Monongahela culture

Last updated
The Monongahela cultural region with some of its major sites and neighbors as of 1050~1635 AD Fort Ancient Monongahela cultures HRoe 2010.jpg
The Monongahela cultural region with some of its major sites and neighbors as of 1050~1635 AD

The Monongahela culture were an Iroquoian Native American cultural manifestation of Late Woodland peoples from AD 1050 to 1635 in present-day Western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia. [1] The culture was named by Mary Butler in 1939 for the Monongahela River, whose valley contains the majority of this culture's sites. [2]

Contents

The Monongahela practiced maize agriculture, and lived in well laid out villages, some of which consisted of as many as 50-100 structures. They traded with other Indian groups who in turn traded with Europeans. The Monongahela seem to have disappeared some time during the 1620s or 1630s before having significant direct contact with Europeans.

Many scholars believe this to be the result of the spread of European infectious diseases. Others believe that most of the Monongahela were killed by or assimilated into either the Iroquois or the Algonquian-speaking Lenape tribes during warfare, as the more powerful tribes competed to control area hunting grounds for the fur trade. Still others claim that two severe droughts, one from 1587 to 1589 and another from 1607 to 1612, drove habitable area.

Interculture chronology

An internal temporal subdivision of the Monongahela culture, based on ceramic decorative attributes. [1]

SubdivisionsDatesCeramic markers
Late MonongahelaAD 1580 - 1635Characterized by plain pottery with decoration on lips and inside of the rim, also marks the appearance of ceramic traits that indicate contacts with the Iroquois
Middle MonongahelaAD 1250 - 1580Pottery surfaces usually undecorated, with some decoration on the lip of the pot including notching, incising, or stamping with a cord-wrapped paddle
Early MonongahelaAD 1050 - 1250Characterized by pottery decorated with rectangular incising and/or horizontal punctuated bands

Location

Clip of 1656 (3) LE CANADA OU NOUVELLE FRANCE &C. by Nicolas Sanson. In the Huron Iroquoian dialect, Akounake means "people of a strange language", and Attiouandron means "people of a similar language" (see lower part of map). Various "Smith Maps" by Captain John Smith, note the Virginia Indians refer to those to the west of the Allegheny Mountains as Messawomeck. Riviere de la Ronceverte (Greenbrier River) scholars assert the early French Jesuits did not see the main Ohio River during these decades. Clip-Sanson-map- 1656-Jesuits.gif
Clip of 1656 (3) LE CANADA OU NOUVELLE FRANCE &C. by Nicolas Sanson. In the Huron Iroquoian dialect, Akounake means "people of a strange language", and Attiouandron means "people of a similar language" (see lower part of map). Various "Smith Maps" by Captain John Smith, note the Virginia Indians refer to those to the west of the Allegheny Mountains as Messawomeck. Riviere de la Ronceverte (Greenbrier River) scholars assert the early French Jesuits did not see the main Ohio River during these decades.

The Monongahela culture extended in the area of the upper Ohio River system that includes the Monongahela, Youghiogheny and Casselman tributary rivers. Their region was of western Pennsylvania and the adjoining areas of eastern Ohio, West Virginia, and western Maryland. Nearly four hundred archeological sites have been recorded. The culture was contemporaneous to the bordering Fort Ancient culture in the Ohio Valley. [4]

The Monongahela is a Late Woodland horizon that coincides with the Mingo homeland and distinguishes it from the Iroquois League homeland, centered in present-day New York state. [5] Monongahela villages originated on flood plains, but by 1250, the people had migrated to the watershed highlands and often lived on gaps between ridges. Archaeologists speculate that the move to these areas, and construction of larger, fortified villages at this time was a symptom of intergroup warfare.

The Fort Hill Site (46MG12) in Morgantown, West Virginia is a nearly 5-acre (20,000 m2) archeological site that includes what appears to be a Monongahela village. The site has good preservation. A human burial, animal bones, bone beads, a marginella-shell bead, shell-tempered pottery and triangular arrow points have been recovered during excavations at the site. In 2002 the site was endangered with destruction by commercial development. [6]

The majority of the 18 known sites within the Osage USGS Quadrangle and the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle on the environs of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border are of the Monongahela Culture. The Worley village Complex (46Mg23) dates to about AD 900. It is located within the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle, as is the recently found Wana village site, which was revealed by infrared photography. A field test at the Wana site confirmed pottery, shell, and flint present. It has not yet been studied.

