History

Pre-1600

Note: The following information is taken with permission from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Web pages entitled, "First People: The Early Indians of Virginia" at http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/arch_NET/timeline/time_line.htm. The information from the Web pages is taken from the book First People: The Early Indians of Virginia, produced by the Department of Historic Resources, and published by the University Press of Virginia.

No one knows how long people have been living in Virginia, but archeologists have found evidence of human activity that dates back at least 17,000 years. "Pamahsawuh" -- the created world and everything in it, refers to the Indian word used to describe their world.

They called themselves “The People”. These indigenous people lived with nature and adapted their lifestyles to their surroundings and the seasons. From scientific findings, we know they dealt with years of drought, glacial advances, and retreats; the birth of a vast bay, rivers, and forests; the death of huge herd animals such as the mastodons and mammoths. To survive these changes, the Indians made all the tools, weapons, and materials needed to sustain themselves. They invented atlatls, pottery, and celts. They hunted animals for food, tools, shelter, and clothing. Over time, the indigenous people's use of plants--for containers, fish weirs, cloth, medicine, housing, and canoes--became increasingly sophisticated.

The descendants of these Native Americans were members of distinct tribes. The tribes spoke many different languages and dialects and held many different beliefs and traditions. Each village was the center of the Indian's life. A tribe's sphere of influence grew as villages formed and broke alliances and established networks for trade. From 10,000 B.C. to A.D. 1600, the Indians of Virginia evolved from nomadic hunters to settled village farmers, from equal partners in small bands, to members of elaborately organized chiefdoms. At the height of their population, an estimated 50,000 Indians lived in Virginia at thousands of sites along the rivers and the coast. Much of what is known about the first people of Virginia has come from studying the traces of the villages, mounds, cave shelters, and objects that have been left behind. Through patient work, archaeologists have reconstructed some of the history and lifeways of these first people. A clear picture of how Indian cultures in Virginia changed through time emerges from these findings.

The ancient times are divided into three periods: Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland.

Paleoindian Period

The first recognized Paleoindian culture was found at an archaeological site near Folsom, New Mexico, in 1927. There a distinctive spear point was found between the ribs of a type of bison that had been extinct since the end of the last Ice Age. Five years later near Clovis, New Mexico, a woolly mammoth kill and associated stone tools were uncovered and dated to 11,200 years ago. The hallmark of the Clovis culture is the lance-shaped fluted point. Although such points are found across the continent, an especially large number of them are found in Virginia. Other stone tools found with the Clovis point include scrapers, gravers, perforators, wedges, and knives. Evidence uncovered so far in Virginia suggests that these tools were used to spear game, cut up meat, scrape and cut hides, and split and carve bone of deer, bison, and rabbit. Caribou, elk, moose, and possibly mastodon also may have been hunted.

Middle Archaic Period

By the Middle Archaic period, the Indians of Virginia had adjusted well to the Eastern woodland. In their quest for food and raw materials, the people ventured into every section of Virginia. They became masters of the deciduous forest of oak, hickory, and chestnut. Their knowledge of how best to use the physical setting altered with the changing environment and shifting seasons of the year, and gradually became more sophisticated. Archeologists have discovered that groups would return to the same site over and over again through the years, sharing with future generation prosperous locations.

Late Archaic Period

By the Late Archaic Period, the Indigenous people of Virginia totaled perhaps in the tens of thousands. Their growing numbers caused them to intensify their hunting and gathering practices. Concentrations of bands settled along the rich floodplain, which some researchers describe as the "supermarket of the prehistoric world." Archaeologists have uncovered at riverside sites large hearths of fire-cracked rock, proof that the Late Archaic people prepared large amounts of food there.

