Environmental
Adaptation
The Shift from Paleo to Archaic Survival
Strategies
Paleo-Indians and their Archaic
descendants shared a variety of cultural traits which helped them to survive in Florida’s
prehistoric environment. The areas in which they differ reflect unique adaptations to
their gradually changing local environments. (Culture can be defined as a people’s
efforts to cope with their environment.) The Florida which greeted Paleo-Indians, perhaps 12,000 years ago, was far
removed from the conditions in our modern wetland state. Its cooler, dryer climate forced
these natives to develop cultural patterns vastly different from Florida’s historic
peoples. Four prime aspects of this adaptive culture include settlement patterns,
technology, subsistence, and lifestyle. By reviewing the similarities and differences
between Paleo-Indians and Archaics in light of these environmental shifts, archaeologists
have concluded that the Archaics are descendants of these earlier groups, not an influx of
new cultures. This gives Florida a human history stretching unbroken for almost 12,000 years.
When viewed through an ecological
lens, the shift from Paleo-Indian technologies to Archaic ones is merely a transition. It
is not an abrupt change of lifeways which might indicate an invasion of outside ideas and
technologies. Rather, it is a slow technological and ideological shift to accommodate the
fluctuating environment and food base. The Florida of Paleo-Indian times was considerably cooler and drier than
its modern counterpart, creating a grassy savanna rather than today’s thick pine
forests. This affected the natives’ settlement patterns as well as the land itself.
Glaciers were the most influential environmental factors, holding much of the
continent’s fresh water frozen, and lowering the sea level 160 feet below modern
levels. 10,000 years ago, Florida was much larger, perhaps twice the size it is today. A large
part of this exposed continental shelf contained limestone deposits in western Florida. During a time
when fresh water was scarce, these limestone pits allowed the collection of rainwater into
pools, and provided the geography for deep sinkholes. Paleo-Indians (and their prey) were
forced to gather around these rare sources of fresh water. The deciding factor for setting
up a Paleo home site was probably access to fresh water. These home sites supported less
than 25 individuals, probably a kin group, in which the sharing of limited resources would
do the most to protect a single genetic line. They were semi-nomadic, following both their
food base and seasonal water availability. Moving from watering hole to watering hole
allowed them to utilize an area fully, and then allow it to recuperate as they moved on.
This oasis theory, by James S. Dunbar and S. David Webb, has been corroborated by evidence
of Paleo-Indian camps all over the limestone regions of Florida.
Archaic Indians, however, enjoyed a
much milder environment and a wider distribution of home sites. A gradual wet trend began
around 8000 BC which opened up new territory for the natives. Discrete deep springs joined
up to form rivers and marshy systems. As the water table rose, Florida came to look more
and more like the state we recognize today. By 3000 BC, the environment had stabilized
into modern form. This shift from dry prairie to wet forest and marsh occurred gradually
over five thousand years, but it is still a drastic change, which affected Florida’s coastline
and interior. Half of the state was inundated as the glaciers melted. This removed many
suitable Paleo-Indian occupation sites. However, the same rise in water level opened up
many more fresh water areas for occupation. With greater access to fresh water, other
environmental aspects became factors in selecting home sites. Shellfish became an
important resource, drawing some natives away from inland Florida to dwell in
coastal marshes. The change in climate shifted the food base in other ways, away from
migratory megafauna towards smaller resident species. These steadier sources of food and
water allowed Archaic peoples to live in larger groups, upwards of 40 individuals. Rather
than maintaining a semi-nomadic lifestyle, these people had a strong enough resource base
to stay in one (or a few) rich areas. They had a central site with several outlying
special purpose camps. Rather than fully exhausting an area’s resources, and moving
on, they probably utilized multiple resource areas around a home base. If they located
their base in a forest along a river, they would have access to fresh water and shellfish
as well as forest flora and fauna. A short trip to the northeast might place them in a
