the surface or dug up indiscriminately from Indian sites in the southeast. <v Speaker>Then in the 1930s, modern archaeological feel <v Speaker>techniques began to be used and our understanding of archaeological <v Speaker>objects began to improve. <v Speaker>The purpose of archaeological field technique is not simply to recover <v Speaker>objects such as a banner stone or a lot of weight, but to recover <v Speaker>the objects in such a way that we know the maximum amount of information about the people <v Speaker>who made and used and discarded these artifacts. <v Speaker>The way we maximize information about objects and so forth as to <v Speaker>very carefully excavate in squares level <v Speaker>by level, very carefully recording. <v Speaker>This is called excavating in context. <v Speaker>And what we're attempting to do is show how the objects rest in <v Speaker>relation to other objects within the site.

<v Speaker>Here's a very excellent example of how excavation and context can help us to <v Speaker>understand something. Here is one of these so-called banner. <v Speaker>stones and it is in close proximity to <v Speaker>a antler atlatl hook or spear through hook <v Speaker>by very carefully brushing away the dirt. <v Speaker>We were able to see this dark line of discoloration, which probably <v Speaker>represents a decayed wooden shell which ran through the hole <v Speaker>in the stone and into the socket on the hook. <v Speaker>The interpretation of this object now is <v Speaker>that it is an atlatl and the weight served in some way to improve the efficiency <v Speaker>of this device. <v Speaker>We're not certain exactly how the purpose of the axolotl weight <v Speaker>is something of a mystery. <v Speaker>It may have had a functional use imparting a certain feel to the weapon, <v Speaker>or it may have served a mystical purpose, a charm, or a talisman to ensure <v Speaker>a good hunt. Whatever the theory, the fact is that the arcade period

<v Speaker>Indian sculpted these stones in a variety of shapes and sizes with <v Speaker>a craftsman skill and. <v Speaker>Stone is shaped with a combination of techniques. <v Speaker>It is packed, literally battered into shape with another harder stone <v Speaker>and it is grounded. Rough edges, smooth and within abrasive. <v Speaker>Then it is drilled with a small section of hollow reed and a little wet <v Speaker>sand. A hole is bored through the widest part of the stone.

<v Speaker>In the last step of this construction process of fine, abrasive is applied <v Speaker>to the stone, smoothing the surface and finishing it to <v Speaker>a high polish.

<v Speaker>Mastery of these skills and techniques enable the manufacture of <v Speaker>a variety of tools. <v Speaker>Split bone with smoothed and sharpened into the needles and Ole's, <v Speaker>which were tied sinew and planned fiber or craftsmen, might <v Speaker>employ the natural curves and hollows of a cross section of bone. <v Speaker>And by careful grinding produce a very sharp, very effective <v Speaker>Fishell. <v Speaker>Shells were ground and drill for ornaments and beads, which became necklaces, <v Speaker>independence and varieties of dense stone like granite <v Speaker>was shaped by picking and grinding to become mothers. <v Speaker>EXs Bowles, even Pipe's. <v Speaker>In the southeast, spring brings an end to the winter rains.

<v Speaker>And as the weather turns warm and mild, the land gives birth <v Speaker>to a variety of life. <v Speaker>Allowing the easy collection of shellfish. <v Speaker>And in response to this pulse in the natural cycle. <v Speaker>In the bottom lines you made river shore waters yielded <v Speaker>a harvest of shellfish. <v Speaker>These sites found along many of Alabama's rivers are marked by mounds <v Speaker>of discarded shells <v Speaker>at the large mounds. <v Speaker>The shellfish harvest may have been rich enough to support several cooperating

<v Speaker>bands. These bands might winters separately, but on the shell <v Speaker>mounds, they work together, sharing stone and other resources <v Speaker>brought from the uplands. <v Speaker>Freshwater clams, mussels and snails were collected by the tundra, <v Speaker>though shellfish was one diet staple. <v Speaker>Parties would forage the surrounding countryside, bringing their bounty home <v Speaker>to be made into usable product and edible food. <v Speaker>A base camp was pitched, simple huts were put up and cooking pits <v Speaker>dug. Men would hunt and fish. <v Speaker>Women cooked in tenders and the young and aged would gather. <v Speaker>Since several bands might share a summer camp, this season probably <v Speaker>became an occasion for a social ritual.