The LaPoe (46Mg21) village complex in Monongalia County, West Virginia is a circular village occupied during the 16th and 17th centuries, with trade items recovered. Nearby LaPoe, 46Mg18 is a stone burial mound. Also located at LaPoe is the village site 46Mg20. Pyle Farm, 46Mg15, is a late prehistoric village site that is located in the Osage USGS Quadrangle. In addition, hundreds of undocumented archeological sites exist in the Dunkard Creek Watershed of Greene County, Pennsylvania and Monongalia County, West Virginia. [7]

Material culture

Ceramics

Monongahela pottery was constructed using the coil method, tempered using crushed igneous rock (e.g., granite) or quartz temper, and usually decorated with cordmarking. (Mayer-Oakes’ 1955) To quote the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, "Monongahela ceramics are a complex series that begin with an early grit or limestone tempered group and end with a very anomalous collection of types found in southwestern Pennsylvania during the post-Contact period." [8]

According to the collaborative research of 2009 of William C. Johnson (Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology) and D. Scott Speedy (Grave Creek Mound Archaeology Complex Research Facility in West Virginia), Monongahela tradition women favored the production of final Z-twist cordage production. On the upper Ohio River drainage basin subareas, some pottery apparently represents the incorporation of local Late Woodland groups with their own distinctive cordage-manufacturing traditions. As Johnson and Speedy say in their abstract, "In the absence of elaborately decorated ceramics, variations in the relative frequency of the predominant cordage twist direction peculiar to some subareas also suggest that twist direction may function as a group signature, thus permitting identification of individual or related village removals that may be synonymous with tribes."

Village construction

Monongahela houses were small oval to round shaped and were built within palisaded villages with a central plaza. These villages' entry point often had a maze-like structure that overlapped the stockaded outer walls. Differing from Fort Ancient methods, some entrances were covered. Some of the villages had elevated observation platforms.

Charnel houses have been found in the larger villages. Black bear masks have been found in some graves, showing a possible indication of a rank. Of the average adult burials, it is not clearly understood where they might have been buried. To distinguish the characteristics between Fort Ancient and interior Monongahelan of West Virginia, Dr. McMichael writes, "A reflection of the Monongahela's greater Woodland heritage was the continued use of small stone mounds in the Monongahela drainage area, well into the Late Prehistoric." Child burials were sometimes inside the village and sometimes under the house. [9] [ unreliable source? ] This contrasted with Andaste (Susquehannock) burials from 1450/1550, which were outside the palisaded village, as found east of the Allegheny Mountains. [10]

By 1450, petal-shaped attachments to their houses became common. These were used for storage or perhaps a smokehouse. Monongahela pottery and tools were well crafted and included decorated clay pipes for smoking. Glass trade beads have been found at some villages, although there is no record of European contact.

Agriculture and food

Like its sister culture the Fort Ancient, the Monongahela made a leap in agriculture by adopting seed crops from Mesoamerica, which had been obtained through their ancestral trade network. The women cultivated varieties of crops such as maize, beans, squash, and sunflower, collecting their seeds to use in subsequent years. They also collected wild plant foods, such as nuts and berries, to complete their diets. As with many contemporary groups to the west and south, they depended on maize as the major staple of their diet. The Monongahela men hunted animals including deer and turtles, and caught fish and shell fish. [1]

They made advances in the cultivation of tobacco and hemp braid crops, and traded these with the East Coast agriculturists. In 1599 - 1600 the English geographer and propagandist Richard Hakluyt reported on Native American foods of the mid-Atlantic coastal people with whom they also traded. As evidence of that trade, sea shells from the mid-Atlantic have been found in some Monongahela sites. [11]

Disappearance

Clip from John Senex map ca 1710, showing the peoples Captain Vielle passed by in 1692 to reach Chaouenon country, as the French Jesuit called the Shawnee. Carte Nouvelle-france et 13 colonies en 1710.jpg
Clip from John Senex map ca 1710, showing the peoples Captain Vielle passed by in 1692 to reach Chaouenon country, as the French Jesuit called the Shawnee.

