Tribal Outreach

Early Woodland 1,200–500 B.C.

james_house_178
Restored sapling and bark house at Jamestown Settlement ||Mending a vessel dated to A.D. 1600
.
Restored sapling and bark house at Jamestown Settlement.

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 1200 B.C. when the people began making fired clay cooking and storage vessels. Archaeologists believe this technology was introduced to Virginia from the people along the coast of present-day Georgia and South Carolina. There, the earliest pottery in North America may have been made as early as 2500 B.C. The shape and size of the first pottery in Virginia was patterned after that of soapstone vessels. Clay pots quickly proved to be more versatile and practical than soapstone.

Though pottery vessels were fragile and easily broken, they could quickly be replaced. Superior cooking pots, they also provided drier storage than earlier fiber or skin vessels. Archaeologists have recorded the changes over time in the size, shape, temper, surface treatment, and decoration of pottery from 1200 B.C. to the present. This wealth of pottery information provides archaeologists with ways to help date sites and to define Indian groups and interpret their interaction and movement.

 

 


Mending a vessel dated to A.D. 1600.

Although people undoubtedly lived in various shelters throughout their sojourn in Virginia, the first evidence for house patterns occurred in the archaeological record in the Early Woodland period. These homes were round to oval and from 10 to 20 feet in diameter and from 16 to 28 feet in length. Storage pits were located along the inner wall of the houses and fire pits were in the center. Since the small, but numerous, wall support posts were driven 1 to 2 feet into the ground, the houses probably supported a great weight of thatch or bark covering and storage of belongings in the rafters. This suggests permanently-built homes, reflective of a sedentary life style.

Related Blogs

new-vlr-listings-september-2023

State Adds 5 Historic Sites to the Virginia Landmarks Register

A 2023 photo of the Sailor's Creek Battlefield

Twilight of the Civil War – Sailor’s Creek Battlefield

Roberson Mill as it appeared in 2022 with restoration under way.

Virginia Landmarks Register Spotlight: Roberson Mill of Floyd County, Virginia

A view of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church Cemetery, a community burying ground owned and cared for by the church and its congregation.

Grave Matters: The African American Cemetery & Graves Fund

Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit project in Colonial Beach, Virginia

Preserving the "Playground of the Potomac"

Barbara Rose Johns maquette

Preliminary Model of Virginia’s Barbara Rose Johns Statue for U.S. Capitol Approved

June2023_VLRListings_MAIN

State Adds 11 Historic Sites to the Virginia Landmarks Register

Middle Archaic stone tools

Ask an Archaeologist: Ancient Stone Tools Discovered in Hanover County Yield Many Questions, Few Answers

Millwald Theater

A Star Is Reborn: The Rehabilitation of Wytheville’s Millwald Theatre