Archaic North Americas

The Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Northeast

1. Slate gorget fragment inscribed with a thunderbird, ca. 500-800 A.D. The Genesee people were located on the Niagara River from c. 1800 B.C., where they traded local chert throughout the northeast, hunted waterfowl, netted fish, had pottery and lived in permanent settlements. The thunderbird was the guardian of shamans, having a glance of lightning and a voice of thunder. It remains an important artistic and decorative subject in the area today.

2. Turtle petroglyph on a glacial boulder in the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx, New York, US. 5 x 3 ". The petroglyph was probably carved by a Delaware Indian in about 1000-1600 A.D. The turtle was important in Delaware creation myths, where the turtle's back represents land arising from the primordial sea. Men emerged from a shoot from the tree that grew on this land, and the tree bent over to produce another shoot from which emerged women.

The Southeast Archaic peoples

1. Mud glyph Image of a mask from deep within "Mud Glyph Cave," near Knoxville, Tennessee, US. Caves had been inhabited since the 4th millenium, but by the 1st century A.D. Woodland Period, the deeper recesses had become limited for the use of religious cult. Mud Glyph Cave had been in use since the 5th c. A.D., reaching peak activity in the 13th c.

2. Mud glyph from Mud Glyph Cave, Tennessee, Woodland Period. Here a running stick-ball player, the inventor of baseball. Dating is based on pine charcoal left over from occasional fires in the cave, but illumination came from cane torches. The culture seems akin to the "Southern Cult" and the Dallas Culture - a Missippian culture of eastern Tennessee after 1200 A.D. The gyphs show signs of ritual mutilation or defacing.