<v Speaker>Rites of passage were conducted and marriages contracted. <v Speaker>Where a man once followed the hunt, he now followed the season. <v Speaker>And until fall and the beginning of the rainy season, until a Polk's <v Speaker>in the natural cycle dictated another move, he would live in the bottom line. <v Speaker>This vote came in the form of a ripening nut harvest with the arrival <v Speaker>of the rains rising river levels. <v Speaker>The collection of shellfish impossible and man left a dwindling food <v Speaker>supply for a ripening one. <v Speaker>He abandoned the river bottoms and the collection of shellfish for the abundant <v Speaker>harvest of the Upland Forest. <v Speaker>As the weather turning, clÉment men sought shelter among the limestone

<v Speaker>and sandstone formations of high ground. <v Speaker>Caves, love shelters, became his homes through the fall and winter. <v Speaker>He hunted deer, turkey and squirrel, gathered nuts and packed <v Speaker>his storage pits against the coming frost. <v Speaker>Hickory nuts and walnuts could be eaten right out of the show. <v Speaker>Chestnuts were often roasted, but acorns contain a large <v Speaker>amount of tannic acid and are virtually inedible in natural form. <v Speaker>The acid was removed or leached by repeatedly pouring boiling

<v Speaker>water through ground. Eat your meal. <v Speaker>The most difficult part of this process was boiling the water. <v Speaker>At the time, water was carried in hide bags are tightly woven pitch covered <v Speaker>baskets, neither of which can withstand an open flame. <v Speaker>There were heavy, fragile bowls of sandstone or staircase, <v Speaker>sandstone shatters and direct heat and steel tight breaks easily <v Speaker>and it's difficult to obtain by holding heated rocks in a water filled <v Speaker>container. <v Speaker>The water can be brought to a boil in the container left undamaged. <v Speaker>This procedure is laborious, but it gave man the ability to process <v Speaker>a wide range of foods which were otherwise inedible. <v Speaker>Boiling added new sources of protein and carbohydrate to the diet.

<v Speaker>Not only was there more variety in the food supply, but with more readily <v Speaker>available foods to choose from. <v Speaker>The amount of time spent searching for food was reduced. <v Speaker>This new found abundance of foods, coupled with an ever growing proficiency <v Speaker>at storage, stabilize the food supply and released man <v Speaker>from the feast or famine cycle of the hunt. <v Speaker>More efficient at exploiting his surroundings. <v Speaker>He no longer needed to move constantly in search of food. <v Speaker>As a hunter, he was forced into a nomadic life as an intensive <v Speaker>gatherer of the natural harvest as well. <v Speaker>He could limit his movement to a twice yearly migration. <v Speaker>The bottom lands in the spring and the uplands in the fall. <v Speaker>Over the 7000 years of the archaic tradition, men had successfully

<v Speaker>adapted to his environment, but he was forced to live within the limits not <v Speaker>of that environment, but of his ability to exploit it. <v Speaker>The limit was technological. <v Speaker>Man did not have the technology to utilize all the sustenance. <v Speaker>The food that was available around him. <v Speaker>A development of tremendous significance changed that situation. <v Speaker>The technique of pottery making was developed separately in many areas of the world. <v Speaker>Most likely it was introduced to the Southeast by a way of cultural diffusion. <v Speaker>The slow spread of ideas from one group of people to another. <v Speaker>But whatever its origin, it had a profound impact on the development <v Speaker>of south eastern culture with a fireproof, key resistant, <v Speaker>watertight vessel. Food could be quickly processed and easily stored

