Science History Art & Literature GIS & Mapping Library |
Pre-Columbian Agriculture:Native
American Agriculture of Eastern North America Many different Native American societies and agricultural systems evolved over time inthe Americas. Although there is some disagreement among archaeologists about the time when humans first arrived on the continent, but there is general agreement that humans were in the Americas by 11,000 ago, and may have arrived as early as 15,000 years ago. The first arrivals crossed the Bering Strait from Asia during the last Ice Age and quickly spread throughout the Americas. The first wave of these people are sometimes referred to as Paleoindians, who were entirely hunters and gathers. They followed large game, particularly mastodons, and there is evidence that suggests that hunting by these people contributed to the disappearance of these and other animals on the North American continent. Earliest evidence for plant cultivation in the Americas appears to be about 10,000 yearsold in South America, where potatoes and a variety of other plants was first domesticated, and 9,000 years old in Central America where corn and a variety of other crops were domesticated. Plant domestication appears to have started later in eastern North America, including the land that is now Illinois. In the Mississippi River drainage basin, 7000 year old archeological evidence indicatesthat humans began to occupy river flood plains continuously during the summer months. Thisoccupation caused disturbances to the floodplain environment that appear to have favored certain weedy invader plants, such as curcubita, goosefoot, sumpweed and sunflower, which have edible seeds. At some undetermined date, humans apparently began to cultivate these plants, and by 3,000 years ago physiological differences had developed between a number of cultivated varieties and their wild relatives. Maize (corn) appears to have been introduced into North America from the south about1,700 years ago, but it remained a relatively minor crop until about 800 years ago. At that time, the common bean was also introduced, and the corn-bean-squash complex was grown in several, but not all, regions of eastern North America. This was a period in which the climate was considerably warmer than it is today, known as the Medieval Warm Epoch. During this period, wild and domesticated species could be found much further north than their present ranges. The introduction of corn and beans to North America appears to have displaced, to someextent, the use of indigenously domesticated plants, such as goosefoot and sunflower.Nonetheless, there was still a great variety of domesticated crops grown in Native Americanfields, such as tobacco, peppers, cotton, amaranth, sunflower, jerusalem artichoke and manyother plants. Additionally, different varieties of maize with different cob shapes and sizesappeared in different regions. Europeans recorded the existence of short and long season cornvarieties, but it has not yet been determined when or how these varieties were developed byNative Americans. Such crop diversity indicates a sophisticated knowledge of crop breeding and husbandry. When Europeans arrived, most, if not all, Native Americans still depended on hunting,fishing and gathering to a significant degree. However, some tribes, particularly in the southeast,such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek, were settled and rather than nomadic. |