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Prehistoric
Indians of the Susquehanna Valley
By Robin Van Auken
Williamsport Sun-Gazette
Prehistoric Indians skillfully managed the natural bounty
of the Susquehanna River region by living in accordance with
the seasons. They hunted, fished, gathered nuts, berries and
other wild foods, and they cultivated corn, beans and squash.
According to archaeologists, Indians were successful in populating
the New World for more than 16,000 years -- perhaps as long
as 30,000 years.
Paleo-Indian
Very little is known about the culture of Paleo-Indians, the
first inhabitants of the Americas. Most believe they traveled
in nomadic bands and crossed Beringia, a land bridge connecting
Asia and America during the last glacial advance.
According to Montoursville-based archaeologist Jeff Bohlin,
Paleo-Indians probably followed migrating caribou into the
Northeast. Archaeologists believe Paleo-Indian territories
were wide ranging, Bohlin said, based on their use of exotic
stone for spearpoints. Some of the stone came from sources
hundreds of miles away.
Among the earliest Paleo-Indian sites in the New World is
Pennsylvania's Meadowcroft Rock Shelter, where Dr. James Adovasio
discovered stone tools dating 16,000 years. Fluted spearpoints,
knives and scrapers were the predominant tools used by the
Paleo-Indian.
Archaic
The Paleo-Indian culture gave way to the Archaic Ñ
a period that lasted throughout the Susquehanna Valley about
8,000 to 2,000 years ago, according to archaeologist Barry
C. Kent, with the state Historical and Museum Commission.
The period is characterized by its many different shapes of
knives and spearpoints and by a lack of pottery.
Archaic peoples were hunters, fishers and gatherers of wild
plant foods. Spearpoints of similar styles have been found
in various sites along the East Coast, Bohlin said, and the
presumption is that Archaic people interacted, perhaps even
traded. In the Late Archaic period, 1500 B.C., Indians were
forming bowls from soapstone and rhyolite, Bohlin said. Archaeologists
believe the use of the stone vessels indicate a transition
between the Archaic and Woodland periods.
Woodland
The next major cultural period was the Woodland, marked by
the first use of pottery and limited horticulture. Larger
and more permanent villages of Indians were settled and tribal
identities developed.
Local avocational archaeologists of North Central Chapter
No. 8, Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, led by James
P. Bressler have conducted excavations in the valley for decades
and have identified two distinct Woodland occupations along
the Susquehanna River: Clemsons Island (800-1200 A.D.) and
Shenks Ferry (1200-1500 A.D.). Bressler proposes that the
Shenks Ferry Indians displaced the Clemsons Island band following
a large-scale invasion and ensuing conflict. Bohlin agrees
with Bressler's conclusion that multiple occupations were
present.
"That doesn't always mean there's an extermination,''
he added.
It is during the late Woodlands stage that the most devastating
cultural change occurred for the Indian Ñ contact with
Europeans.
When discovered by Europeans, Pennsylvania, like the rest
of the continent, was inhabited by groups of Indians reflecting
a Stone Age background, especially in material arts and crafts.
Tools, weapons and household equipment were made from stone,
wood and bark. Transportation was on foot or by canoe.
Houses were made of bark and clothing from the skins of animals.
The rudiments of a more complex civilization were at hand
in the arts of weaving, pottery and agriculture, although
hunting and food-gathering prevailed.
Along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River lived the Susquehannock
people. The late Dr. Paul A.W. Wallace of Lebanon Valley College
believed the tribe was an offshoot of the Iroquois. Wallace
examines the life of the Indians in his popular history "Indians
in Pennsylvania.''
The Susquehannocks were a powerful Iroquoian-speaking tribe
who lived along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and
Maryland. Living in Algonkian-speaking tribes' territory,
they engaged in many wars.
In the end, they were victimized by new diseases brought by
European settlers and attacks by Marylanders. The Iroquois
destroyed them as a nation by 1675. A few descendants were
among the Conestoga Indians who were massacred in 1763 in
Lancaster County.
Another large linguistic group in Pennsylvania was the Algonkian,
represented by the Delawares, Shawnees and other tribes.
The Delawares, calling themselves Leni-Lenape or "real
people,'' originally occupied the basin of the Delaware River
and were the most important of several tribes that spoke an
Algonkian language.
Under the pressure of white settlement, they began to drift
westward to the Wyoming Valley, to the Allegheny and, finally,
to eastern Ohio. |
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