00:00.75 archpodnet And we're back to episode 151 of life road's podcast still me here just talking about pawnee history and archeology and for this segment we're going to dive into um plains culture history as well as the the geography of the great plains. So the great plains. Region is the largest region in um, the United States and also has the least amount of professional or not professional, but like academic archeologists. Ah so there are plenty of cm firms doing amazing work across the plains. But in terms of like academics who are focused on research in the planes. There's very few and. Don't really think there is a department at the moment that is completely focused on the great plains. You usually um, like Oklahoma Boulder Indiana now again with me. Um. Kansas Not even Nebraska um, but these these departments all have like maybe 1 or 2 great puns archeologists I think ou oklahoma university has has the most at the moment. Um, so there isn't really a dedicated department I guess why oming could be considered a great plain school. Um. You know, but they're focusing really in the northwestern plains kind of great basein rocky mountain though. So they're they're really focused on on kind of the western periphery of the planes. It could be called that. But you know like larell and hell gap are definitely within the great plains and technically. 01:34.13 archpodnet Um, rock shelter is is 2 um, so what? I what do I mean by northeastern plains and northwestern plains. Well, let's start with the southern plains. The southern plains is Oklahoma to the north um down to southeastern Texas and then to the ah east just across the Arkansas Border into the west right at the ah right up right? to the mountains the central plains where I work that is all of Nebraska Kansas eastern Wyoming Eastern Colorado and Western Iowa and Missouri so right along that Missouri River basin 02:09.18 archpodnet The northeastern plains is directly north of that. That's all of South Dakota all north of all North of Dakota and Southern Manitoba and Southeastern Saskatchewan in Canada the northwestern plains is you know these is really um. It's kind of like a triangle area so it's from the rocky mountains the eastern front range of the rocky mountains in Southern Alberta all the way down into ah Montana Wyoming and um, its easternedge is the Wyoming Montana border and it also encompasses Saskatchewan and Alberta so like the great plans region there. Then there's another subcategory. This would be the um Missouri river so that's basically South Dakota North Dakota and Nebraska along the Missouri river those that's kind of a Missouri river subregion. That's where you find most of the great plains towns so omahas mandans. Adopts is pankas pawne rira wichitas is some percent kans later on otos that's that's kind of the main and corriier. That's the large population aggregates is along the Missouri river um, you know they need that water to. Sustain their maze-based economies and so those were kind of like the general geographic divisions of the great plains. But there's 3 kinds of ah biome areas of the great plains you have eastern metal and western great plains. Ah. 03:42.94 archpodnet Prairie so the eastern part of the great plains is is along the Missouri River this is your your tall grass prairie area then in the central part is your midgrass Prairie area and then the western extents are you guessed it the short grass prairie so the further west you go. The less dense. The vegetation becomes much closer to the ground. So um, basically the further you get away for the Missouri river the more arid the plains become so I mean like just think of like you're on the Missouri River and Omaha Nebraska and there's one have been as many trees back then. But it's a much more like lush and green environment as you get to like Eastern colorado it gets to much more you know prairie grasses stances wo wolves kinds of you know biomes now when it comes to the culture history. You know of the entirety of the great plains now there is going to be some variation here but when it comes to the great plains. We have 5 primary chronological periods have your paleo indian have your kick your woodland plains village and then last you have contact colonial um you know like in the southwest you get your paleoindian archaic you get into your basket maker then your pueblo periods and then contact colonial in the southeast if you're paleoan in Archaic Woodland then you get to your mississippian and then you get to contact colonial. 05:14.21 archpodnet We don't have those on the on the planes. Um, you know our versions of that you know that those much the more stratified communities. The large populations that is very much typified by our planes village period which I would argue should probably be changed like plains town. Um. No paleoian archaic those are going to be the north american equivalence of the um paleolithic period in Europe the woodland period that's your mesolithic and then your planes. Village. That's your neolithic. So I I prefer those terms to be honest I know Kansas does um I really like kind of just using that european context because it it makes it. You know you can see the relationships in my opinion much easier because. And intro to archeology courses and archeology generally most people know of the paleolithic mesolithic and neolithic so using those terms I feel like better contextualizeds. What's going on in the great plains. So with the paleo indian period it really starts off with clovis. 06:29.68 archpodnet You guys have heard me on this podcast. You guys know that I do think more investigations need to be made into the earliest migrations of the Americas um, whether that's just earlier clovis occupations or there is a different lithic technology-based culture. You know that's up for debate. But there's really none of that like we don't have anything like Monte Verde bluefish caves paisley caves in the great plains now there has been some work at you know quote unquote prettycloiccytes in the great plains and that is largely done by Dr Steve Holen who also published this rudy paper that we've talked about. Um, and there's also you know sites in Texas like debah freakin and galp. Um that you've heard us talk about in this podcast. You guys know my feelings towards it there needs to be in my opinion a much more robust material culture assemblage before I really buy into it. So really, my opinions when it comes to the great planes clovis is probably the first one we got? um so Clovis is um thirteen Thousand Bce to about 10800 bc and but Bce means before common era. It is the equivalent of Bc the reason why I'm using before common era bce and common era c e rather than b c and a d um, it has nothing to do with the religious context. It's like. 07:59.32 archpodnet As you guys have heard on our on this podcast before when me