<v Speaker>to a society whose fundamental economic currency was food. <v Speaker>Pottery meant stability and growth. <v Speaker>Pure clay is not easily worked. <v Speaker>It can be an infuriating combination of sticky and slippery. <v Speaker>It doesn't dry thoroughly or evenly and pockets of moisture can <v Speaker>cause it to shatter when fired. <v Speaker>To remedy this problem, another substance must be added this <v Speaker>tempering agent makes the clay easier to handle. <v Speaker>It reduces the amount of water necessary and allows for more uniform <v Speaker>drying and less breakage during fiery. <v Speaker>The first Southeastern Potters makes clay with plant fiber and pulling, <v Speaker>pinching, pushing shape their bowls and jars.

<v Speaker>These techniques eventually gave way to coiled pottery, tempered <v Speaker>with sand, grit, crushed rock or grog, crushed pottery. <v Speaker>The mixed use produced a strong durable ceramic and coiling allowed <v Speaker>for efficient, fast construction. <v Speaker>Instead of days of laborious picking and grinding to produce stone <v Speaker>balls, young women and children turn shapeless lumps of earth <v Speaker>into designs and function and beauty.

<v Speaker>There were other technological developments which arrived by way of cultural diffusion. <v Speaker>The bow and arrow. <v Speaker>And a kind of rudimentary. <v Speaker>But it was pottery which launch man into a new lifestyle. <v Speaker>The woodland tradition with Pottery Men good process <v Speaker>and store more than nature, unheated good furniture. <v Speaker>And he began to farm. <v Speaker>Natural stands of edible plants will hold. <v Speaker>And we did. And after several seasons of care, the density and yield <v Speaker>of these standards increased. <v Speaker>Eventually, seeds were saved and suring next year's harvest. <v Speaker>The success of these efforts stabilize the food supply and allowed a permanence <v Speaker>to settlement. Hunters still range far and wide for game. <v Speaker>Even used old campgrounds gathering parties still roam the forest <v Speaker>and work the shoal waters.

<v Speaker>But a change of seasons no longer forced a migration. <v Speaker>Control over his food supply allowed man to settle down, living in <v Speaker>semi-permanent villages of thatch roofed huts. <v Speaker>As he became more sedentary, he began to trade with other groups to get <v Speaker>the raw materials he needed. <v Speaker>Leaders emerged who could organize this economic activity and <v Speaker>as people found, they derived power and influence from association with the leader. <v Speaker>Differences in status and prestige. <v Speaker>Social rank developed. <v Speaker>Archaeologists know of this distinction between common and elite because of <v Speaker>the sometimes striking differences in burial treatment. <v Speaker>Some internments are simple and contain few with any grave goods. <v Speaker>Others are quite elaborate, marked by small, rounded earthen mound <v Speaker>and accompanied by tools, charms, jewelry, <v Speaker>pipes, pottery, even dogs. <v Speaker>These possessions are found in the burials of young and old alike, indicating

<v Speaker>that wealth was not only earned but could be inherited, status could be achieved <v Speaker>by virtue of birth. <v Speaker>Dr. Kenneth our Turner. <v Speaker>By the time a human being is converted to a skeleton, the <v Speaker>history, the diary of that individual is written in the bones of that person. <v Speaker>High status, as indicated by burial associations, seems to <v Speaker>make its first obvious appearances in woodland times in the southeastern <v Speaker>United States. This individual in particular was a company <v Speaker>with large amounts of copper, which here have stained the bones of a brilliant green blue <v Speaker>color. This same individual was buried together with this individual <v Speaker>over here who is of about the same age as have a little bit older <v Speaker>and interesting property of this individual. <v Speaker>Is that the back of the skull shows us the marks of a severe <v Speaker>fracture produced by some sort of club. <v Speaker>This fracture was produced at the time of death, leading us to