salt marsh full of fish and oysters. Just to the east lay the ocean with its wealth of
shellfish, sharks, sea turtles, marine mammals, and fish. A trip southwest might give them
access to chert for tools. This expanse of the food base is characteristic of Archaic
peoples, and allowed them to live in larger groups and stay in the same place for longer
periods of time,
Settlement patterns for prehistoric
Indians are fairly easy to track, by simply locating sites with artifacts. [This becomes
increasingly difficult, of course, as you go earlier in time and further under water.] The
best preserved artifacts tend to be lithic tools and other forms of technology. As a
result, early methods of categorizing Florida’s prehistoric natives relied on their stone tools. This
may have prejudiced our view of the natives, especially Paleo-Indians, because the
archaeological record is not egalitarian in what it preserves. Textiles and wooden
artifacts are often lost. However, due to several wetland burial sites, archaeologists
today have some good examples of these aspects of Paleo-Indian technology. The lithic
tools are generally large bifacial lanceolate points designed for hunting the megafauna of
the late Pleistocene. These tools were generally made of non-native, high quality stone,
to be hafted onto a foreshaft, and then a spear. Other unifacial artifacts seem to be
designed as multi-purpose tools. It has been suggested that this provides a smaller tool
kit which is easier to carry around than multiple specialized tools. This small tool kit
is characteristic of the Paleo-Indian whose semi-nomadic lifestyle encouraged him to
travel light. Other tools included bone pins, used to hold back the skin during
defleshing, scrapers, etc. In addition to stone, other raw materials for tools included
bone, mastadon tusk, antler, and wood. The latter are less well-preserve in the record,
and call to question what other tools might have been lost over time. Shell tools are
conspicuously absent in the Paleo record, indicative of their inland settlements away from
easy access to ocean resources. Pottery is also absent; not yet invented. In any case,
pottery is very heavy, not conducive to a semi-nomadic existence. Containers probably
included baskets and sacks woven from plant materials as well as bags made from hide,
stomach, bladder, or twisted hair. Wooden digging sticks, although usually invisible to
the archaeological record, would have been invaluable in the collection of tubers and
other plant materials. In general, the Paleo-Indian tool kit was small and lightweight,
often composed of multi-purpose tools, well-crafted Suwannee points, and other utilitarian artifacts.
Archaic peoples had a more diverse
tool kit, both in response to a more diverse food base and a more sedentary lifestyle.
Their projectile points are, in general, smaller and made of poor quality local chert. The
variety of point types suggests that different points were utilized for different prey or
for knives instead of projectiles. A wide range of artifacts including scrapers, choppers,
and composite tools characterize the Archaic lithic assemblage. Evidence of local quarry
sites and heat-treating of the chert (to make it less brittle and easier to work) are
first found during the Archaic as well. One-use tools, as opposed to finely crafted
bifacial points, are common in the Archaic. With access to local quarries, it may have
been simpler to use and discard simple flakes than to shape, reshape, and preserve old
high-quality stone tools. Early Archaic tools resemble those of the Paleo-Indians, with
points like Bolen beveled and plain forming possible intermediates. As the Archaic
proceeds, the tool kit expands, pointing to a slow advance in technology. Although Archaic
points were smaller than Paleo points, suggesting smaller prey, the points were not
tipping arrows. The Archaics are probably using smaller spears and atlatl (spear thrower)
darts. Bannerstones (atlatl weights) and bola stones are also found. Although these were
found in the Paleo record, their use seems to boom in the Archaic. Other ground-stone
artifacts, like bowls, are found in this time as well. An increase of items like choppers
in the Archaic assemblage suggests a stronger reliance on plant material than previous
natives had.
Fewer tools are found made of tusk,
pointing to the disappearance of the megafauna. Instead, antler and bone become important
in making antler hammers, bone pins, awls, points, fishing spears, and antler handles.
Wood, and perhaps rivercane in the wetter environment, is used to haft weapons, grind
vegetable matter as a mortar and pestle, build fairly permanent huts, and make canoes.
