I decided to revisit my long since dead TL "From Blight we Rise".
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Despite the Eastern Agricultural Complex being the backbone of Eastern American horticulture, with the arrival of Mesoamerican crops into the region we see the Eastern Agricultural Complex disappear. But could something have been done to prevent the obliteration of the EAC? Could the EAC agricultural package have harmonized with the introduced Mesoamerican agricultural package and created a more sustainable and stable agricultural package that would foster the rise of civilizations in eastern North America that would rival those in Mesoamerica? To provide you a possible answer to this question, I present Apios Americana. This grows a large potato-like tuber and produces edible seeds. It grows in an abundance across eastern North America with a range stretching from as far north as Nova Scotia to as far south as Florida. It was never domesticated and cultivated by cultures who had domesticated many plants that existed in the Eastern Agricultural Complex, but what if it had been?
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Our story begins in a place that in another time would be known as Ohio. Welcome to the Late Archaic -Early Formative Transitional Period between 1500 BCE and 800BCE. The people of the Ohio Valley [1] have begun to settle, shifting from hunter-gatherer bands to horticultural tribes. It is during this era that the eastern North America agriculture package [2] begins to be cultivated by the sedentary people of Ohio River Basin. While anthropologists and archaeologists never know what sparks the domestication and cultivation of Apios Americana, they can approximate the beginning of the plants domestication in the Ohio River Basin. Some speculate a shift in climactic conditions made the basin more conducive to the growth of fatter tubers, but there isn’t proper climatological or sedimentary evidence to show any kind of dramatic shift that made the valley more conducive to the cultivation of the Hopniss [3]. There is a young theory that proposes a fungal blight devastated the population of Hopniss in and around the Ohio River Basin thus prompting the cultivation of the Hopniss by the native people around the northern reaches of the Ohio River Basin.
Over time the people of the Basin learned to farm Hopniss, first by moving the more scarcely available tubers to areas where they could be kept safe from other foragers. From there, cultivation evolved beyond transplanting pre-existing tubers to harvesting of Hopniss’ seeds and the cultivation through Direct-seeding. Hopniss seeds took between 10 to 30 days to germinate, unfortunately seedlings were small and early seedling growth was not vigorous presenting a vulnerability that would see many seedlings die from insects and disease. It was observed that plants that were spread farther apart and were prevented from twining on each other grew deeper roots and were more resistant to insects and disease. As a result a technique for managing Hopniss grew out of this observation. After germination, when the shoots first began elongation, the plants were pinched back to the first leaves. This prevented the plants from twining on each other, allowing for better root development and allowed plants from slower germinating seed to reach sufficient size to transplant. Along with the transplant method was the division of tubers into sections which allowed for the safe production of greater crop yields. Along with the development of methods of domestic cultivation came farming techniques that allowed for larger growth of the Hopniss tuber. This came about through two techniques. The first of these techniques was the artificial selection of plants that grew larger tubers and were more readily divided into section for replanting. The second was the careful consideration of where the Hopniss would be replanted. While Hopniss can be found growing in water-logged and acidic soils in the wild it soon became evident to growers in dryer regions of the Ohio River Basin that the tuber grew best in well-drained soils. This is because excess moisture resulted in the growth of longer, stringy rhizomes rather than the more greatly desired fat tuber.
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The transition from a purely hunting and gathering way of life to a more settled farming way of life sometimes is referred to as the "Neolithic Revolution," but in Ohio, the process was more evolutionary than revolutionary. The increased level of control over their food supply, along with the necessity of cultivating their crops during the growing season, allowed (or required) the Early Formative people to settle in one place for longer periods of time. During the Late Archaic-Early Formative transitional period we see the rise of the Adena [4] in southern Ohio. The Adena lived in small villages near their gardens, but they moved frequently as they continued to follow a hunting and gathering way of life, which they supplemented with the harvest from their gardens. Adena pottery consisted of large, thick-walled vessels that were used to cook the ground-up seeds of many of the Eastern Agricultural Complex into gruel something like oatmeal. With the advent of Hopniss farming the switch from horticulture to permaculture was far faster and far more drastic among the Aden than the “Neolithic Revolution” and far more Revolutionary.