<v Speaker>suppose that this individual was killed intentionally, <v Speaker>perhaps to accompany the high status individual at the time of interment. <v Speaker>Some of the other concomitant or accompaniments of of <v Speaker>the Woodland and Mississippian period times involved modifications <v Speaker>of the skeleton which appear to have been intentional. <v Speaker>It's quite obvious as we examine this cranium that it has been flattened, <v Speaker>particularly in the region of the forehead funnel in the region, in the back of the head <v Speaker>or occipital. This is accomplished apparently by binding <v Speaker>the infant's head into an arrangement of Borch so that one board lay across the top <v Speaker>of the fore head and another at the back. <v Speaker>The result, of course, of this device was once it would remove the bones, which are <v Speaker>fairly plastic during infancy, had permanently assumed the <v Speaker>shape forced upon them by the retaining device. <v Speaker>A more dramatic example of cultural modification to bones found in this humerus.

<v Speaker>We can see a projectile point deeply embedded in the bone. <v Speaker>Imbedding required considerable force and was probably produced by a <v Speaker>dart thrown with the use of an atlatl. <v Speaker>The wound shows no healing in the vicinity of the point, so we can conclude quite readily <v Speaker>that the individual at least died at about the time this point was embedded <v Speaker>in his arm. But the real danger to humans living in <v Speaker>times past was not their fellow humans, of course. <v Speaker>And the most common cause of death was not predation by lions <v Speaker>and tigers and bears, but instead it was infestation or infection. <v Speaker>Here is an example of the lower leg bone of a female, just <v Speaker>for the sake of illustration. <v Speaker>Here's a tibia from a healthy individual about the same age. <v Speaker>You see the striking difference in form of the tube. <v Speaker>This bone.

<v Speaker>Here has been extensively remodeled by osteomyelitis, <v Speaker>that is to say an infection of the bone itself because there were no antibiotics <v Speaker>at this time. <v Speaker>The best one could do then in those days was to keep such suffering individual alive <v Speaker>as long as possible. The death was inevitable. <v Speaker>One of the more time honored contributions of physical anthropologists to archaeological <v Speaker>research involves the estimation of the age of death and the <v Speaker>sex of individuals who were represented by the skeletal remains. <v Speaker>Recovered from archaeological provenance is here to fairly <v Speaker>good examples of a female cranium and a male cranium. <v Speaker>If you look in the facial region, for instance, you can see that male has much larger <v Speaker>brow ridges and a somewhat more rugged looking face, whereas <v Speaker>the female's facial region is smoother, the brow ridges are not so well-defined. <v Speaker>If we tilt up and look inside the orbital borders here, they're much sharper, which is a

<v Speaker>very feminine characteristic. In general, the skull of the female is smaller <v Speaker>and more lightly built than that of the male. <v Speaker>We can also utilize quantitative approaches, <v Speaker>for example, in measuring the dimensions of this femoral HYND We would find <v Speaker>it falls within the masculine range. <v Speaker>More sophisticated techniques are available which allow us to give a <v Speaker>probability statement to our sex assessments. <v Speaker>Age estimation is a more difficult problem, particularly when we're <v Speaker>dealing with adult skeletons were no phenomena of <v Speaker>maturation occurring. The only thing that happens is that our skeletons decay <v Speaker>and decline. By assessing the relative degree of decay or decline, <v Speaker>we can produce a useful estimate of the age at death of an adult. <v Speaker>These statistics on sex and age of death for archaeological <v Speaker>populations provide us with some information concerning

<v Speaker>the general health and vitality of a population. <v Speaker>Of the various grave goods that found their way into woodland period burials, <v Speaker>one of the more exotic is copper. <v Speaker>The presence and use of the metal does not imply a knowledge of smelting. <v Speaker>Reducing the metal from or for southeastern Indian simply worked with <v Speaker>raw nuggets into sheets or beads. <v Speaker>What is most interesting is that only small deposits of copper are native <v Speaker>to the Tennessee River Valley. <v Speaker>The metal was probably imported from the Great Lakes. <v Speaker>Over a thousand miles away. <v Speaker>Each section of the content can produce some desirable product, which others did not <v Speaker>have. Obsidian was traded from the Rockies. <v Speaker>Marine shell found its way from the Gulf of Mexico. <v Speaker>Red Pipe Stone came from quarries in present day Minnesota and Wisconsin. <v Speaker>Still tight and Micah, one mind and Appalachian.

