28.8 America: a.d. 1301 to 1400  (Page 2/3)

Recent research regarding a Mississippian Culture group called the "Dallas Society" of eastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia has yielded much information about the life-styles of southeastern Indians of this and the next century. Three types of villages have been found, the largest probably originally containing 1,000 or more people, were located at key locations in the Tennessee River drainage and had multiple earthen mounds, fortifications and wattle-and-daub single room houses. The flat-topped earthen mounds served as substructures for civic or religious buildings. Intermediate-sized villages and small hamlets were located near fertile alluvial soils necessary for cultivation of corn, beans, squash and sunflowers. This agricultural diet was supplemented by deer and fish and wild plant foods, chiefly various nuts. (Ref. 284 )

Excavations on Key Marco on the Gulf coast of Florida indicate that Indians living there between A.D. 1000 and 1500 lived in thatch houses built on stilts and used spear-throwers and swords armed with sharks’teeth. They lived by hunting, fishing and gathering of shell-fish. They had some elaborate, wooden sculptures, which included animals, heads of deer, birds, etc. along with rush and bark matting, basketry and untempered pottery. (Ref. 45 )

In the southwest United States, the Hohokam people built their most enduring monument, the four-story Casa Grande on the Gila River, about A.D. 1350. This was probably an elite residence, perhaps a storehouse and observatory. There were observation holes which could be used to identify the summer and winter solstices. It seems likely that their society had become very stratified, with high chiefs and lowly peasants. (Ref. 269 ) The transplanted Anasazi flourished in their new area in central New Mexico. By A.D. 1330 Arroyo Hondo Pueblo near Sante Fe had 1,500 people and similar pueblos developed all along the Rio Grande. (Ref. 277 ) Rooms, one on top of the other up to three stories, were carved into the cliff, and then other rooms of mud mortar and stone were built in front of these. The roof beams were supported by sockets carved into the cliff. Rock art and painted murals were common. An ingenious method of maintaining moisture in the field involved the spreading of gravel to reduce evaporation. Thousands of acres were so treated and these fields produce lusher plant growth even today. Agricultural products were augmented by the raising of turkeys and trading with eastern tribes brought buffalo meat. (Ref. 277 ) The original pueblo people, however, from this time on were pretty well replaced by descendants of the invading Athapascan-speaking tribes such as the Apache, San Carlos, Tonto, Mescalero and the Navajo. (Ref. 88 , 45 , 210 )

Mexico, central america, and the caribbean

In this 14th century the Gulf coast of Mexico was occupied by the Totanac people while inland, the Aztecs, a branch of the Nuhua, reached the shores of Lake Texcoco in 1325 and built an impregnable capital in the marshes of the lake and on an island, within the next ten years. This capital city, Tenochtitlan, soon had more than 150,000 people and was laid out on a grid plan covering more than 4.6 miles, much of this being reclaimed swamp land. Canals reached all parts of the city and five causeways linked it to the main- land. This area is now a part of Mexico City. Of incidental interest is the fact that these Indians raised a special hairless breed of dog, a larger ancestor of the Chihuahua, for food.