The advent of permaculture in the Ohio River Basin definitively marked the beginning of the Formative Period. During the early to middle Formative era we see the Adena domesticate more plants to supplement their diet which had become slightly more limited with permanent settlement. With the more sedentary lifestyle came larger towns and with the larger town came a sense of permanence that fostered the domestication and cultivation of new crops that the Adena had taken advantage of as a source of food, but never bothered domesticating. Of these new crops the one that would affect the Adena the greatest would be Corylus Americana [5]. Corylus Americana’s cultivation did not drastically affect the lives of the Adena in and of itself. Rather, it was the secondary effects of its domestication that changed affected the Adena so greatly. While the Adena had become sedentary and had begun to build larger and larger sedentary towns, meat was still an important part of the diet of the Adena, but it became harder to supply meat year round for the populous of the sedentary villages. Fishing the Ohio River did not provide nearly enough and hunting game was not a stable enough source of meat to be dependable. This is where Corylus Americana comes in; it was noticed that in fields where the multi-stemmed shrub were grown, wildlife was attracted. During the winter months Ruffed Grouse [6] (Bonasa umbellus) flocked to the Corylus fields. At first the grouse were merely killed, but overtime the male grouse were fed by the Adena. Female grouse captured in the summer months were bred with male grouse, which had overtime developed to stay around the almost never ending food supply that the Adena threw their way. The eggs of the grouse were both eaten and raised by the Adena providing both a stable food source and a source of ceremonial feathers which could be sold or traded to non-sedentary peoples. Not long after the domestication of the grouse we see the domestication of the larger Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Like the grouse the Turkey provided a source of food and feathers that would make them vital aspects of the Adena’s food supply. One plant that was not truly domesticated by the Adena, but played a large role in the hierarchy and art of their culture was Sambucus Canadensis [7]. Though the berries of the tree were edible they were most often crushed and used with the sap of the tree to create a dark purple dye. This dye would be used in early Adena artwork as well as in early Adena tattooing [8].
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It’s the Chalcolithic era [9] in the Early Formative Period Wisconsin and the region is host for a civilization that will never be known to as the Old Copper Complex. Thousands of years before the dawn of the Chalcolithic in the eastern North America, the people of the Copper Culture used the copper veins and nuggets they discovered in gravel pits and streams to craft tools and weapons. Yet, Overtime this practice began to dissipate and was replaced by the use of copper for jewelry and other status-symbols. This trend that almost strangled the Chalcolithic would be halted and reversed with the spread of Hopniss farming. For the Adena of the Ohio River Basin copper farming tools were a rarity with stone slabs being used in the labor intensive process of farming Hopniss, but as their method of farming spread east and south so to would the use of copper tools in Wisconsin used after the plants introduction spread as well. For the Copper Culture the most beneficial aspect of Hopniss farming was that it provided a stable food source during the winter. It is unknown how the Copper Culture stumbled upon the process of preservation that allowed them to stock up on Hopniss tubers, but it emerged not long after the arrival of Hopniss farming to the area [10]. Though archaeologists will never know the Copper Culture name for the preserved tubers it would come to be known as pkon'wisnawen [11] by the modern people of the region. With the emergence of a more sedentary lifestyle among the Copper Culture we see the reemergence of copper tool use in the form of both knives and garden tools. For much of the Early Formative the method of tool making never get more advanced than hammered tools, but these tools spread eastwards with trade between the Copper Culture and the Adena Culture.
Although some Archaic cultures originated the techniques for making ceramics, Early Formative people, with their more settled ways, found pottery vessels to be very efficient for storing and cooking food. Though originally these pots were undecorated it is not long after the rise in trade between the Adena and the Copper cultures that we see the rise of artistic pottery. This Formative Period pottery displayed rounded geometric patterns and stylized zoomorphs painted with a purple Elderberry sap based paint. As time goes on we begin to see the use of these patterns come to indicate ownership [12]. From this primitive indication of ownership and family relationship we see the rise of the written word in North America. For the time being [13] the symbols are nothing more than an indication of ownership amongst the people that helps the elite of villages settle disputes, but by 350 BCE a written language of the Adena people had evolved into a system of writing that was just as complex as that used by the Egyptians[14]. With the beginning of writing we see the first stories written down by the Adena and an end to prehistoric North America. While most of these ancient writing don’t survive to the modern day, the few stone tablets that do tell us a little of the religion of the Adena.