<v Speaker>And then tell me I'm an abalone shell arrived from the Pacific Coast, <v Speaker>long distance travel was not unusual. <v Speaker>Man, my cover as much as 2000 miles in a matter of weeks, <v Speaker>moving along trade routes, which would last for centuries in two and <v Speaker>beyond the period of European colonization. <v Speaker>It is an age of exploration. <v Speaker>It is an age of conquest, having plundered fabulous wealth <v Speaker>from Mexico and Peru. Spanish conquistadors look north <v Speaker>in fifteen thirty nine, and Nando de Soto lands an armed <v Speaker>expeditionary force in Florida. <v Speaker>His search for riches leads him as far north as the Carolinas

<v Speaker>and in the warm summer months of 15 40. <v Speaker>He crosses into Alabama. <v Speaker>Neither do so many of his men survived the hostile wilderness <v Speaker>to make the sea voyage home. <v Speaker>Two years later, the remnants of that Grand Expeditionary Force <v Speaker>strangled their way to the Gulf of Mexico. <v Speaker>Returning Spanish galleons carried no new world treasures. <v Speaker>They brought back a little more than the weary, the wounded. <v Speaker>And the written accounts of a fruitless search. <v Speaker>But the DeSoto journals would have become wealth for another age. <v Speaker>They provide the first written accounts of southeastern

<v Speaker>Indian like. <v Speaker>The Spanish tell of a populous land, a fortified towns and farming villages. <v Speaker>They tell of Indian chiefs of gigantic stature and imperial bearing <v Speaker>and of great warriors so formidable. <v Speaker>They challenge De Soto's well armed forces in battle. <v Speaker>Yet De Soto did not encounter Indian society at the height of its <v Speaker>power. He missed that peak by perhaps a century or more. <v Speaker>Around eight hundred eighteen. <v Speaker>The heart of the Mississippi River Valley gave birth to a culture so compelling <v Speaker>that it would spread its influence throughout the eastern woodlands. <v Speaker>How it came to Alabama, whether by massive invasion or gradual evolution, <v Speaker>is unknown. But once it took root, it blossomed into a magnificent <v Speaker>chiefdom.

<v Speaker>Commanded the BlackBerry River Valley and spawned a major cultural <v Speaker>center. <v Speaker>Impressive. Even now, the largest town in prehistoric Alabama <v Speaker>once housed a resident population of some 3000. <v Speaker>Located in the present day town of martinville. <v Speaker>The 20 berthon pyramids, which markets landscape were bases <v Speaker>or platforms built council houses? <v Speaker>The homes of nobles under 300 acres which lay within the stockade <v Speaker>line, there were marketplaces, public plazas, game ports <v Speaker>and made lakes. <v Speaker>There was wealth here, tremendous wealth and power. <v Speaker>Its source was the rich, loamy soil of the River Valley. <v Speaker>Beans and squash.

<v Speaker>Were the objects of intensive cultivation and the staples of large scale <v Speaker>food production. <v Speaker>With the Mississippian culture came a new and efficient economic system based <v Speaker>on agriculture, hunting and fishing continued, as did the gathering <v Speaker>of nuts, fruits and shellfish. <v Speaker>But it was man's farming efforts which yielded food surpluses large <v Speaker>enough to support a substantial population. <v Speaker>This population, including Mountain Bill and the outlying hamlets surrounding the <v Speaker>city proper, may have been as large as ten thousand. <v Speaker>Dr. Joseph Overvote. <v Speaker>Many people come to Mount Steve Monument, see the Indian mounds there <v Speaker>and think that's all there is. <v Speaker>In fact, Malvo was an important center for communities which