This late prehistoric culture peaked about AD 1300. The colder weather of the Little Ice Age may have caused inter-group battling over food and farmland, according to some scholars. [12] The crops did not prosper as well during this colder period, causing food shortages for populations that had grown after their introduction. Some studies show that the culture began failing due to poor health conditions.

In addition, some scholars believe that two severe droughts, one from 1587 to 1589 and another from 1607 to 1612, drove the bearer of the Monongahela culture from the region in search of a more habitable area. Because of trade with other groups, the Monongahela could have contracted infectious diseases from coastal peoples, who were directly exposed by their contact with Europeans. As the Native Americans did not have immunity, the new diseases resulted in high fatalities in widespread areas.

The Monongahela culture was progressively disappearing before the time the Iroquois League invaded the Allegheny Plateau through to the Lake Erie region in an effort to control new hunting grounds for the lucrative fur trade. The powerful Iroquois likely conquered or drove out the Monongahela.

About the year of 1635, it appears that a group of refugees from the Monongahela culture resettled in south-central Virginia at Halifax County. They were likely absorbed by a Siouan-speaking tribe of the area, but historians do not know for sure. There were also Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking tribes nearby. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brownsville, Pennsylvania</span> Borough in Pennsylvania, United States

Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, first settled in 1785 as the site of a trading post a few years after the defeat of the Iroquois enabled a resumption of westward migration after the Revolutionary War. The trading post soon became a tavern and inn and was receiving emigrants heading west, as it was located above the cut bank overlooking the first ford that could be reached to those descending from the Allegheny Mountains. Brownsville is located 40 miles (64 km) south of Pittsburgh along the east bank of the Monongahela River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hopewell tradition</span> Ancient North American indigenous civilization

The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegheny Mountains</span> Mountain range in the northeastern United States

The Allegheny Mountain Range, informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less developed eras. The Allegheny Mountains have a northeast–southwest orientation, running for about 300 miles (480 km) from north-central Pennsylvania southward, through western Maryland and eastern West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Ancient</span> Archaeological culture in the Ohio River valley

The Fort Ancient culture is a Native American archaeological culture that dates back to c. 1000–1750 CE. Members of the culture lived along the Ohio River valley, in an area running from modern-day Ohio and western West Virginia through to northern Kentucky and parts of southeastern Indiana. A contemporary of the neighboring Mississippian culture, Fort Ancient is considered to be a separate "sister culture". Mitochondrial DNA evidence collected from the area suggests that the Fort Ancient culture did not directly descend from the older Hopewell Culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wickliffe Mounds</span> Archaeological site in Kentucky, US

Wickliffe Mounds is a prehistoric, Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Ballard County, Kentucky, just outside the town of Wickliffe, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Archaeological investigations have linked the site with others along the Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky as part of the Angel phase of Mississippian culture. Wickliffe Mounds is controlled by the State Parks Service, which operates a museum at the site for interpretation of the ancient community. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is also a Kentucky Archeological Landmark and State Historic Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erie people</span> Iroquoian group native to the Great Lakes

The Erie people were Indigenous people historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio before 1658. Their nation was almost exterminated in the mid-17th century by five years of prolonged warfare with the powerful neighboring Iroquois for helping the Huron in the Beaver Wars for control of the fur trade. Captured survivors were adopted or enslaved by the Iroquois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Village of the Illinois</span> Archaeological site in Illinois, United States

The Grand Village of the Illinois, also called Old Kaskaskia Village, is a site significant for being the best documented historic Native American village in the Illinois River valley. It was a large agricultural and trading village of Native Americans of the Illinois confederacy, located on the north bank of the Illinois River near the present town of Utica, Illinois. French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette came across it in 1673. The Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illiniwek people lived in the village. It grew rapidly after a French mission and fur trading post were established there in 1675, to a population of about 6,000 people in about 460 houses. Around 1691 the Kaskaskia and other Illiniwek moved further south, abandoning the site due to pressure from an Iroquois invasion from the northeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Line Archeological District</span> Archaeological site in Ohio, United States

The State Line Archeological District is a complex of archaeological sites and national historic district located west of Elizabethtown, Ohio, United States. Located on both sides of the Indiana/Ohio border, the historic district is composed of five contributing properties spread out across 8 acres (3.2 ha) of land. It is believed to have been the site of a village of the Fort Ancient culture of prehistoric Native Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clover site</span> Archaeological type site

The Clover site (46CB40) is a Fort Ancient culture archeological site located near Lesage in Cabell County, West Virginia, United States. It is significant for its well-preserved remains of a late prehistoric/protohistoric Native American village. The site's unique assemblage has made it the type site for the Clover Phase of the Madisonville horizon of the Fort Ancient culture.

