Talk:List of archaeological periods (North America)

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Contents 1 Woodland Dates 2 Five Stage Classification 3 What next? 4 Pacific Northwest and Plateau

[edit] Woodland Dates

In regard to the dates of the Woodland period in the East- any date is arbitrary, but the 0 AD date is traditional in archaeology. The 300 BC date previously used in this list is accurate for parts of Georgia and Florida, but not the Mississippi valley, not exactly Ohio, and not the Tennessee valley. 0 AD is a compromise and an approximation. I prefer to use it for convenience when speaking generally, and give accurate dates for specific areas (i.e. ~ 200 BC for Ohio Hopewell, ~0 AD for Marksville, etc.). I have also changed the Woodland period article to match with this, following Judith Bense's general book (which I added to the references). I welcome counter arguments, but I think this is in line with archaeological opinion and best represents the cultural changes occurring. TriNotch 02:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Five Stage Classification

Because this page is supposed to be a list, I have placed the complete information on Willey and Phillips' stages in Archaeology of the Americas, and made this part much more list-like. I think this is a superior organization. TriNotch 07:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What next?

Now that the article has stabilized after I dumped all those Florida cultures in, I'm trying to see if there is a way to integrate them in. I moved the Deptford, Swift Creek and Santa Rosa-Swift Creek cultures to the Woodland period, as that seems to be where they belong. The Weeden Island cultures are a problem. Some sources describe them as proto-Mississippian, but they were contemporaneous with late Middle Woodland and early Late Woodland and ended shortly before the Mississippian period. The cultures in eastern and southern Florida are described as developing directly from the Archaic period outside of the Woodland-Mississippian sequence. There are hints of simlarities to cultures on the coastal plain in Georgia and the Carolinas. All of the Florida cultures, some going back to late Archaic, built mounds, but are most are not classified as Mississippian (The Fort Walton culture may be, I haven't checked yet).

So now, I haven't found a source that pulls this together, and my attempts to make sense of all this seems to be getting into original research. Does anyone know of any sources that would help sort this out? -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 14:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pacific Northwest and Plateau

Noticed there's no section for these important areas; I'd come around looking as there's no entries on Xa:ytem Rock (9000BP), Keatley Creek (7000BP) or other important sites in this area (new one just got found near my old home, older than Xa:ytem). Anyway, I'm no archaeologist, just a participant in the WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America. Having a look at the "obverse" page here, and since it's summer semester, I'll try and write Brian Hayden at SFU to see if he can contribute a basic article on his sites (Keatley is the most famous, but not the only one) and the proper regional timeline to go with your other regional timelines overleaf. Xa:ytem Rock is native-run and will likely assign someone to (gladly) write the Wikipedia article; there's also another interesting site, the Scowlitz Mounds, on Harrison Bay, which has as yet no conclusive results; there is no other mound or pyramid culture on the Pacific Coast anywhere north of Mexico. The local Chehalis (part of the Sto:lo) themselves do not know what they mounds are, or who built them; one strange bit about them is they have log structures inside the dirt mound, but not to support a cavity or room/chamber; more on these when I find current materials. There's also an emergent issue concerning underwater archaeology here and the old shoreline, which was 100m lower; a few habitation sites have already been found; what else might be is anyone's guess.Skookum1 16:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)