Prehistoric Georgia

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Prehistoric Georgia

• The first inhabitants of Georgia

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Prehistoric Native Americans

• Who were they?
• When did they arrive?
• Where was their original home?
• Why did they come?
• What did they eat?
• What kind of animals did they find here?
• Where did they live?

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Vocabulary Terms

• Define
• Archeologist
• Anthropologist
• Shale
• Artifact
• Culture
• Tribes
• Antiquities

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Understanding through Artifacts

• Oral Tradition Elders repeated the narrative of
  events often until younger generations had
  memorized them
• Archeologists dig into earth to find artifacts
  (items made by people) that tell us about early
  inhabitants
• Shale layered rock that can encase animals or
  birds

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Understanding through Culture

• Anthropologists use artifacts, cave drawings,
  well-traveled pathways, and oral history to study
  a groups culture
• Culture shared beliefs, traditions, music, art,
  and social institutions of a group of people

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Who, When, and How did Native Americans Arrive?

• During the Ice Age
• Approximately 12,000 years ago
• Original Native Americans arrived on foot from
  Asia
• Used passage known as Beringia
• Served as land bridge
• Possibly as wide as 1,300 miles

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Who, When, and How?

• Migration unplanned
• Nomads wandered looking for food
• as they traveled, others followed
• Climate warmer, more food
• Found woolly mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths,
  etc.
• All Native Americans descended from these Nomads

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Who, When, and How?

• By 10,000 B.C. humans had arrived in what is now
  the Southeastern United States
• The following 11,700 years of history are divided
  into four traditions
• Paleo
• Archaic
• Woodland
• Mississippian

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Paleo-Indian Period Before 10,000 years ago

• Paleo means very old
• Also called Old Stone Age
• Mainly ate large animals such as mammoths, bison,
  mastodons, ground sloths

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Paleo-Indian Period

• Early Indians never stayed in one place for long
  no evidence of fixed shelter
• Camped in the open
• Sometimes dug pits or built shelters to protect
  against weather
• Followed herds of large animals

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Paleo Indians

• Nomadic (roaming) hunters
• Most tools and spear points made of stone

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Archaic Period8000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.

• Archaic means old
• Three time spans
• Early (8000 B.C.-5000 B.C.)
• Middle (began around 5000 B.C.)
• Late (4000 B.C.-1000 B.C.)
• Crude shelters stayed in one place longer

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Archaic Period
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Archaic

• Hunted large animals and small game
• Invented tools from deer antlers
• Moved with each season to find best food
  resources
• Water levels moved back along rivers coastal
  areas
• People began making hooks from animal bones
• Shellfish became a more common food
• Food became easier to find and there was less
  movement

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Archaic

• Created grooved axes to clear trees and bushes
• Began saving and planting seeds for planting
  (horticulture)
• Made and used pottery for cooking and storing
  food

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Woodland Period1000 B.C. to A.D. 1000

• Tribe group of people sharing common ancestry,
  name, and way of living
• Hundreds of families formed tribes
• Built domed-shaped huts with trees
• Used bow and arrows to hunt
• Held religious ceremonies

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Woodland Period

• Improved pottery making techniques
• Ate small game, fish, nuts, and berries
• Also planted crops such as squash sunflowers

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Mississippian Period700 A.D. to 1600 A.D.

• Also called the Temple Mound Period
• Farmed with homemade tools and grew most of their
  own food
• Crops (maize, beans, pumpkins, squash)
• Thousands lived in single settlement, protected
  by fences and moats
• Very religious used jewelry and body art

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Mississippian Period

• Ancient middens (garbage piles) show what people
  ate, how they used fire, what they used for
  cooking
• Ocmulgee National Monument near Macon reveals a
  large ceremonial area with benches and platforms
• Similar tools as Woodland period stone
  hoes, copper headdresses

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Mississippian Period

• Kolomoki Mounds
• Blakely County
• Rock Eagle Mounds
• Near Social Circle

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Native Americans in Georgia

• Who were they?
• Creeks (Muscogee)
• Cherokee

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The Creek Indians

• Originally from American southwest
• Spoke Muskogean
• Discovered by European Explorers who called them
  Creeks
• Lived along Ocheese Creek (todays Ocmulgee
  River)
• Lived in italwa and talofa (large villages
  surrounded by smaller villages (similar to cities
  suburbs today)

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Creek Lifestyle

• Village center featured plaza rotunda
• Games ceremonies held in plaza
• Rotunda used for council meetings
• Wooden huts or log cabins with chimneys
  surrounded the plaza
• Villages, split from larger villages, helped form
  a confederacy
• Raised livestock were successful farmers

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The Cherokee

• Lived in northwestern mountain region of the
  state
• Called themselves the Awi-yum-wija, which meant
  the real people or principal people
• Tribal clans groups of people who believed
  themselves to be related by Cherokee blood
• Two tribal chiefs one for making wartime
  decisions, and one for making peace time
  decisions
• Clans governed on the local level

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The Cherokee Family

• Family lines were traced through the mother
• The mothers brothers were responsible for
  raising the children
• Mothers handled most of the domestic chores,
  fathers often left home to hunt or trade
• Children played games that prepared them for
  adulthood

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Cherokee Lifestyle

• Built homes on high banks or hills along rivers
  and streams
• Shelters were built from available materials,
  often plastered on the exterior to keep out rain
  cold
• Log cabins built for winter living
• Fishing and raising crops including maize (corn)
• Barter trading goods and services without
  exchange of money was economic system

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Cherokee Homes
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Cherokee Religion

• Believed earth was a large island resting on
  water
• This World Tribe was at center of earth
• Upper World Clean pure world Sun Moon were
  chief gods
• Under World waters below this world disorder
  change
• Deer and birds were honored, bears were not

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Other Cherokee Practices

• Drank ginseng to stop bleeding or shortness of
  breath
• Smoked tobacco during ceremonial occasions when
  seeking gods blessings
• Green Corn Ceremony held to give thanks for
  corn, their most important source of food
• Followed Law of Retaliation-took revenge to get
  even
• This law prevented feuds within the tribes