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The Baytown culture was a
The Baytown culture was a Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
Native American culture that existed from 300 to 700 CE in the lower Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
Valley, consisting of sites in eastern Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
, western Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
, and western Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
. The Baytown Site
The Baytown Site ( 3 MO 1) is a Pre-Columbian Native American archaeological site located on the White River at Indian Bay, in Monroe County, Arkansas. It was first inhabited by peoples of the Baytown culture (300 to 700 CE) and later briefly by ...
on the White River in Monroe County, Arkansas
Monroe County is located in the Arkansas Delta in the U.S. state of Arkansas. The County (United States), county is named for James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States. Created as Arkansas's 20th county on November 2, 1829, Monroe C ...
is the type site
In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age ...
for culture. It was a Baytown Period culture during the Late Woodland period
In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologi ...
. It was contemporaneous with the Coastal Troyville and Troyville culture
The Troyville culture is an archaeological culture in areas of Louisiana and Arkansas in the Lower Mississippi valley in the Southeastern Woodlands. It was a Baytown Period culture and lasted from 400 to 700 CE during the Late Woodland period. It ...
s of Louisiana and Mississippi (all three had evolved from the Marksville Hopewellian peoples) and the Fourche Maline culture
Fourche ( ) is a town in Perry County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 59 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Little Rock–North Little Rock– Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Geography
Fourche is located at (34.993 ...
and was succeeded by the Plum Bayou culture
Plum Bayou culture is a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that lived in what is now east-central Arkansas from 650–1050 CE,carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
of the land, and, as the elaborate trade system broke down, with groups resorted to raiding rather than trading with other territories to acquire important resources.
* The rapid replacement of the spear and atlatl with the bow-and-arrow quickly decimated the large game animals, interrupting the hunting component of food procurement and resulting in settlements breaking down into smaller units to better exploit local resources.
* Colder climate conditions about 1,600 years ago may have affected yields of gathered foods, such as nuts or starchy seeds.
* Intensified horticulture became so successful that increased agricultural production may have reduced variation in food resource availability between differing areas. Although, this reliance on agriculture with only a few types of plants, would have carried with it a risk where variations in rainfall or climate could have caused shortages, leading to famines.
In all probability these 4 theories are quite inter-related and may have all played a role in the development of the Baytown culture.
Although few outstanding works of prehistoric art or architecture can be attributed to this time period, analysis shows that throughout the Southeast, the Late Woodland was a very dynamic period. Bow-and-arrow technology, allowing for increased hunting efficiency, and new varieties of maize, beans, and squash gained importance, which greatly supplemented existing native seed and root plants. Although settlement size was small, there was an increase in the number of Late Woodland sites over Middle Woodland sites, indicating a population increase. These factors tend to mark the Late Woodland period as an expansive period, not one of a cultural collapse.
Material culture
Diet
Baytown people grew domesticated plants native to eastern North America, such asmaygrass
''Phalaris caroliniana'' is a species of Poaceae, grass known as Carolina canarygrass and maygrass.
Background
It is native to the southern United States, and it can be found as a introduced species, naturalized species along the west coast of ...
, little barley
''Hordeum pusillum'', also known as little barley, is an annual grass native to most of the United States and southwestern Canada. It arrived via multiple long-distance dispersals of a southern South American species of ''Hordeum'' about one mil ...
, amaranth
''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan genus of annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some amaranth species are cultivated as leaf vegetables, pseudocereals, and ornamental plants. Catkin-like cymes of densely pack ...
, and chenopodium
''Chenopodium'' is a genus of numerous species of perennial or annual herbaceous flowering plants known as the goosefoots, which occur almost anywhere in the world. It is placed in the family Amaranthaceae in the APG II system; older classifica ...
, with lesser amounts of sunflower
The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), as ...
, sumpweed, knotweed Knotweed is a common name for plants in several genera in the family Polygonaceae. Knotweed may refer to:
* ''Fallopia''
* ''Persicaria''
* ''Polygonum''
* ''Reynoutria japonica
''Reynoutria japonica'', synonyms ''Fallopia japonica'' and ''Poly ...
, squash
Squash may refer to:
Sports
* Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets
* Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling
* Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...
, and bottle gourd
Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...
. Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...
s and hickory
Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...
nuts were important in the diet, as well as wild fruits such as persimmon
The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus ''Diospyros''. The most widely cultivated of these is the Oriental persimmon, ''Diospyros kaki'' ''Diospyros'' is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-pers ...
s, plum
A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are called prunes.
History
Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundantly cultivated species are not found i ...
s, cherries
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
, and various berries
A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, raspb ...
and grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...
s. People hunted white-tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...
, squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
s, raccoon
The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...
s, turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
s, passenger pigeon
The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (''Ectopistes migratorius'') is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word ''passager'', meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits ...
s, and migratory wildfowl using bows and arrows. They caught various species of fish and aquatic turtles, depending on what lived in the nearby bodies of water.
Pottery
Distinctive styles of flat-based pottery jars, hemispherical bowls, and stone points used onatlatl
A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever or ''atlatl'' (pronounced or ; Nahuatl ''ahtlatl'' ) is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to store ene ...
darts are associated with the Baytown culture. Plum Bayou culture
Plum Bayou culture is a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that lived in what is now east-central Arkansas from 650–1050 CE, Mulberry Creek Cord Marked, Larto Red, Coles Creek Incised, and Officer Punctated ceramics were found at the Baytown Site.
See also
* Culture, phase, and chronological table for the Mississippi ValleyReferences
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baytown Culture Late Woodland period Archaeological cultures of North America Mound builders (people) 3rd-century establishments 7th-century disestablishments in North America