<v Speaker>were scattered throughout the black Warrier Valley. <v Speaker>The society throughout the area was organized on Kinne lines. <v Speaker>That is, every member of the society could trace some sort of relationship <v Speaker>to every other member of the chiefdom. <v Speaker>And with this relationships came a set of mutual obligations <v Speaker>and responsibilities. <v Speaker>Rank was achieved in relationship to the social <v Speaker>distance between one individual and the princely or the chiefly <v Speaker>hierarchies are. <v Speaker>The society itself was organized along the lines of a three tiered chiefdom, <v Speaker>and the way this worked was that at Manville lived the principal chief, <v Speaker>and beneath him were regional chiefs who organize the activities <v Speaker>of a number of villages. <v Speaker>Each of these villages would be headed by a headman who <v Speaker>was closely related to his local regional chief. <v Speaker>The effectiveness of this system derived from the fact that.

<v Speaker>Decisions commands would come down the ladder from principal <v Speaker>chief through regional chief, who would parcel out decisions and commands to the <v Speaker>villages and the villages would reciprocate with goods and services which <v Speaker>were passed back up the system as a result. <v Speaker>Towns were constructed and fortified. <v Speaker>The mounds were erected. <v Speaker>Trade was carried on in. Religious ceremonies were held. <v Speaker>Both the economy and the society of the Mississippi and chiefdom were supported <v Speaker>by elaborate religious ceremony. <v Speaker>Exactly how the religion was expressed is unknown, but it provided the <v Speaker>stimulus for the construction of the mounds and the creation of elaborate works of <v Speaker>art. <v Speaker>The pottery produced by the mound build artisans was among the finest

<v Speaker>on the continent, mussel shell was crushed and added to the clay <v Speaker>as a tempering agent. <v Speaker>The ceramics which resulted was strong, fine grain, thin walled <v Speaker>and heat resistant. <v Speaker>Playing bowls and pots were probably for everyday use, but <v Speaker>vessels constructed for nobility offer ritual more the mark of the <v Speaker>artist. <v Speaker>Jaws were etched with elaborate designs and made into a variety <v Speaker>of effigy shapes. <v Speaker>These designs, though abstract, were rooted in nature, a common motif

<v Speaker>is this some circle and the cross. <v Speaker>The circle is thought to be part of the worship of the sun as source of heat and light. <v Speaker>The cross appears to divide the world into its four quarters, and together <v Speaker>the designs symbolize the fire sun God. <v Speaker>The power of this creator was a book with another symbol <v Speaker>the hand and the eye. <v Speaker>This and I symbol's was sometimes associated with an animal for <v Speaker>an image of A God animal B the eagle. <v Speaker>The turkey, the woodpecker and is on this stone pallet, <v Speaker>the twine snake. <v Speaker>When the snake was feathered or plumed similar to the @Stake God, <v Speaker>what's a colotl?

<v Speaker>The images is thought to have a vote power served as a symbol of war. <v Speaker>Despite the masterful skill of the artists, the mounds are Mississippian <v Speaker>Society's most striking legacy. <v Speaker>Majestic, even after centuries of decay, they stand mute <v Speaker>sentinels of another age. <v Speaker>Silent symbols of the power exerted by one of the largest chiefdoms in <v Speaker>North America. <v Speaker>Remarkable in size. The mounds were time consuming, but simple to construct. <v Speaker>A small mound would be built and a structure placed on top <v Speaker>after a certain period of time or after the inhabitants had died. <v Speaker>The structure would be destroyed and new earth piled on the ruins, raising

<v Speaker>and enlarging the mound. <v Speaker>As many as ten building phases have been recognized in some mountains. <v Speaker>Though most of the mounds range in height from twelve to fifteen feet, <v Speaker>the Temple Mount the largest. <v Speaker>Stands over 60 feet high and contains more than 4 million <v Speaker>cubic feet of earth until the Missouri River dams were built in the 1950s. <v Speaker>The mounds were the largest earthen structures in North America. <v Speaker>An economy based on intensive agriculture and administered by <v Speaker>a strong social structure allowed an exotic society to grow <v Speaker>and flourish. <v Speaker>Norvel chiefs exercised authority over an area larger than <v Speaker>the modern state of Rhode Island. <v Speaker>Priests and shamans offered tribute to the gods in elaborate ceremonies.