The Prehistory of West Virginia spans ancient times until the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century. Hunters ventured into West Virginia's mountain valleys and made temporary camp villages since the Archaic period in the Americas. Many ancient human-made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston, and Romney. The artifacts uncovered in these areas give evidence of a village society with a tribal trade system culture that included limited cold worked copper. As of 2009, over 12,500 archaeological sites have been documented in West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper Mississippian culture</span> Archaeological culture in North America

The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistoric and early Historic periods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistory of Ohio</span>

Prehistory of Ohio provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Ohio's recorded history. The ancient hunters, Paleo-Indians, descended from humans that crossed the Bering Strait. There is evidence of Paleo-Indians in Ohio, who were hunter-gatherers that ranged widely over land to hunt large game. For instance, mastodon bones were found at the Burning Tree Mastodon site that showed that it had been butchered. Clovis points have been found that indicate interaction with other groups and hunted large game. The Paleo Crossing site and Nobles Pond site provide evidence that groups interacted with one another. The Paleo-Indian's diet included fish, small game, and nuts and berries that gathered. They lived in simple shelters made of wood and bark or hides. Canoes were created by digging out trees with granite axes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Point Peninsula complex</span> Archaeological culture in North America

The Point Peninsula complex was an indigenous culture located in Ontario and New York from 600 BCE to 700 CE. Point Peninsula ceramics were first introduced into Canada around 600 BCE then spread south into parts of New England around 200 BCE. Some time between 300 BCE and 1 CE, Point Peninsula pottery first appeared in Maine, and "over the entire Maritime Peninsula." Little evidence exists to show that it was derived from the earlier, thicker pottery, known as Vinette I, Adena Thick, etc... Point Peninsula pottery represented a new kind of technology in North America and has also been called Vinette II. Compared to existing ceramics that were thicker and less decorated, this new pottery has been characterized by "superior modeling of the clay with vessels being thinner, better fired and containing finer grit temper." Where this new pottery technology originated is not known for sure. The origin of this pottery is "somewhat of a problem." The people are thought to have been influenced by the Hopewell traditions of the Ohio River valley. This influence seems to have ended about 250 CE, after which they no longer practiced burial ceremonialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mississippian culture pottery</span> Ceramics of the Mississippian culture (800 to 1600 CE)

Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of the hallmarks of Mississippian cultural practices. Analysis of local differences in materials, techniques, forms, and designs is a primary means for archaeologists to learn about the lifeways, religious practices, trade, and interaction among Mississippian peoples. The value of this pottery on the illegal antiquities market has led to extensive looting of sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protohistory of West Virginia</span> Protohistorical period

The protohistoric period of the state of West Virginia in the United States began in the mid-sixteenth century with the arrival of European trade goods. Explorers and colonists brought these goods to the eastern and southern coasts of North America and were brought inland by native trade routes. This was a period characterized by increased intertribal strife, rapid population decline, the abandonment of traditional life styles, and the extinction and migrations of many Native American groups.

The Buffalo Indian Village Site is an archaeological site located near Buffalo, Putnam County, West Virginia, along the Kanawha River in the United States. This site sits atop a high terrace on the eastern bank of the Kanawha River and was once home to a variety of Native American villages including the Archaic, Middle Woodland and Fort Ancient cultures of this region. Buffalo Village was the site of one of the first systematic archaeological projects performed in West Virginia and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

The Hobson site (33MS2) is a Native American archaeological site located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) below Middleport, Ohio on the north bank of the Ohio River. It has minor traces of Archaic, Woodland and Late Prehistoric artifacts. However, the largest component is a small village and cemetery of the Feurt Phase of the Fort Ancient culture originally estimated to date to 1100 to 1200 CE. More recent radiocarbon-dating has provided a date of 1350 CE.

