One State-Many Nations

Visual Organizers Answers

Visual organizers can be completed by individual students or by teams. They may also be copied onto a transparency for use on an overhead projector as a whole-group activity.

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Paleo-Indians:

  • Followed the movements of animals for food.

  • Food sources included mammoths, mastodon, giant beaver, deer, elk, fish, birds, rodents and plants.

  • Made tools and weapons from flint, stone, bone, deer antler and wood.

  • Tools included spears, knives, and scrapers made from flint, wood and bone. Tips for spears were attached using sinew.

  • Shelters made of animal skins, poles, bark and brush (temporary and movable).

  • Existed as hunter-gatherers .

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Archaic People:

  • Followed movements of animals and the ripening of plants for food.

  • Food sources included deer, elk, bear, rabbit, quail, wild turkey, fish, clams, nuts, seeds, berries and roots.

  • Made weapons and tools of flint, stone, bone, deer antler and wood.

  • Tools include pestles made of stone for grinding plants, axes of stone, atlatls and spears with flint tips, awls for punching holes, fish hooks and scraping tools made of bone. Later archaic people made awls from copper.

  • Shelters were in rock formations or were made of skins or brush supported by wooden poles in a lean-to fashion.

  • Were mainly hunter-gatherers, but also traded outside of the region.

  • Early Archaic people buried dead in round graves. Later people in the Archaic period in small hills made of glacial gravel deposits.

  • Other found artifacts include pipes, shell ornaments and copper beads.

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Adena People

  • Lived in settlements of two to four huts.

  • Food sources included animals hunted in the forests, fish, pumpkins, squash, sunflower seeds and wild plant foods.

  • Made weapons and tools from bone, flint, stone, antlers and wood.

  • Tools included pointed planting poles and stone hoes, flint knives, stone and flint scrapers, bone awls, bone needles, flint-tipped spears or javelins aided by atlatls (however, the use of atlatls declined during Adena times), and stone axes and hammers.

  • Shelters were circular and were made by positioning posts in the ground and covering them with boughs, cane matting, vines and other woody material. An overhanging bark roof covered them. Fireplaces were common in the middle with a hole in the roof through which smoke escaped.

  • Made pottery vessels in which food was cooked and stored. Pottery making was a major achievement of the Adena culture.

  • Adena men hunted and fished.

  • The responsibilities of the women were pottery making, preparing animal skins for clothing, cooking, tending children, and cultivating and harvesting plants for food.

  • Were hunter-gatherers, but were not as nomadic as their predecessors. They were early farmers, but they were not dependent on their agricultural efforts. Traded outside of region.

  • Buried dead in conical earthen mounds. Also made mounds in the shape of animals (effigy mounds) such as the Serpent Mound. Others were in the shapes of birds and humans.

  • Other artifacts discovered by archaeologists include clay pottery and pipes, copper ornaments and jewelry, beads made from shells, remains of animal masks using jaw bones of various animals such as wolf, cougar and bear, and decorated tablets with carved designs.

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Hopewell people:

  • Lived in settlements of five or six families.

  • Food sources included animals native to the woods, fish, wild plants and corn.

  • Made weapons and tools from flint, bone, reed, copper, stone, obsidian and wood.

  • Tools included drills of flint, copper, bone and reed, stone hammers, copper axes and awls, flint knives and scrapers, flint-tipped spears, dippers made from large marine conch shells and antler punches.

  • Shelters were square or rectangular and were made of posts attached by ridgepoles to create an arched roof. These were covered by pieces of bark, mud, thatch, and possibly animal skins. There were doorways at each end of the structure, with a fireplace located in the center of the room.

  • Made many forms of utilitarian pottery.

  • Domestic life and the division of labor between men and women similar to that of the Adena.

  • The Hopewell hunted, fished, gathered wild plant food and planted some crops, including corn. They had a vast network of trade throughout the eastern region of North America.

  • Built large mounds, earthworks and enclosures in geometric shapes of circles, squares and octagons. The geometric types were burial mounds.

  • Other artifacts include various forms of pottery, pipes, beaded shell bracelets and necklaces, ornaments made of copper, mica, obsidian, freshwater pearls, tortoise shells, meteoric iron, and animal teeth.

  • Made clothing from skins, leather, and textiles consisting of such things as plant fibers, swamp milkweed, and tough fibers from the inner bark of trees.

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Fort Ancient people:

  • Lived in settlements of up to 500 people.

  • Food sources included wild game, fish, wild plants, corn, beans and squash. Food was stored in pottery vessels or storage pits in the ground.

  • Weapons and tools were made of flint, bone, shell, wood and antler.

  • Tools included bows and arrows (the Fort Ancient were the first prehistoric group to use these) with the arrows tipped with flint or antler tines, spears, fishing hooks made from bone, knives and scrapers made from flint, bone and shell, awls fashioned from bone, digging sticks and hoes made from stone, shells and bone, and mortars and pestles made from stone and used for grinding corn.

  • Shelters were rectangular dwellings built by placing wood posts in the ground and covering them with a combination of mud, vines and boughs called wattle-and-daub. Some were covered with bark. Roofs were thatched with a hole in the middle for the release of smoke. The inside included a centrally positioned fireplace and various pits for food storage and for the disposing of refuse.

  • Pottery included jars of various sizes, pots, bowls, and salt pans in which brine was evaporated to produce salt.

  • The Fort Ancient people were farmers but also hunted and fished. The improved quality and larger yields of corn, along with the cultivation of beans and squash lead to the permanence of communities.

  • Buried dead in rectangular pits sometimes dug within a house. Others have been found outside and sometimes in a cemetery away from the village. Sometimes mounds were constructed. These grew in size as more bodies were added. They were known to, at times, bury their dead in Adena and Hopewell mounds.

  • Besides tools and weapons, artifacts include beads made from bone, teeth and shell, pendants made from coal, and pipes. Evidence exists that the Fort Ancient played musical instruments such as rattles made by filling turtle shells with pebbles, and flutes made by drilling holes in bird bones. Notched animal bones that have been found were probably rasps.

Some information with which to compare and diagram the Whittlesey people:

  • Lived in the northern part of present day Ohio in small villages overlooking streams and rivers that empty into Lake Erie. They existed at the same time and are similar in many ways to the Fort Ancient people in the southern part of Ohio.

  • Food sources included fish, mussels, corn, wild plant foods and woodland animals.

  • Made weapons and tools from materials similar to the Fort Ancient.

  • Tools, too, were similar. With their proximity to Lake Erie, the Whittlesey fished extensively with hooks and nets that were weighted with rounded, notched stones.

  • Shelters differed from the Fort Ancient dwellings in that they were circular, much like the wigwams of historic peoples.

  • Made extensive use of pottery vessels, often decorated with a crimped, or pie crust, edge around the tops.

  • The Whittlesey were hunters, farmers and fisherman. They traded outside the region. Some of their artifacts show signs of contact with European traders. However, the Whittlesey most likely did not trade directly with them. They most likely exchanged goods with natives to the east who had traded with the Europeans.

  • Buried their dead in rectangular graves or large pits with as many as 20 or more bodies.

  • Besides pottery, artifacts include simple ornaments along with European glass beads and clay pipes.

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