24.8 America: a.d. 901 to 1000  (Page 2/3)

Recent excavations on the northern most tip of Newfoundland have revealed remains of houses, boat sheds and bronze equipment, obviously Norse and dated to about A.D. 1000. (Ref. 237 , 95 , 215 ) Brandel quotes from a lecture by Henri Pirenne: "America (when the Vikings reached it) was lost as soon as it was discovered, because Europe did not yet need it."

The united states

In mid-continent the Mississippi Culture flourished. In the Ozarks of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi, bluff dwellers constructed rock-shelters, caves and open village sites. Baskets of twilled weave, flour sieves and containers, hunting, fishing, farming bone hoes and tools as well as antler and wooden digging sticks and pottery have been found. These sites were occupied throughout this century and after. It is probable that at about the end of the century the Mississippi group of tribes began to feel the sting of Iroquois attacks from the south, as there are reasons for suspecting that these fierce warriors came via the Gulf of Mexico, probably from South America. (Ref. 66 )

Marvin F. Kivett, of the Nebraska State Historical Society, has identified the "Initial Coalescent Culture" that existed from about 900 to 1,400 in the Dakotas. This culture was formed when corn farmers of the central plains (now Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma) were forced by droughts to move up the river valleys northward into the Dakotas, where they merged with the initial middle Missouri Culture already established along the river of the same name. Today their descendants are believed to be the Arikara Indians of North Dakota. (Ref. 45 , 241 )

In the west the Fremont rock art existed at the same time along the Fremont River in Utah as the Anasazi Pueblo Culture existed a little farther south, all of this dating from 750 to 1,200. Construction began on the Pueblo Bonita at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico about A.D. 900. Although building materials of mud, stones and wood was the same as those used by the Mesa Verde Indians, the architecture was markedly superior in principle as well as in technical detail and artistry. The population appears to have been fairly consistent, running between 800 and 1,200 people. (Ref. 88 ) Studies of excavation sites and skeletons have revealed much about these people. One-third died in infancy; forty years meant old age, with teeth worn to the gums from the grit that ended up in the corn meal from the metate, jaw abscesses and arthritis. Clothes were made of hides and cotton cloth, stitched with yucca leaf fibers. Hundreds of tons of sandstone blocks were carried varying distances for construction of the pueblos. The men spent much of their time searching for firewood and hunting for animal food. When the hunt was poor, the remaining protein deficient diet sapped strength and when famine did occur there may have been cannibalism. (Ref. 277 )

Snaketown, on the Gila River southeast of Phoenix, Arizona, was the capital city of the Hohokam until A.D. 1,200. In the 10th century these people entered the Sedentary Period. Population increased, as evidenced by the more numerous villages and longer canals. Specialized villages procured marine shells from the Gulf of California and worked them into jewelry that was traded as far north as Flagstaff. (Ref. 269 ) Their technique included a method of etching designs on shells using an acid solution made from the giant cactus, saguaro. (Ref. 88 , 65 , 210 )