Archaic stage

In the sequence of North American cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Archaic stage was the second period of human occupation in the Americas, from around 8000 BC to 1000 BC although as its ending is defined by the adoption of sedentary farming, this date can vary significantly across the Americas.

It followed the Lithic stage and was superseded by the Formative stage.

The Archaic stage is characterised by subsistence economies supported through the exploitation of nuts, seeds and shellfish. Numerous local variations have been identified; in the Great Basin and western interior the period has been subdivided into Desert Archaic, Middle Archaic and Late Archaic whilst in south-western North America only a single Southwestern Archaic is recognised.

Southern North America

In Mesoamerica, the Mexican Archaic lasted from c. 9500 BC to 2500 BC and it was here that nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers first began to domesticate maize, squash and bottle gourds as the earliest of three (or possibly four) regions to independently develop farming in the Americas. This began as a managed exploitation of wild plants but by the end of the period had become full agrarian food production. Around 2000BC, this technology spread into southern North America where the knowledge of maize farming was able to be adopted as a much quicker transition than the slower original development further south. An alternate theory is that some Mesoamerican farmers colonised northwards themselves, bringing their farms with them.

The site of Las Capas in southern Arizona has revealed irrigation canals dug in the Late Archaic indicating sophisticated methods of water control were being adopted. Terraced fields were also a feature of farming in Mexico's Northern Chihuahua province. Dating to around 1200BC. Hunting and gathering were still an important element in the lives of the inhabitants but they lived in identifiable permanent villages of pit houses associated with storage features and roasting pits.

Eastern North America

In eastern North America, the landscape of pine forest, swamps and lakes in the Archaic provided a diet of hickory nuts, freshwater mussels and gourds to supplement hunting. The use of gourds as fishnet floats may have impelled their planting and cultivation. Simple cultivation may have begun as early as 6000BC independently of advances further south. The first earthworks appear as well as shell middens. Florida's wetlands have preserved vast quantities of organic material from the period such as the human burials at Windover archaeological site, the sinkhole at Little Salt Spring whilst the Archaic camp at Koster in Illinois indicates a kind of seasonal sedentism focusing on cultivated food sources along with river fish and game, hunted with the assistance of some of the earliest domesticated dogs. Other significant sites include Eva and Icehouse Bottom in Tennessee.

Seeds stood in for maize as the main cultivated food source during the Middle and Late Archaic in eastern North America. Selective breeding of sunflower, sumpweed and chenopod plants created larger seeds which would have rendered the specimens unable to reproduce without human assistance.

Western North America

In Western North America, agriculture did not gain a foothold and peoples of the Great Plains and the Pacific North West continued to develop hunting and gathering techniques. Beneficial plant species were managed where they could provide medicine, plant fibre or building material but crop domestication did not take place. Although this meant that most of the peoples in this region remained as nomads, sedentary populations reliant on fishing and managed plant exploitation did emerge in California and the continent's north west coast.

Elsewhere, people were reliant on hunting. On the Great Plains, sites such as the later Head-Smashed-In in Alberta attest to the practice of driving bison over a cliff to kill them. The climate was colder and wetter at the time and killed bison could be preserved in the winter snows and dug out and thawed as needed. Summer species hunted included porcupine, deer and rabbit. Later in the Middle Archaic period the climate warmed and Bison numbers fell, leading humans to find new methods to survive. In the Rocky Mountains, people developed large nets to trap mountain goats and sheep and at Mustang Springs a well was dug to maintain a water supply. In the Later Archaic the weather cooled again and bison numbers recovered. Some groups built bison pounds in which to keep live animals until they were needed for slaughter. Teepees and medicine wheels appeared for the first time.

Cultures of the North American Archaic

Within these sub divisions existed numerous cultures including:

Archaeology of the Americas | Periods and stages in archaeology

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Southern North America

Eastern North America

Western North America

Cultures of the North American Archaic