Some heavy wood-working tools have been located at Archaic sites which suggest they were
making items too large to haul around easily. The canoe itself represents a serious
increase in mobility for the Archaic peoples, making it easier to trade and form alliances
with distant peoples. Shell technology also booms during the Archaic, as people are living
closer to coastal areas. Busycon hammers, axes, bowls, and columellae become fairly
common in the record. The use of shell technology is a hallmark of the Archaic Indians.
In the late Archaic, the
introduction of pottery is another serious technological advance. The clay for this Orange
Period pottery was tempered with fibers of Spanish Moss or palmetto trunk, then fired to
make it waterproof. Towards the end of the Late Archaic, sand was often added to the mix,
which heralds a general shift to sand-tempered pottery occurring after the Archaic. These
shifts once again indicate that Florida’s cultures represent a single descendent group, rather
than invasions of ideas or peoples over the years. The advent of pottery meant several
things to the Late Archaic peoples: a good way to store food for the winter, an easy way
to cook stews and broths, and probably a more sedentary way of life that didn’t
involve hauling this thick slab pottery around everywhere. Digging sticks and other plant
collecting tools were probably in great use. Traps and fishing weirs may have become
important as well. Now that the Archaic peoples were settling in an area, they had to
intensify their food collection patterns to support more people in a smaller space. Traps
and weirs allowed them to hunt without actually spending time doing it. Technological
breakthroughs like these helped the Archaic Indians develop into the more complex cultural
groups of post 500 BC. In general, the Archaic tool assemblage has more specialized tools,
utilizes local chert, bone, antler, shell, and clay, includes traps, vegetable processing
equipment, pottery, canoes, and more permanent housing.
This prehistoric technology is
tracked through artifacts. Prehistoric diet is only slightly more difficult to discover,
through faunal assemblages in middens, tools, and in studies of burial remains.
Paleo-Indians are often considered large game hunters, and this is perhaps a bias in the
archaeological record associated with the large number of kill sites found. Even in Florida, there is
evidence of a species of large elephant with spinal butchering marks and a bison skull
with a prehistoric point embedded in it. These megafauna, including mastadons, horses,
bison, camels, sloth, tortoise, and tapir were largely migratory, forcing the
Paleo-Indians to follow herds or else live through stages of plenty and starvation.
Anthropological evidence based on modern hunter-gatherers suggests that the Paleo-Indians
also relied a great deal on plant matter, perhaps as much as 65%, to cushion the times
between the herds. In the dry Paleo environment, grain bearing grasses would have been an
important source of carbohydrates. The Paleo peoples probably also utilized smaller
animals to some degree, including deer, raccoon, opossum, fish, snails, etc. Communal
hunts and gathering expeditions collected enough food for the group’s survival, but
not enough to keep it extremely healthy. Many exhumed skeletons show signs of dietary
stress.
This is also true for Archaic
Indians, but as a rule, there was more food and more variety for these later peoples. A
wetter, more forested Florida contributed to the end of the megafauna, but it also opened up
a wealth of food material focused on plant life and on the marshes. As the Archaic peoples
moved into coastal, marsh, and riverine environments, they began to heavily utilize
shellfish. Although most shellfish middens seem to come from the Late Archaic on,
pre-ceramic shell middens are now being discovered far beneath the surface. This suggests
that utilization of shellfish is a serious Middle Archaic trend as well. Marshes, coasts,
and rivers provided fish, shellfish, snails, shrimp, shark, alligator, turtles and
terrapins, migratory birds, eggs, and marine mammals. Because the salt marsh is such a
productive ecosystem, it provided year-round food for the Archaic natives, allowing full
time residence. The nearby maritime hammocks provided upland habitats for them to exploit
as well. Animal species hunted include deer, raccoon, opossum, tortoise, squirrel, bobcat,
turkey, bear, rabbit, etc. Plant species could
be collected year round. Spring provided pokeweed, clover, thistle, blackberries,
peppergrass, fern fiddleheads, and sorrel. Summer
provided blueberries, clover, blackberries, wild onion, muscadine grapes, peppergrass,
cattails, chokecherry, ground cherry, hog plum, persimmon, saw palmetto, elderberry, and Florida chinkapin. The
fall brought acorns, hickory nuts, pecans, pigweed, and sabal palm berries. In the winter,
clover and thistles are coming back, and the cycle begins again. Archaics intensively
utilized their environment, with a food base vastly expanded from that of the Paleo
peoples. Shellfish and water resources took the place of the extinct megafauna. Deer were
the most utilized land species. Plant materials became very important as groups remained
in one place for longer periods of time. The Archaic is characterized by intense
utilization of resources around the base camp, with special purpose camps designed for
deer hunting, oyster gathering, or acorn harvesting radiating out from the center.