In their quest for food and raw materials, the people ventured into every section of Virginia. Soapstone, commonly found along the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge, was one of the most sought-after materials around 2,000 B.C. Because it was a type of soft rock that carved easily and did not break when heated, it made excellent cooking pots. The people quarried large mushroom-shaped pieces of soapstone from outcroppings, and, with stone and bone tools, hollowed out bowls. When people started making heavy soapstone cooking vessels, they were probably more settled, as the vessels were too heavy to move often. Archaeologists have found fragments of soapstone vessels across Virginia, sometimes hundreds of miles from a quarry.

Woodland Period

The Woodland period refers to the more sedentary cultures that lived in the extensive woodlands of what is now the eastern United States. A major innovation occurred about 1,200 B.C. when the people began making fired clay cooking and storage vessels. Archaeologists believe this technology was introduced to Virginia from the people along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. There, the earliest pottery in North America may have been made as early as 2,500 B.C. The shape and size of the first pottery in Virginia was patterned after that of soapstone vessels. Clay pots quickly proved to be more versatile and practical than soapstone.

Although these Indigenous people undoubtedly lived in various shelters throughout their sojourn in Virginia, the first evidence for house patterns occurred in the archaeological record in the Early Woodland period. These homes were round to oval and from 10 to 20 feet in diameter and from 16 to 28 feet in length. Storage pits were located along the inner wall of the houses and fire pits were in the center. Since the small, but numerous, wall support posts were driven 1 to 2 feet into the ground, the houses probably supported a great weight of thatch or bark covering and storage of belongings in the rafters. This suggests permanently built homes, reflective of a sedentary life style.

Populations grew in Virginia so that diverse tribes now lived in scattered settled hamlets along major rivers that wound through the mountain valleys and down through the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. During the Middle Woodland period, the people slowly replaced their spears with the bow and arrow as a hunting weapon. Evidence for this change is found in smaller projectile points, particularly the triangular shapes. Further advances came as people redesigned the grooved axe and used what is called a celt, or ungrooved axe. Sleek and polished the celt enabled people to refine their woodworking techniques.

Middle Woodland to Historic Periods

Starting in the Middle Woodland and continuing into the Historic Period, people lavished their artistic ability on their tobacco pipes. Tobacco pipes in the Early Woodland Period resembled large, straight cigars. Later pipes were fashioned into exquisite effigy carvings of birds and animals. Most of the Late Woodland pipes were a short-stemmed elbow type into which wood or reed stems were inserted. Tobacco introduced during the Late Woodland Period and considered a gift from the gods, was reserved for reverent use in medicinal and spiritual supplications. In later times, particularly after contact with the Europeans, smoking for pleasure developed among the Indians, and pipes became commonplace.

A number of developments point to the beginning of ranked cultures. As the Middle Woodland people created specialized items and increased their trade, status was bestowed on individuals within a tribe. Differential status led to a more complex, ranked social structure.

Late Woodland Period

The Indigenous throughout eastern North America lived in thousands of large towns. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people resided in each community, organized around a complex economic, social, and political structure. The people increased their reliance on intensive gardening for most of their food. Although the developments were not as elaborate in Virginia, Late Woodland people developed strong identities as each adapted to its local setting. In southwestern Virginia, the transplanted Mississippian and local cultures thrived; in the Shenandoah Valley, the Earthen Mound Burial culture grew; and to the east, the Coastal Plain Indians prospered. Village life broadened the social sphere, wealth, and security of the residents. The resulting social structure demanded more coordination of functions from the tribal leader, who assumed greater responsibility and status.

The Late Woodland people achieved a richness of culture that was unmatched to date. Sophisticated craftsmanship created a wide range of pottery forms, stone artifacts, and bone tools such as awls, fishhooks, needles, beamers, and turtle shell cups. Accoutrements for the rich, such as beads and pendants, were made from imported shell and copper. Ceremonial and symbolic objects of stone, copper, and shell were also manufactured. A wide range of rather elaborate burial customs reflected the people's fascination with the passage from life to death.

