PreColumbian Art of North America Archaic Eastern Woodland

Pre-Columbian Art of North America Archaic Eastern Woodland Adena Hopewell Mississippian Algonquian and Iroquoian

Pre-Columbian refers to art before Native American made contact with Europeans— literally “before Columbus. ” Archaeologists refer to several overlapping periods of pre-Columbian cultures of the East Coast: Archaic 6000 BCE – 500 BCE Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE Adena 1000 BCE – 100 BCE Hopewell 200 BCE – 500 CE Mississippian 800 CE – 1600 CE Algonquian and Iroquoian 1000 CE – 1600 CE Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan: Archaic

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, aerial view. The site has been known by Europeans since the early 19 th century, but was not studied in depth until the 1950 s. Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE, plan

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Mound A, Poverty Point, Louisiana, built with 238, 000 cubic meters of fill deposited in just three months sometime between 1450 and 1250 BCE (based on carbon dating of a burn layer at bottom of the mound). Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

The White Temple and Ziggurat, above, from Uruk (Warka), Iraq, 3200 -3000 B. C, was built more than two thousand years before Mound A at Poverty Point, to elevate a temple dedicated to Ur, the Sumerian god of the sky. It was placed in the center of Uruk, which was one of the world’s first cities. The people who used Poverty Point were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, and did not build a city there. Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

The Great Pyramids, above, from Giza, Egypt, were built as burial tombs in Egypt, c. 2500 BCE, about a thousand years before Poverty Point. There is no evidence that Mound A was used as a burial mound. Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

The Olmec civilization, in the Yucatan Peninsula, was the first culture to create permanent settlements in the Americas—around 1000 BCE. Poverty Point was created by nomadic people a few hundred years earlier, sometime between 1450 and 1250 BCE. North and Central American Civilizations, c. 1000 BCE

The Great Pyramid at La Venta, 900 -600 BCE, Tabasco, Mexico (Olmec Civilization). One of the earliest pyramids known in Mesoamerica, the Great Pyramid is 110 ft (33 m) high and contains an estimated 100, 000 cubic meters of earth fill. The current shape of the pyramid was once thought to represent nearby volcanoes or mountains, but recent work by Rebecca Gonzalez-Lauck has shown that the pyramid was in fact a rectangular pyramid with stepped sides and inset corners, and the current shape is most likely due to 2500 years of erosion. Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE Archaeologists have discovered clay cooking balls, small female figurines, stone gorgets (for protecting the neck in battle), fishing weights and bars, and tiny sculptures and beads depicting animals at Poverty Point that date to c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point clay figurines, c. 1500 BCE Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE Poverty Point stone gorgets (for protecting the neck in battle), fishing weights and bars, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (2000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point miniature stone owl and a penny, c. 1500 BCE. Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of the stones used to create these beads originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes, attesting to their wide-reaching culture of trade.

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of the stones used to create these beads originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes, attesting to their wide-reaching culture of trade.

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) Was this mound created to resemble a bird? If so, what does this say about the archaic culture of Poverty Point? Poverty Point, Louisiana, c. 1500 BCE

Archaic 6000 BCE – 1000 BCE Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE Adena 1000 BCE – 100 BCE Hopewell 200 BCE – 500 CE Mississippian 800 CE – 1600 CE Algonquian and Iroquoian 1000 CE – 1600 CE

Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE, from Mound City, Ohio

Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE Archaic 6000 BCE – 1000 BCE Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE, from Mound City, Ohio Poverty Point miniature stone beads, c. 1500 BCE. Some of their possessions originated from quarries as far away as the Great Lakes, attesting to the extent of complex culture of trade.

Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE -800 CE Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE Raven Effigy Tobacco Pipe, Woodland Culture, Rutherford Mound, Illinois, c. 200 BCE to 200 CE, 2 3/8 x 4 ¾ inches – 1 CE, from Mound City, Ohio The left end of the platform is the mouthpiece. Even today, many Native Americans believe that fire and smoke to be sacred because they move upward toward the heavens. According to the Illinois State Museum’s website, when the smoker faces the head of the effigy, the smoker may have been in contact with the spirit of the raven. The act of smoking could have effected a transformation of the smoker into an raven. In Native American cosmology, raven is often described as a Trickster or a symbol of power (http: //www. museum. state. il. us/muslink/nat_amer/pre/htmls/w_beliefs. html).

