North America

The stamp-decorated ware of the southern Appalachian region on the border of this and the southern Atlantic culture areas, is of great interest. For some of the more noteworthy earthworks see CAHOKIA MOUND; ETOWAH MOUND; GRAVE CREEK MOUND; FORT ANCIENT; NEWARK WORKS ; ELEPHANT MOUND.

IV. Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes Area.

This ar chaeological culture area is less sharply differentiated from those adjacent than are the others from their neighbouring cultures. The tribes inhabiting the region when first explored belonged to the Algonkin and Siouan stocks, and many Indians of the former still dwell within the domain, the ancestors of the Chip pewa having forced the Sioux westward at the beginning of the 18th century. In a general way the ancient culture, as revealed by artifacts and other remains, is almost equal to that of the territory to the eastward, but is inferior on the whole to that of the Middle and Lower Mississippi area. Agriculture was prac tised in favourable localities, and the so-called garden beds of Michigan, ridged or furrowed tracts, are among the most novel and mysterious features of the archaeology of the area. But hunting, fishing and seed-gather ing, especially of wild rice, were the chief means of livelihood. Burial mounds of ordinary forms are widely distributed, and mon umental features of unique type, including groups and chains of earthworks in formal and puzzl ing arrangements, and animal shape mounds confined largely to Wisconsin, are abundant, such as the so-called Elephant Mound (q.v.).

This area was the source of two kinds of highly valuable raw ma terials that were extensively quarried or mined, and distrib uted far and wide—catlinite or red claystone in Pipestone county, Minnesota, and copper of the Lake Superior region. Excavations for obtaining the catlinite, which was readily made into pipes, ceremonial objects and ornaments, extended along a narrow out crop for nearly a mile. The quarrying was done with fragments of quartzite from the strata between which the seam of catlinite lay, and which were roughly shaped for the purpose. The sites of the copper mines are marked by extensive pittings in exposing the copper-bearing rocks and breaking them up to release the masses of native copper by means of heavy boulders from the lake shore. Thousands of these rude hammers are found about the pits, and occasional specimens are grooved for hafting. The cop per at first was worked to produce forms resembling those of the stone implements, but sooner or later the celts, hatchets, awls, knives, drills, spearheads and similar simple tools took on new forms and other varieties were evolved. The metal was too soft

wholly to supersede stone as a material for the manufacture of implements, but its pleasing colour and other properties led to its use for personal ornaments, and by the time the whites arrived it had spread over the greater part of the country. Doubtless the material of most if not all of the remarkable objects of sheet copper with repousse designs, found in mounds and graves from Illinois to Florida, had its source in the Lake Superior workings.

The stone implements and utensils of the area include rude mortars and cylindrical pestles, grooved axes, celts, adzes, tobacco pipes, tubes and the usual range of ceremonial and talismanic objects, noteworthy among which are certain saddle-shape stones which, together with other problematical forms, are characteristic of the ancient Algonkin area. The fluted axe and the faceted celt are peculiar to this region. Deposits of flint were worked in many places and chipped implements of usual types are exceed ingly plentiful. Quartz veins were worked at an early period about the Little Falls of the Mississippi, and crudely chipped implements thereof found in flood-plain deposits of the vicinity have led some geologists to attribute to them geological age. Pottery receptacles are of distinctive types and generally are more primitive in make than is the ware in the Lower Mississippi area; but in some locali ties the vessels were carefully finished and decorated with incised and indented figures, though painted examples are rare.

V. Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Area.

The cultures of the territories surrounding the Great Plains—the sedentary mound and Pueblo cultures, and the cultures of the California and Columbia-Fraser areas—gradually fade out ; for excepting limited areas in the larger eastern valleys of the area, agriculture was not practicable, but the teeming herds of bison and antelope, and an abundance of other game animals, afforded an adequate food supply, and even the tribes that practised agriculture to any extent seem to have depended more on hunting than on the product of tillage. The Great Plains therefore were occupied largely by Indians who dwelt in tipis and were largely nomadic.