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THE FAR NORTH AND CANADA 1500 to 1000 B.C.
The Arctic Small Tool tradition continued across northern Canada to Greenland and the Pacific coast Indians continued their salmon fishing, without attempting cultivation. By 1,000 B.C. they were building villages along the Snake, Columbia and Fraser rivers south of the Snake, there were large oval dwellings with floors and a timber frame, usually about twenty-five by thirty feet.

1000 to 700 B.C.
The Arctic Small Tool tradition continued in the far north. Centered at the Fraser River delta about 1,000 B.C. and extending from southern Alaska down to northern California, was the Northwest Coast Tradition. Eskimo and Old Cordilleran traditions may have contributed to this society which included hunting and gathering of multiple river and marine foods - mollusks, salmon, halibut, whale, seal and sea otter. Out of wood the people made canoes, plank houses, carved household items and wooden slat armor that may have been derived directly from Asia.

THE UNITED STATES 1500 to 1000 B.C.
The Indians of North America originally had lived by hunting game and gathering wild foods, but about 3,000 years ago they began making clay vessels, an innovation that accompanied the appearance of agriculture in many areas. The pottery found in various excavation sites in the United States has a distinctive gritty temper and is often decorated with fabric or cord impressions. One village, called the Baumer site, in southern Illinois, covered more than ten acres and was made up of houses about sixteen feet square. The use of local strains of corn, beans and squash after 1,500 B.C. gave people the surplus of food and time needed to engage in some communal activities. The first signs of mound building appeared in the middle west about 1,000 B.C. as some villages began to bury their dead under low earth mounds. In the southwest the Cochise continued their gradual transition from hunter-gatherers to true farmers.

1000 to 700 B.C.
In the United States area, the Burial Mound I period of the Woodland tradition was typified by the Adena Culture of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Similar areas could be found, however, from Canada through Minnesota and down to the Louisiana-Texas border. The characteristic traits were woodland pottery, burial mounds, some as high as 66 feet, and the beginnings of agriculture. Indians lived in small, scattered villages with round houses, using wattle for walls and thatch for roofs. (Ref. 45, 215) In southeast United States an Archaic type of culture extended throughout the period under review. Studies of remains have been made in the St. John River of Florida and the Savannah River culture of the river valley by the same name. The major weapon was a short heavy spear propelled by a throwing stick while bone fish-hooks, stone net weights and stone axes have been found. Fiber tempered pottery had been in use in this area for a long time.

And now we must mention the recent and very controversial work of one Barry Fell. Professor Fell is a teacher of marine biology at Harvard University, but he also claims an extensive education in ancient Celtic languages at Edinburgh University and thus professes to be one of the few who can read ancient scripts in Celtic and other ancient tongues, including Egyptian, Phoenician and Libyan. It is his assertion that in various parts of the United States he has found stone inscriptions in those ancient tongues, seeming to prove that those people visited or even colonized parts of America in this early period. Of special note, in the time bracket of this chapter, is his claim of Phoenician inscriptions, written in the Celtic alphabet, at a site called Mystery Hill, New Hampshire, dated to 800 to 600 B.C. He feels that Goedelic Celts from Spain and Portugal explored and settled multiple areas in New England during the first millennium B.C. and that the Punic phase just mentioned undoubtedly followed an original Celtic occupation. In addition, he has allegedly translated the so-called Pontotoc stele of Oklahoma as an extract from the "Hymn to Aton", a chant of the pharaoh Akhnaton, dating from the 13th century B.C., although Fell says the Oklahoma version can scarcely be older than about 800 B.C., believing it was the work of an early Iberian colonist writing in the script from the Cachao-da-Rapa region of northern Portugal. Similarly he writes that the Davenport stele of Iowa has three separate scripts,- Egyptian hieroglyphics alongside Iberian and Libyan scripts. Previously these stelae had been considered as fakes. Fell's interesting hypotheses have not yet been generally accepted and seem to have been more or less ignored by the professional archeologists.

In the Cochise area of southwest United States a new and more vigorous strain of corn was imported from Mexico about 1,000 B.C. A new plant, the red kidney bean, also appeared as the Cochise began to build simple pit-houses and group themselves together in small villages. As agricultural activities made easier living, they had time to develop early pottery forms and soon figurines of people and animals. Findings in the refuse of the Ventana Cave, some 100 miles from Tucson, have revealed these gradual changes from hunter to farmer.

ca. 1,000 - 700 B.C - Poverty was a thriving trade center for the entire Mississippi Valley by 1000 B.C. dates between the years 1700 and 700 B.C.. Poverty Point, located in northeastern Louisiana, is the earliest major mound complex site found in America north of Mexico. Poverty Point contains some of the largest prehistoric earth works in North America.

Early Woodland Period (1000 BCE to -1 CE), Deptford Phase - Also known as the Deptford culture, it is a period historically marking the introduction of pottery serving as the demarcation of the Woodland period, first believed to have occurred around 1000 BCE. Later research indicated that a fiber-tempered horizon of ceramics greatly predates 1000 BCE, first appearing about 2500 BCE in parts of Florida and Georgia. Nevertheless, these early sites were typical Archaic settlements, differing only in the use of basic ceramic technology. As such, researchers are now redefining the period to begin with not only pottery, but the appearance of permanent settlements, elaborate burial practices, intensive collection and/or horticulture of starchy seed plants, differentiation in social organization, and specialized activities, among other factors. Most of these are evident in the Southeastern United States by 1000 BCE. The Adena culture is the best-known early Woodland culture. In some areas, like South Carolina and coastal Georgia, Deptford pottery persists until ca. 700 CE. Most settlements are located near the coast, often near salt marshes. Acorns and palm berries were eaten, as well as wild grapes and persimmon. The most common prey was white-tailed deer. Shellfish formed an important part of the diet, and numerous coastal middens are known. After 100 BCE, burial mounds were built, which is taken to indicate social change (Milanich 1994).

Virginia Indians from 1,000 to 3,000 years ago [1,000 B. C. - 1,000 A. D.] Archaeologists use the term, Woodland, to describe the cultures of native people from 3,000 to 1,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found the beginning of settled village life. They have found remains of long-term Indian camps which have prepared house floors and hearth pits. Some bands were using river locations as camp sites. This was true of bands living in Henrico County. Population continued to rise with more mixing of groups of people and increased trade. When people no longer move about constantly, they are settled [sedentary], rather than nomadic.

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