Eastern Woodland 1000 BCE - 800 CE Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE Falcon-shaped cut out, copper, 200 BCE – 1 CE, from Mound City, Ohio Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches

Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches

Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE Castalian Springs Mound Shell Gorget, Castalian Springs, Sumner County, Tennessee, 1000 -1400 CE Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches

Archaic Pre-Columbian (6000 to 500 BCE) According to Professor John Grim of Bucknell University: “Native American rituals not only bind human communities together but they invite reciprocal participation of the individual and the community with the ancestral lineages, and through the many spirits of the cosmos, back again into the life of the local biological environment, or bioregion. . “…it can be said of indigenous visionary experience that when spiritual light illumines any one aspect of this indigenous mystical quaternity, it is as if all four dimensions of the personal, communal, spiritual, and bioregional are synthesized into a coherent whole. Such a visionary episteme allows meaning to arise in the synaesthesia of images, performances and thought rather than deriving it solely by means of rational analysis, cognitive discourse, or devotional prayer. ” http: //www. brblackburn. com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Cosmolgy-and. Native-American-Traditions. pdf Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches

Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE “Uktena” design from a shell engraving found at the Spiro Site in Oklahoma, c. 1250 CE; according to Cherokee legend, Ukenta was a man turned into a snake to battle the angry sun. Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches

Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches What does this diagram of the Andean cosmology suggest about the world-view of Native Americans? Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacut Yamqui Salcamaygua, Andean cosmological diagram based on the altar of the temple of Koricancha, Cuzco, Mexico, from Relación de Antigüedades, 1613 CE

Mississippian 800 to 1400 CE Ceremonial shell cup engraved with the Birdman, from Spiro Mounds, OK, c. 1300 CE, Shelk shell, 5 x 11 x 7 inches Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066

Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066

Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066

Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066 Serpent Mount—Our Ohio, 2008, 5: 47

Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200 CE Great Serpent Mound, near Locust Grove, Ohio, c. 1066

Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200 Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres, near Saint Louis, Missouri

Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200 CE Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres

Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200, reconstruction drawing No tipis! They lived in mud-brick structures with straw roofs. Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200 CE

Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200, reconstruction drawing Uxmal Pyramid, Yucatan, Mexico, c. 900 CE

Reconstruction of the great ruler buried in Mound 72, in the Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200 CE

Reconstruction of the great ruler buried in Mound 72, in the Cahokia Much like the pyramids in Mexico, only a few of the mounds served as burial sites.

Anasazi. . . (i. e. Ancestors) (700 to 1300 CE)

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE Anasazi. . . (i. e. Ancestors) (700 to 1300 CE)

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE

Pueblo Bonito was the center of turquoise trade. Turquoise beads from Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon. Beads were a prestige good as well as a medium of exchange. Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE Anasazi Olla, c. 1150, from Arizona

The Great Kiva. Some kivas were used for ceremonial or religious purposes. Others were used as domestic spaces. Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE

The Great Kiva Reconstructed Great Kiva at the Aztec Ruins National Monument. This kiva was completely restored in the 1930 s by Earl Morris after he excavated it a couple of decades earlier. Like many other examples of rebuilding, however, the Great Kiva is now generally thought to be inaccurate in some respects, most notably the roof level, which is almost certainly too high.

The Great Kiva Monk's Mound, Cahokia, Illinois, c. 900 -1200, 100 feet tall and covering 16 acres

Reconstruction model of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NM, 850 -1150 CE Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE

Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rectangular rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE

Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins in the Canyon de Chelly, New Mexico, 1873, albumen print from a glass negative

Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde, Colorado: 217 rooms and 23 kivas, 1190 to 1260 CE Mimbres Artist, Bowl with Koshare (clown) figure and “kill hole, ” Pruitt Site, New Mexico, c. 1200 CE, clay and pigment, 9 inch diameter

Mimbres bowls with kill holes, c. 1100 CE Mimbres Artist, Bowl with Koshare (clown) figure and “kill hole, ” Pruitt Site, New Mexico, c. 1200 CE, clay and pigment, 9 inch diameter