In farming, beans arrived from the southwestern lands about A.D.1000 to join corn and squash as the three major crops. Tobacco came by way of Mexico. Animals, especially deer and turkey, were heavily hunted, as well as turtles and sometimes bear and elk. A wide array of natural plants, nuts, and berries were gathered. Since the preservation of artifacts from the Late Woodland period is outstanding and the cultures are rich and dynamic, archaeologists have been able to collect much information about group variation across Virginia. Although many of the pieces are missing, we know certain things about a few of the more prominent groups. Local cultures developed in the mountains and valleys of western Virginia. Southwestern Virginia is said to be a crossroads of Native American culture. Mississippian people entered the region along the Tennessee River system. Ohio Valley groups came in by way of the New River, and Piedmont cultures advanced up the Roanoke River.

The people of southwestern Virginia formed tribal cultures very similar to the groups in the southern Piedmont of Virginia. They made a wide array of pottery tempered with sand, limestone, or shell, and impressed with cord and net. Their homes, about 15 to 20 feet in diameter, were constructed of multiple poles anchored deep into the ground. The tops of the poles were bent over and tied to form a dome-shaped house. The houses were covered with either thatch or bark and clustered around a plaza in the center of a walled village. Daily life was based on intensive gardening, supplemented with gathering wild plants and hunting animals. Mississippian culture contrasted greatly with the local cultures in southwestern Virginia. (The term "Mississippian" is used because some of the first sites of the culture were found along the Mississippi River.) A regional phenomenon, the Mississippian culture became widespread throughout the Midwest and southern United States. In Virginia, this culture made its way into the extreme southwestern corner of the state.

Comparison to Mississippian Culture

The villages of the Mississippian culture were much larger, more complex, and more permanent than that of most Late Woodland cultures. The more settled and abundant life of the Mississippian culture led to fully developed chiefdoms ruled by chiefs and subchiefs. In a chiefdom, a few highly ranked people at major centers directed the economic, socio-political, and religious activities of thousands of people living in a large region. The position of chief became a permanent office and social inequality became a basic rule.

Here in Virginia, the best-preserved Mississippian site is Ely Mound in Lee County. A townhouse sat on the tall, distinct, flattop mound that overlooked the village and the plaza where the game of chunkey was played. The townhouse was like a combination church and town hall, and was the major focal point of village activities. In an area that includes both the Shenandoah Valley and the northern Piedmont, there existed a culture from A.D. 950 to the time of European contact whose defining characteristic was that it buried its dead in earthen mounds. Visible monuments on the native landscape, some of these mounds reached a height of at least 20 feet. These mounds were distinct from the Mississippian mounds in that they served as the final burial place for hundreds, and, in some cases, thousands of people. The mounds were sacred places where ancestors were honored.

Sometime between 1760 and 1781, Thomas Jefferson examined one of these mounds near Charlottesville in what many consider to be the earliest scientific archaeological excavation in America. He later wrote that he watched Indians in the mid-18th century walk directly to the mound and stand before it for some time with sorrowful expressions, before they left the mound and pursued their journey. The continuation of such rituals is evidence of the importance of these sacred places to the Indians of central Virginia.

Coastal Plain Tribes

The Coastal Plain offered a unique environment of saltwater and freshwater rivers, bays, and marshes. People adapted to it by relying on fishing, particularly for the shad and sturgeon that spawn upriver. From the shallow salty waters, they gathered oysters. Tests on great heaps of discarded shells, called shell middens, show they gathered oysters in the late spring. Oysters provided food while the people waited for the wild and cultivated plants to grow, and were dried, stored, and used later in the year.

By A.D.1300, the Coastal Plain tribes had grown to form sedentary villages supported by small, short-term hunting and gathering camps. Relying more and more on horticulture, the people favored the floodplain and low-lying necklands of rich sandy soil for village sites. Coastal Plain people built their villages creating many long, oval houses either spaced close together and surrounded by a palisade, or dispersed, separated by fields for gardening.