The Hardin Village site (15GP22) is a Fort Ancient culture Montour Phase archaeological site located on a terrace of the Ohio River near South Shore in Greenup County, Kentucky. It is located within the Big Sandy Management Area along with the nearby Lower Shawneetown site. The site was first inhabited sometime in the early 16th century and abandoned by 1625. This era of protohistory saw the arrival of Europeans in North America, although by the time they made it to this area, the village had been long abandoned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iroquoian peoples</span> Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands cultural area, in eastern North America.

The Iroquoian peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of peoples from eastern North America. Their traditional territories, often referred to by scholars as Iroquoia, stretch from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in the north, to modern-day North Carolina in the south.

The Rock Island II Site is an archaeological site located on the south side of Rock Island, in Door County, Wisconsin, United States, at the mouth of Green Bay, within the boundaries of Rock Island State Park. It is classified as an Early Historic site with occupations by the Potawatomi, Huron, Petun, Ottawa and Wyandot tribes. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2023. It is one of the best-preserved sites documenting early Native-European contacts in the Great Lakes region.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Monongahela culture-AD 1050-1635". Fort Hill Archeology. Retrieved 2010-01-14.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. ↑ "Monongahela culture". Ohio History Central. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  3. ↑ Joseph Le Caron (b. near Paris in 1586; d. in France, 29 March 1632; first missionary to the Hurons) wrote the first dictionary of the Huron language. The Bibliotheca Universa Franciscana of Jean de S. Antoine, II (Madrid, 1732), 243, says on the evidence of Arturus in his Martyrologium Franciscanum under date of 31 August, that Le Caron wrote "Quærimonia Novæ Franciæ" (Complaint of New France). Citation: Odoric M. Jouve. Transcribed by Mario Anello. The Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume IX. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York Bibliography, Histoire chronol. de la province de St-Denis (Bibl. Nat., Paris); Mortuologe des Récollets de la province de St-Denis (late seventeenth-century MS., in the archives of Quebec seminary); CHAMPLAIN (Euvres, ed. LAVARDI?RE (6 vols., Quebec, 1870); SAGARD, Histoire du Canada, ed. TROSS (4 vols.. Paris, 1866); LECLERCQ, Premier Etablissment de la Foi dans la Nouvelle France (2 vols., Paris, 1691)
  4. ↑ Darla Spencer. "An Archaeological Treasure: a survey of the Lower Kanawha Valley in Putnam and Mason counties". Council for West Virginia Archaeology.
  5. ↑ Thomas McElwain. "The Use of the Mingo Language in the Last Half of the Twentieth Century".
  6. ↑ EVELYN RYAN (2002-08-08). "Fort Hill Site returns to the news". The Morgantown Dominion Post. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
  7. ↑ "Sites registered with the WV Department of Culture and History". Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
  8. ↑ "Minority Wares in Maryland: Monongahela and Susquehannock Ceramics". Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland. Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. 2003. Archived from the original on 2010-11-28. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
  9. ↑ Dennis Stahl. The Monongahela People. Archived from the original on 2014-12-03. Retrieved 2013-05-20. Somerset County Monongahela concentrations include site clusters at Confluence, Quemahoning and Upper Casselman (Meyersdale). Specific recorded and excavated archaeological sites at Meyersdale include Gnagey 36SO55; Peck #1 36SO1: Peck #2, 36SO8; Petenbrink, 36SO113; and Bluelick, 36SO62. Just south of Meyersdale are Troutman 36SO9, near Wellersburg and Emerick 36SO10, near Kennells Mill
  10. ↑ Henry W. Hiesey; J. Paul Witmer (1971). Foundations of Pennsylvania Prehistory, The Shenks Ferry People. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg. p. 491.
  11. ↑ Richard Hakluyt (1898). "The Principall Voyages, Traffiques, and Discourses of the English Nations (1599-1600)". In Albert Bushnell Hart (ed.). American History Told by Contemporaries. Vol. 1. pp. 89–95.
  12. ↑ "Monongahela Culture" Archived 2010-12-27 at the Wayback Machine , Virtual First Ohioans, Ohio Historical Society
  13. ↑ Margaret M. Nava (February 2001). "The Golden Harvest of the Fort Ancient and Monongahela Cultures". Wonderful West Virginia Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-07-20.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.