Oneota

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Oneota is a designation archaeologists use to refer to a cultural complex that existed in the eastern plains and Great Lakes area of what is now the United States from around A.D. 900 to around 1650 or 1700. The culture is believed to have transitioned into various Macro-Siouan cultures of the proto-historic and historic times such as Ioway. A long-accepted ancestry to the Ho-chunk has yet to be conclusively demonstrated.

Oneota is considered a major component of Upper Mississippian. It is characterized by shell-tempered pottery that is often coarse in fibre. Decoration includes wavy and zigzag lines, often in parallel. Analytically, it has been broken down into various stages or horizons. Generally accepted are the following: the Emergent Horizon (ca. A.D. 900-1000), the Developmental Horizon (ca. A.D. 1000-1300), the Classic Horizon (ca. A.D. 1300-1650) (previously called the Oneota Aspect), and the Historic Horizon (post-contact, generally after 1650).

The Oneota diet included corns-beans-and-squash, wild rice, nuts, fish, deer, and bison.

Relationships with Middle Mississippian were present but are not yet clearly understood. Whether Oneota developed in situ out of Late Woodland cultures, was invasive, was the result of influence from (proto-)Middle Mississippian peoples, or was some mix of these is not clear.