Artifacts

Note: The following information is from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and used with permission.

Overview

People lived in Virginia for about 17,000 years before European contact. The native people had no written language. They recorded their historic events through storytelling and symbolic drawings. By uncovering buried clues of their unwritten past, archeologists have reconstructed some of the history and lifestyles of these first people.

Archeology is the scientific study of the remaining traces of past human culture, technology, and behavior. Archeologists study the people who lived and worked on a site, and who made and used those artifacts. Archeologists pose research questions to learn how specific ways of life developed and how they changed over time. To analyze and interpret these artifacts requires a certain level of training and skill.

Due to controversial findings of the pre-Clovis dates and tools from a site named Cactus Hill in southern Virginia, archeologists disagree as to when people entered the New World. At this site, a small band of people lived on top of a sandy hill overlooking the Nottoway River. One piece of white pine discovered here dates to almost 17,000 years ago using radiocarbon dating. Associated with the pine were stone tools and the raw material from which the tools were made. These findings are challenging prevailing theories on human settlement of North America.

Late Archaic Period

By the Late Archaic Period, the people in 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. Some researchers describe this area as the "supermarket of the prehistoric world." Archeologists have also uncovered large hearths of fire-cracked rock at riverside sites, offering further proof that the Late Archaic people prepared large amounts of food there.

In the Coastal Plain, the people started to harvest large numbers of saltwater oysters - especially in the early spring, before plants came up. Oysters were a rich food source. The discarded shells formed thick middens or refuse heaps that archeologists find to be a rich source of household debris. This custom of oyster harvesting continued to the historic period.

Environmental Resources

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. Due to soapstone being a 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. With the use of stone and bone tools, they hollowed out bowls from the soapstone they harvested. When people started making heavy soapstone cooking vessels, they were most likely settled, as the vessels were too heavy to move often. Archeologists have found fragments of soapstone vessels across Virginia, sometimes hundreds of miles from a quarry.

In a similar fashion, cobbles of quartzite along the Fall Line (area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet), and outcrops of quartzite and rhyolite in the mountains were mined to produce large points and knives. These tools also found their way across Virginia, confirming the widespread trading in Virginia between people living in the mountains and along the coast.

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. Archeologists believe this technology was introduced to Virginia from the people along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina.

Pottery

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 proved to be more versatile and practical than soapstone. Though pottery vessels were fragile and easily broken, they could quickly be replaced. The cooking pots also provided drier storage than earlier fiber or skin vessels. Archeologists have recorded the changes of pottery from 1,200 B.C. to the present day based on:

• Size
• Shape
• Temper
• Surface treatment
• Decoration

This wealth of pottery information provides archeologists with ways to help date sites, define Indian groups, and interpret their interaction and movement.

Growth of Diverse Populations

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.

One example of the great diversity can be found in the Stone Mound Burial culture in the northern Shenandoah Valley. This culture, dating from 400 B.C. to A.D. 200, placed hundreds of low stone mounds in clusters on ancient bluff-like river terraces overlooking the floodplain. Only a few people were buried with great ceremony in each mound. Sometimes, the Stone Mound people placed rare and sacred objects made from exotic materials in the graves. These objects included:

• Tubular and platform pipes
• Copper beads
• Hematite cones
• Pendants
• Basalt celts
• Spear-throwing stones
• Caches of projectile points

The people placed the objects within the mound for the deceased to use on their afterlife journeys. The few graves within each mound, the few clusters of mounds, and the special objects suggest that the Stone Mound Burial culture gave only higher-ranking people this preferential treatment.

One of the best-stratified sites in southwestern Virginia is the Daugherty's Cave site, Russell County (Benthall 1990). Located on Big Cedar Creek - a tributary of the Clinch River, it provides some data on Woodland period habitation in southwestern Virginia. The earliest Woodland occupations occurred from approximately 500 B.C. to A.D. 1. During this period, people penetrating the Clinch River valley and the Big Creek watershed area from upper Eastern Tennessee used this cave.

The pottery found at Daugherty's Cave for this period is similar to ceramic types defined in the Tennessee River Valley. Benthall (1990) designated this limestone-tempered pottery as Long Branch Fabric Marked. The projectile points (used on knives, lances, and spears) found at Daugherty's Cave are also comparable to types defined in the Tennessee Valley. The projectile point collection includes the following:

• Ensor
• Camp Creek
• Ellis
• Nolichucky
• Greenville
• Ebenezer

This occupation zone exhibited an intensified use of the site during this period evident by the increased number of shallow pit features found in this zone. Most of the features are thermal in appearance and are all shallow. Some of the features appear to be smudge pits that were used to smoke-cure hides or fire pottery. Activity areas could be distinguished at the site. Food preparation is suggested by the presence of charred food remains in a hearth. Flint knapping activities were indicated by large quantities of lithic debitage next to the hearth, and a nearby smudge pit surrounded by post molds implies that pottery making or hide tanning was undertaken in this area.

Middle Woodland Period

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 (arrowheads or dart points), particularly the triangular shapes. Further advances came as people redesigned the grooved axe and used what is called a celt (un-grooved axe). Sleek and polished celt enabled people to refine their woodworking techniques.

Late Woodland Period

The Late Woodland people achieved a richness of culture that was unmatched to date. Sophisticated artistry created a wide range of pottery forms, stone artifacts, and bone tools such as:

• Awls
• Fishhooks
• Needles
• Beamers
• Turtle shell cups

Adornments 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 elaborate burial customs reflected the people's fascination with the passage from life to death.

Since the preservation of artifacts from the Late Woodland period is outstanding and the cultures are rich and dynamic, archeologists 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.

Learn more by visiting Virginia's First People Past & Present.