An Introduction to Early Cultures of the American Bottom

The Mississippi River Valley, the backbone of the midwest landscape, has been evolving for tens of thousands of years. As the world's climate changed, where plants and animals lived not only shifted, but many ecological communities were rearranged and some species went extinct. Places where the river once flowed quickly when fed by torrents of glacial outwash gradually became backwater lakes, swamps and sloughs as the modern valley formed.

As the physical and biological landscape evolved, so to did Native Americans' culture and adaptations to their natural and social worlds. Through techological innovations, social organization, and ecological adaptations human populations have, for 12,000 years - since before the end of the Ice Ages, sustained themselves and prospered in the rich and varied natural environments of the American Bottom. Native American inhabitants of the American Bottom left an archaeological record that testifies to the evolution of cultural complexity from hunting and gathering groups, to semi-permanent villages sustained by an evolving food procurement repertoire, to burgeoning urban communities like Cahokia - one of the preeminent prehistoric communities in North America. Colonial sites provide perspective on the interactions of Native American and European culture.

Taken together, these epochs of human history provide an invaluable perspective of human ecology, especially the fundamental relationship between humans and the Mississippi River.

Timeline

MISSISSIPPIAN: 1000 to 700 years ago

WOODLAND: 3000 to 1000 years ago

ARCHAIC: 10,000 to 3000 years ago

THE PALEO-INDIANS: 12,000 to 10,000 years ago