David and Connor are referencing points in time we often will say bc and then when we accidentally mix it up with bp which stands for before present and we just and we fuck it up because before present and Bc are different and just for me. To make sure I'm I'm consistent in that you guys don't misunderstand if I say bc I'm saying Bp I'm just using b c e just to make it like much more like clear that I'm talking about that time period that that extra syllable at the end. After clobu you get folsom and Folsom is from ten Thousand Eight hundred Bce to ninety eight hundred bc then late paleo indian which is 9800 bc to seventy two hundred Bce um and so that's all in the pale indian periods we're still in that. Paleolithic timeframe. So really just stone tools at this point. Um these are primarily or your pleistocene components. These are people that um, hunting and gathering is their primary source. These are. Really as we can tell right now these are the first indigenous explorers of the great plains. The the founding populations then after the paleoenian period still within the paleolithic though we have the archaic period the archaic period. 09:23.88 archpodnet Is broken down into 3 subsequent periods early middle and late. So the early archaic is from seventy two hundred Bce to 30 eight hundred Bce and ah my time periods are getting all messed up now. Oh I see ah the middle is from thirty Eight hundred Bce to 1200 bc and then late is from 1200 bc to 500 b c e okay, so that's that's our that's our paleolithic time period. So these are primarily hunting and gathering populations now there is variation going on in the entirety of the great plains right? like from from you know, central canada down to Texas right? where you know that's that's a big area. Um. There is variation going on especially after folsom the projectile point typologies. You know they become differentiated especially by region. So you know this is where this term that you guys probably you heard me have talked with with dade about like David always talks about Clovis and folsom being a culture. His his right and he's also you know, not you know there is there is some happenstance to that where it's like that's the only thing we can use to identify different groups is is just based on the different kinds of projectile points. They're using now does that mean that if someone using a hellap point. 10:55.66 archpodnet Is a different people than a Cody point probably not um, you know it's a style versus function thing that we talked about episode one forty Forty nine right so just keep those in mind we talk call these cultures only because. 11:13.80 archpodnet It's based on the only differentiated you know types of evidence. We have now whether that's that is indicative of an actual culture and differences in culture is very much speculated. Okay, so just keep that keep that of mind. So after the archaic and the archaic is really occurring as well. Um. In the midst of the end of the ice age the ice age ends in the paleo ending period and right around ten thousand years ago 10000 bp this is with the beginning of the prairie maximum. So this is when it's like the best time in the planet to be a bison. Right? So the prairie is expanding north and South East and west this is the age of Bison. So Bison have you know changed you know from? Um, ah oh my gosh I should know this bison and tiwis so these are ancient bison. And the pisto seen they are about one and a half times the size of modern day bison. This is when we start saying bison bison modern modern bison the herds explode and there's just bison hunt and galore this is where we see on the planes. Um ah planes populations. Investing ah time and energy into bison hunting. You know we don't have horses at this point horses have have left the building. They've left a continent by here by this point, right? They're all now in Asia doing horse things. 12:43.21 archpodnet Getting ready, you know preparing themselves for the coming mongol hordes being used as weapons of war for the next couple thousand years over in Asia and Mid Asia Mid Eurasia sorry they're on their own they're on their own path but they will return and we'll get to that. Um, this is when we start seeing you know? ah. Bison jumps in which bison are being driven off of Cliffs Bison have really poor eyesight their eyes are low to the ground. They can't see very high. Um, you know there are there's a story at head smashed in where some of the pis that had smashed in got lost where they were above the jump and almost drove their pickup truck. Off of the jump because they couldn't see the edge right? So the planes is no joke. We also see bison traps. Um, ah bison ah perals being built so people are really investing time repeatedly into the procurement of Bison. See some amazing buy some technologies. Ah, ah, um, we see some amazing bison processing strategies developing this time and when we get to woodland you know woodland is starting at ah you know, really. 1200 ish bc I'm I'm missing something here I I missed a missed a thing um but really around like a thousand bcee is when ah early woodland starts and ends and. 14:17.33 archpodnet Ah, 5000 bc no I am so wrong or so early dude this is this is driving me up the fucking wall. It's bugging me I'm looking off the powerpoint I made and I can see I missed a ah time slot and then I got confused and started I need to go back and do this. So actually Chris hold this un pull at my book. 14:42.64 archpodnet Okay, I'm but so winland starts at five hundred Bc E this is the beginning of the mesolithic. So these hunting and gathering groups across the plains and in the central plains they begin to. Um, have much more of a footprint so they kind of have semi-permanent structures at times but they're also dabbling in agriculture really horticultural gardening so this is when we starts seeing the domestication of some crops is while as maize has started to make its way out of Mexico out of the southwest is moving from being a desert plant. Into um, the you know plains powerhouse that it becomes and so we see gardening small gardens um squashes a little bit of maize beans goose foot some of these american domesticates. 15:35.44 archpodnet Um, the bow and arrow is getting introduced around this time that really happens in the mid to late Woodland period so throughout the course of the woodland period early middle late from 500 bc um to a thousand c e or a d um, we start seeing. Much more intensification of of horticulture as well as the adoption of the bow and arrow and much more of a settlement patterning footprint because it's really hard to find hunter-gatherer camps because they're so ephemeral hard to find because these are temporary residences. That's why paleoing and archaeology and archaic archeology is so focused on the hunting sites. Um, because in the butchering sites because.