<v Speaker>Beautiful works of art or shape and competitive games played <v Speaker>in spacious plazas. <v Speaker>Yet in an historically brief span of perhaps a hundred <v Speaker>years, this industrious society was gone. <v Speaker>And the busy center is abandoned and citing. <v Speaker>What event could have caused such far reaching upheaval? <v Speaker>There was no plague which felled the people. <v Speaker>No battle which laid waste to the town. <v Speaker>It was the culture itself. <v Speaker>Mississippian society contained and nurtured the seeds of its own destruction. <v Speaker>Dr. Joseph Vogel.

<v Speaker>We do know the Mississippi economy was based upon the <v Speaker>intensive production of maize and other farm products and <v Speaker>that the society was formed to facilitate the flow of goods and services <v Speaker>throughout the area. <v Speaker>Prestige status was achieved by being <v Speaker>a close relative of one of the chiefly lineages, <v Speaker>and as a result people contributed their goods, their services, their labor <v Speaker>in order to enhance their their family prestige <v Speaker>and status. In time, though, in this sort of kin based society, <v Speaker>the population grows. <v Speaker>Fewer and fewer people have a direct relationship <v Speaker>or a close relationship to the chiefly lineage of Manville. <v Speaker>Now more and more people begin to find themselves estranged at the same <v Speaker>time bureaucratic cost.

<v Speaker>The administrative costs of running the society become much greater as the as the <v Speaker>area in closed becomes greater. <v Speaker>As a result of which goods services that are flowing up <v Speaker>are not reciprocated or not returned at the same rate that they were earlier. <v Speaker>More and more of these costs are being absorbed by the central bureaucracy. <v Speaker>As a result, over a period of time, as people find themselves strange from <v Speaker>the status, from the prestige of being close relative <v Speaker>of over. Chiefly a person, <v Speaker>they begin to look to people closer at home. <v Speaker>People with with chiefly ambitions of their own who are able to reinstitute <v Speaker>the redistribution, this flow of goods and services again. <v Speaker>And as a result, there's a breakdown. <v Speaker>The flow of goods and services into into the central capital at <v Speaker>Manville started to break down. The people there were no longer able to sustain <v Speaker>the same level or intensity of quality of life that they had been

<v Speaker>before. Small towns now begin to take on. <v Speaker>More prestige, more status, and Mount Vill began to shrink to the level of one <v Speaker>of these smaller towns in time, the Black Worry Valley was organized around <v Speaker>these petty these smaller chiefdoms. <v Speaker>It was a less dramatic turn of events than some catastrophic act of God <v Speaker>or man. It was effective. <v Speaker>Nonetheless, society became simplified and a period <v Speaker>of elaborate cultural expression ended. <v Speaker>What new society might have developed from the remnants of Mississippian culture? <v Speaker>We can only guess for the arrival of De Soto. <v Speaker>Signal the beginnings of European exploration and settlement. <v Speaker>Which would thrust the Indians onto the stage of history and change <v Speaker>their destiny for ever.

<v Speaker>From the time the paleo punter first set foot in North America, <v Speaker>the story of the prehistoric Indians is one of challenge, invention, and adaptation. <v Speaker>We know only the barest outline of the story. <v Speaker>We must base our knowledge on those things. <v Speaker>The Indians lost or left behind the stone to. <v Speaker>The remains of man himself. <v Speaker>It is these things which capture our imagination and lead us to

<v Speaker>a better understanding of the complex and successful cultures. <v Speaker>Which for centuries have been lost in time. <v Speaker>This program was made possible by grants from the Len Henley Charitable Trust

<v Speaker>and the Committee for the Humanities in Alabama state program of <v Speaker>the National Endowment for the Humanities, an Auburn television production.