The Southeast culture area extends from eastern Texas to the Atlantic Ocean and from central Kentucky to the Gulf Coast. It includes portions of the Appalachian Mountain system, the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains, and the Low Interior Plateau. This is a humid, subtropical, resource-rich area that naturally was forested.

Although the Southeast was not glaciated, seasonal variation was less during the Pleistocene, and habitat distributions were different than today. Sea level was also lowered during the Pleistocene, changing coastal configurations and stream dynamics. During the Holocene, the Hypsithermal warm period (peaked ca BP) was significant. Humans also may have significantly altered the habitat distribution on a local scale through burning and farming.

The waterways draining the interior of the region played a major role in both prehistoric and historic times. Rivers and streams provided easy and efficient transportation for trade and commerce, as well as fish, shellfish, and the migratory waterfowl that pass through two times a year. These watersheds improved the land for agriculture with periodic deposits of fresh sediments.

Little River Canyon National Reserve, Alabama

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, 2008 Topper site in South Carolina SV-2 in southwestern Virginia Little Salt Spring in Florida

During early prehistoric times (12,000-7,000 years ago) the sinkhole was an oasis in the peninsula that attracted seasonal hunters and gatherers. The site has produced the second-oldest dated artifact ever found in the southeast U.S. ­a sharpened wooden stake some 12,000 years old. Little Salt Spring contains some of the oldest cultural remains in Florida.

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, 2008 Early Paleoindian (11,500–11,000 BP) Clovis points Middle Paleoindian (11,000–10,500 BP) Cumberland, Redstone, Simpson, and Suwanee points Late Paleoindian (10,500–10,000 BP) Quad, Beaver Lake, Hardaway, and Dalton points

Fluted (top) and unfluted Dalton points

Outside of Florida direct associations with extinct fauna have not been found in the Southeast. Generalized foraging seems to have characterized Paleoindian adaptations in the Southeast.

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, 2008 Anderson—use of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland valleys as staging areas for exploration of the Southeast Meltzer—two contrasting strategies involving mobile large game-hunting focus in the North and more generalized foraging in the temperate forests of the Southeast

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, 2008

Two Bolen points excavated offshore in the Gulf of Mexico

Excavations at the Icehouse Bottom site in Monroe County, Tennessee, revealed a stratigraphic sequence of occupations beginning over 9500 years ago. Over 29 hearths, some prepared clay surfaces with textile impressions.

This excavated rock cluster is thought to be the remnants of an Early Archaic (7900 B.C. to 6000 B.C.) hearth.

The site was discovered in 1982 when a backhoe operator discovered human bones in the black peat he was digging from the bottom of a pond. Radiocarbon dating over the three seasons of excavation indicated ages ranging from 6,990 years to 8,120 years.

The skeletons found during the first two field seasons were scattered or mixed with the bones of others. This intermingling and scattering was caused by shifts in the peat due to changes in water level and climate over the thousands of years. During the third field season many fully articulated skeletons were found--all the bones of one person were where they would normally be in relation to one another in the body.

These articulated skeletons gave information as to how the bodies were buried. In many cases they were buried lying on their left sides, in fetal position, with their heads to the west, and faces to the north. There may have been some religious or other reason for their being buried in that position. Only two were found to have been buried in an extended position as we bury our dead today.

One of those, a female about 35 years of age at death, was buried face down and still had remnants of her last meal in her stomach--fish scales and bones, seeds from grasses and berries, and bits of nuts. There were more than 3,000 elderberry seeds in her stomach. Elderberry extract has been found to be beneficial in the treatment of some viral infections, but we have no way of knowing if this woman had eaten the berries as a treatment, or if she merely liked elderberries and possibly died of acute indigestion from eating so many.

The material was, indeed, human brain tissue. This first find was from a woman who died at approximately 45 years of age. Over the three six-month field seasons 91 skulls were found to contain brain tissue. Some contained complete brains. Although they were shrunken to a third their normal size, the brain hemispheres and convolutions were clearly intact. The finding of such a large amount of ancient brain tissue made the find especially unique.

Copyright 2008 Oxford University Press, 2008 Early and Middle Archaic people usually were mobile, generalized foragers. In the Middle and Late Archaic more intensive use of shellfish is indicated along the interior rivers and in coastal parts of the Southeast—Shell Mound Archaic. By the Late Archaic people in the northern and interior Southeast were harvesting, cultivating, and domesticating a variety of native seed plants —beginnings of Eastern Agricultural complex.