The Ice Flow

By Red Sox Steve

One of the most popular theories for migration into North America is based on evidence discovered during a construction project in New Mexico in the 1920s. Workers dug up what appeared to be arrowheads while building a road in Clovis, New Mexico. Since that time, further discoveries of what has come to be known as the "Clovis point" have been found throughout much of North America. Although Clovis points were widely believed to be related to the first inhabitants of North America and are over 10,000 years old, similar findings in South America date early habitation to over 30,000 years ago. Nevertheless, finding Clovis points has allowed archaeologists to posit theories of prehistoric migration patterns in order to develop an understanding of Indian settling of the Americas.

By about 8000 BC, a warming period had begun, leaving behind what would be the final Ice Age. Glaciers melted, leaving a great deal of moisture behind in the form of lakes, rivers and swamps. Within a few thousand years, deciduous (trees that change with the seasons) and cone-bearing trees would appear; it is thought that North America evolved to its present climate by 5000 BC. Additional theories as to extinction of large mammals such as the wooly mammoth revolve around the prevalence of humans and their hunting tools.

The theory espoused by archaeologists that hunters came across a land bridge, which has now been submerged by the Bering Strait near Alaska, differs among numerous sources only in its timeline. Although a vast sheet of ice covered much of North America, the land bridge region, now referred to as Beringia, was only thought to experience light snow fall, due to the Pacific Ocean wind patterns. This made it relatively easy to migrate into North America. Although clear evidence places migration at about 7000 BC, there is additional information that these "Paleo-Indians" were already well scattered across the continent by about 8000 BC.

Without a doubt, the dates associated with various eras of post Ice Age Indian tribes are very general. The Paleo-Indian era gave rise to the Archaic Indian era which is thought to have lasted from about 5000 BC to 1000 BC, The transitional era between these two is known as the Watershed Age, primarily as a result of the significant climate change that took place.

Much of the difference between Archaic Indians and Paleo-Indians can be found in the increasingly complex diet, tool set and wider variety of materials available. By the Archaic era, big game was now extinct, forcing tribes to hunt species that are more familiar to us today. They also fished in the newly formed rivers and lakes, in addition to gathering wild plants, and organizing migrations around ripening berry schedules and movement of animal herds. Furthermore, the Archaic Indian crafted many more tools and utensils than his Paleo-Indian predecessor - spears, harpoons, knives, scrapers, hammers, anvils and wedges were available to the Archaic Indian, and materials such as stone, wood, bone and antler now became widely used as well.

In the Great Lakes region, an Archaic Indian culture called the "Old Copper" culture existed from about 4000 to 1500 BC. The name comes from the copper objects utilized in the region, one of the earliest uses of metal among Indians north of Mexico. Natural deposits found in rock or nuggets were repeatedly heated and hammered to make tools and ornaments.

The end of the Archaic Indian period is provided by scholars in order to facilitate the study of ancient North American tribes, again, however the dates are not absolute. The phase of Indian life following the Archaic era is known as the Formative period. The Formative period is commonly defined by farming, animal domestication, existence of villages, skilled craftsmanship, religious ceremony and further evolution of discrete tribal customs. By this measure, many of the traits were developed during the Archaic period, however, many typical Formative era practices did not permeate North America until about 1000 BC.

During the Formative period Michigan's Indian population grew out of both Algonquin and Iroquois roots in what is known as the Northeast Culture Area. This area extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, and from the Great Lakes to the Ohio Valley, and even includes Canada. Most of the Indians spoke dialects that originated from Algonquian and Iroquois and shared a number of cultural traits as well. The various Northeast Iroquois included the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora—as well as the Erie, Huron (Wyandot), Neutral, Susquehannock, and Tionontati. The Algonquians in this region are known as the Great Lakes Algonquians - Chippewa (Ojibway), Menominee, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.

When speaking of the collective Iroquois nation, the Iroquois refer to themselves as the Haudenosaunee ("ho-dee-no-SHOW-nee"), for "people of the longhouse." The Haudenosaunee were organized into the Iroquois League, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy. In about 1570 the Haudenosaunee formed the League of Five Nations - Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca.

Two men brought the five tribes together, forming the League: Deganawida, the Peacemaker, a Huron prophet from the north, who had a vision of united tribes involving a Tree of Great Peace; and Hiawatha, a Mohawk medicine man, who paddled through Haudenosaunee country preaching unity and carrying a belt symbolizing the Great Law of Peace. In the early 1700s, when the Tuscarora migrated to New York from North Carolina, the alliance became the League of Six Nations.

For the Algonquians, intertribal organization came in the form of confederacies - the Abenaki Confederacy, the Wappinger Confederacy, and the Powhatan Confederacy to name a few. Relative to the Iroquois League, Algonquian confederacies were much looser networks of villages and bands. Algonquians traded together, helped one another in times of conflict, and the confederacies had a grand sachem (chief) which would hold authority over tribal sachems. The structure of authority within and among the tribes was subject to numerous interpretations - in some tribes, the grand sachem was an absolute ruler, while in others, sagamores (those in charge of a village or band) would have their conflicts mediated by sachems in intertribal councils.

In the Great Lakes area, instead of a grand sachem, it was more common to have two chiefs for each tribe, the peace chief and the war chief. The first was a hereditary position while the second was chosen based on his military prowess in times of war. Some tribes also had a third leader, the ceremonial leader who served as a shaman or even a medicine man.

Very early in the 17th century, however, the history of the Indians living in the Great Lakes region would face a new challenge. European explorers coming west would alter tribal relationships and change the economic, military and political reality of the region forever.

(To be continued...)