While faunal and flora leave some
physical remains with which to judge prehistoric subsistence, lifestyle is much more
difficult to evaluate. Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer groups were probably organized at the
band level, each of roughly 25 members related by kinship ties. Men were predominantly
hunters, and women gatherers. Very likely the men possessed the greater status. Resources
were shared in this egalitarian society. There was little specialization and no upper
class. Excellence in each field was the determiner of leadership. There was little
territoriality; however, water burials may have given these people some sense of place.
Their use of water burials may indicate some belief in an afterlife as well as a symbolic
spirituality for the water itself.
There is a great deal more
information regarding Archaic Indians, although much of it is still speculation. The
groups were larger and more permanent, perhaps greater than 40 individuals. While men
still did most of the hunting, and women the gathering, women probably had more status, as
Archaic peoples began to seriously utilize plant materials. In general, Florida natives practiced
matrilineal descent, attesting to the status of women. Children apparently possessed
status and value as well, as they were often buried with grave goods. Some individuals
were buried (in water or earthen mounds) with unique or special grave goods, implying
higher status. Resources were still shared among the group, but there may have been
unequal access to these goods. Because all ages and genders are found in burials, the
cemeteries seems to have been for the entire community or kinship group, not just the
elite. These peoples were more sedentary, and based more of their economy on water
resources like fish and shellfish. Now that groups had specific collection sites to
maintain, territoriality began to develop, and there is evidence of the resultant homicide
on Tick Island. While men were
responsible for hunting and any necessary battle, women controlled the family, the home,
and all collection and processing of vegetable matter, weaving, pottery making, and hide
tanning. This shift from a male centered Paleo society to a more female centered Archaic
one can be related to the environmental shift to a warmer, wetter climate. Larger water
sources allowed groups to grow in size and remain sedentary. Water bodies also increased
dependence on fish and shellfish, which women can gather as easily as men. The wetter
habitat also increased the number of small animals which can be snared or otherwise hunted
near the camp. All of these things, in addition to the extinction of the megafauna,
contribute to making a more female-centered pottery-making society.
In each case, the shift from cool
dry Pleistocene towards the modern warm wet Florida caused the natives to adapt their cultures. These adaptive
changes are a continuum rather than a rapid influx of new ideas from an outside culture.
Through shifts in settlement patterns, technology, subsistence, and lifestyle,
Paleo-Indians evolved into their Archaic descendants utilizing new survival strategies in
the face of environmental stresses.
Resources:
Brown, Robin C. Florida’s
First People. Pineapple Press, Inc. Sarasota. 1994.
Milanich, Jerald T. Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida. University of Florida Press. Gainesville. 1994.
Peterson, Lee Allen. Peterson’s Field Guide to Edible Plants. Houghton Mifflin
Company. Boston. 1977.
Thunen, Robert. Class Notes, Ethnohistory of Precolumbian Florida. 1996.
Author: Kelley G. Weitzel
Provided by the Pelotes Island
Nature Preserve
http://pelotes.jea.com