Archaeology of Iowa
When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape.
By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems.
During the Archaic period (10,500–2,800 years ago) American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased.
More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants.
[2] Truly systematic recording of Iowa sites began with Charles R. Keyes and Ellison Orr’s surveys and excavations beginning in the 1920s.
After their deaths in 1951, the Survey was disbanded, and their efforts were continued by the University of Iowa’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, which formed the Office of the State Archaeologist[3] (OSA) in 1959.
[1] The OSA maintains an extensive list of more than 23,000 recorded archaeological sites in Iowa, and conducts survey and excavation across the state.
[9] At the beginning of the glacial-free Holocene Epoch, humans in Iowa utilized projectile point found throughout the mid-continent, including Dalton, Fayette, Agate Basin, and Hell Gap.
During this time American Indians transitioned from highly mobile hunters and gatherers with large ranges towards a focus on local resources and ecosystems.
The Late Archaic sees the first indication of mound building in Iowa, as well as direct evidence of domesticated plants, and large, long-term settlements.
Numerous Late Archaic sites have been excavated in eastern Iowa, some showing the gradual adaptation of cultigens, including squash, little barley, marsh elder, and barnyard grass.
[23] During the Woodland period, many American Indians in Iowa shifted away from hunting and gathering and used more domesticated plants, although wild food was still important.
Ceramics, the bow and arrow, burial mounds, and evidence of political and social hierarchy became common at Woodland sites in Iowa.
[1] The Early Woodland period saw the introduction of ceramics to Iowa, including Marion Thick and Black Sand types.
[24] Early Woodland Indians in eastern Iowa built large burial mounds in the Mississippi River region, and participated in long-distance trade of exotic raw material.
In north-central Iowa, Early Woodland peoples appear to have interacted more directly with the Prairie Lakes region of Minnesota.
[26] The Toolesboro Mound Group in Louisa County included a large octagonal earthen enclosure that covered several acres; earthworks of this style are indicative of the monumental construction once seen in Havana, Illinois along the Illinois River and sites in the Ohio River drainage including Chillicothe and Newark, Ohio.
Hopewell trading networks were quite extensive, with obsidian from the Yellowstone area, copper from Lake Superior, and shells from the Gulf Coast appearing in Middle Woodland Iowa sites.
[27] Western Iowa appears to have been not directly involved in this exchange network, and the Havana-Hopewell flourishing did not extend much above the Kansas City area of the Missouri River.
[30] Numerous regional variations and phases have been defined in Iowa, based in large extent on differences of ceramic form and decoration.
Occupants utilized acorns, other nuts and fruits, goosefoot, little barley, maygrass, sunflower, fish, birds, deer, muskrat, and turtle.
Developing independently from the eastern Mississippian cultures, Great Oasis sites display large sites along major stream terraces, increased reliance on agriculture combined with hunting and gathering, substantial pit earth lodges, and a transition from Late Woodland to Late Prehistoric ceramic forms.
Mill Creek sites became nucleated, often fortified, had a much higher dependence on maize and bison hunting, show substantial evidence of long-distance trade, and appear to have been occupied year-round.
Around 1300 AD Mill Creek and Glenwood sites in Iowa disappeared, replaced by the rapidly spreading Oneota cultures.
It is widely accepted that the Oneota were the ancestors of modern American Indian tribes associated with Iowa, including the Ioway, Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Otoe, Missouria, and Omaha.
American Indians in the early Protohistoric period continued many aspects of Oneota culture, but soon almost all indigenous technology disappeared, including ceramics and stone tool production.
