Woodland: Technology

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Woodland Technology

Ceramic Vessel, Elizabeth Mounds, Pike County Illinois

Technological Innovations

The single most important technological innovation of Woodland people was the refinement of clay pottery. As cooking, storage and transportable containers, these vessels helped alter human interactions with their environment. Foods previously inedible could be cooked to tenderize and leach out acids. More meat and highly nutritious bone grease could be removed from animal bones by boiling in clay pots than by roasting over open fires. Perishable foods could be stored for long periods or easily transported in sealed vessels.

The increased cultivation of plants, particularly seed-bearing plants, ranks as another important technological innovation of Native Americans of the Woodland period. Cultivation afforded the opportunity to create some surplus of foods on a seasonal basis, while ceramics and grinding stones provided the means of efficiently processing these new foods.