IV. Plains Traditions

The American Plains conveys the most dramatic images of the American West with Plains buffalo-horse cultures and the American cowboy. However, these are rather late lifestyles and the archaeological record reveals many traditions over thousands of years. The Plains is in fact a prairie- grassland that ranges from 300-5,000 feet above sea level from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Three great river systems flowed from the Rocky Mountains into the Mississippi River and include the Missouri River, the Arkansas River, and the Red River. These provide rich linear oasis-like environments for different or increased resources and later agriculture. Out on the actual Plains game like the American bison (Bison bison) represented diminuative forms left from the ice age megafauna. Some creatures like the caribou and musk ox had moved to the Far North, but the American bison survived American Indian big game hunting and increased aridity. Ancient bison had huge 6 foot horns and bull weighed  ~ 3,000 lbs.; whereas the modern bison's horns had reduced to 1 foot and bulls weighed ~ 2,000 lbs. American Indians hunted the animal on foot and later on horseback. Only Europeans tried to eliminate the 60 million head of bison on the Plains at the beginning of the 1800's. The Plains was the place that Big Game Hunting Traditions continued to persist. After that,  it was the influence of Eastern Woodland cultures that had the greatest influence on the Plains.

As Paleo-Indian hunters and gatherers adapted to Pleistocene extinctions the Big-Game emphasis and traditions persisted the longest in the North American Plains. The Plano Traditions ( Eden, Cody, Scottsbluff,etc.) were specifically Big-Game Traditions that exploited the more diminutive modern bisons only left out on the Plains ( a woods bison was in the Subarctic and Eastern Woodlands/ Bison athabascae). The altithermals of the Far West also had an affect on the Plains and the response was achange to more varied hunting and gathering strategies with a greater focus on wetter environments along the great rivers. Some of the change may have come from ideas and people expanding from the Eastern Woodlands after 6,000 B.C. the archaeological sites have smaller side notched/stemmed projectile points, evidence of more fresh water fish and shellfish, and grinding implements. Upland bison hunting  and driving off jumps continued, but other resources became necessary.

Around the Christian era  further Eastern Woodland influences came in the form of  Woodland Traditions (Adena/Hopewell) in the form of CBS domestics, cord/fiber marked pottery and certain cultural features like burial mounds came up the river valleys from the Ohio/Mississippi Bottoms into the lower Central Plains.

Copyright © S. J. Crouthamel