The Adena believed in a great Dreamtime [15] when men could become animals and animals could become men. The stories covered a diverse range of themes and topics, ranging from the creation of sacred places to the origin points of ancient law and custom. They believed that every person that existed was going to eternally exist in the Dreaming. This eternal part existed before the life of the individual began, and continued to exist after they passed away. In this state of existence prior to birth and after life, it was believed that the spirit existed in this ethereal plane waiting to be reborn through a mother. The Shaman of the Aden believed they could reconnect with the Dreamtime and by extension their past lives by smoking the hallucinogenic plant Nicotiana rustica [16].
Along with knowledge of Adena religion written proof of social stratification within the Adena Culture is exposed by the Adena tablets. This increased social stability and reinforced sedentism, social stratification, specialized use of resources and probably, population growth. The Adena peoples had leaders, but they were not like powerful rulers who could command armies of slaves and soldiers. In most of the cities and towns of the time these leaders were families. These families acquired their position because of their ability to persuade others to agree with them on important matters such as trade and religion [17]. They also were able to develop influence by the by the creation of reciprocal obligations with other important members of the community.
At this point in the Formative Period we see a number of Adena towns throughout the Ohio River Basin as well as three major cities which take tribute from the smaller towns. The largest of these cities lies in a relatively flat terrace in an area of hilly terrain in the southeastern Ohio’s Hocking River valley. It is the city of Shkupkujigwe. At the center of the urban environment of Shkupkujigwe is a massive burial mound [18]. It was supposedly to tomb of a great hunter who fought with Black Bear during the dreamtimes and tricked him into teaching man how to farm Hopniss. Around the great city are smaller mounds that acted as mortuaries for the great families of Shkupkujigwe. The second largest city is WishkIs'nsoegen. WishkIs'nsoegen lies in the Paint Creek Valley just a few miles from what in another world would become Chillicothe, Ohio. WishkIs'nsoegen is run much like Shkupkujigwe; the family factions struggle for dominance and control over a stratified city each trying to prevent another from exerting too much control on the city.
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In our world Maize came into the Ohio River basin and changed the native people’s way of life dramatically. It surpassed the Eastern Agricultural Complex as the main source of food and became a dietary staple to the people of the Ohio River Basin. The only plant Maize did not supplant was the sunflower. This would lead to a dependency on the plant and eventually the rise of the Fort Ancient and Mississippian Cultures who would collapse, never giving rise to a civilization that matched those of Mesoamerica and the Andes, though their successors would still be present when de Soto arrived in the region.
Things are very different in what we would call the Eastern United States. By the time Maize came to the Ohio River Basin and to the Great lakes region, sedimentary life had already taken hold and Hopniss was the staple of the Adena culture’s diet. Thanks to Hopniss more plants had been domesticated by the Adena and they had moved from horticulture to permaculture in the blink of an eye. Maize didn’t supplant the Ohio River Basin Agricultural Package, instead it added to it. Maize added yet another stable and reliable crop to the ranks of domesticated flora that grew in the fields of the Adena.
Along with Maize the Adena had started cultivating more crops since the start of the Early Formative. The cultivation of Prunus serotina (the Black Cherry) started around 500 BCE and by the start of the Middle Formative Period was grown by many of the Adena farmers. Cyanococcus (the Blueberry) had come to be grown in both the cities and in farm fields all over the Ohio River Basin. Towns did not necessarily grow the same crops allowing for trade and greater interaction between various town and cities of the Ohio River Basin.
For centuries the Adena had domesticated turkeys and grouses, but by the middle formative they had domesticated their first large mammal. Like the ruffled grouse Corylus Americana was a staple of Odocoileus virginianus ‘s (the white-tailed deer) diet. Following a pattern similar to that set up by the domestication of the grouse and the turkey the Adena slowly domesticated the deer adding a much larger meat staple to their food supply [19]. The deer became a multi-purposed animal, supplying the Aden with food, clothing, jewelry, fertilizer, and a pack animal. The domestication of the deer made trade between cities faster now that the deer were able to carry the brunt of the load and connected the various city states in a way they had never been connected before. The time was right for a technological revolution.
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[1]: For the sake of convenience I’m going to refer to geographical locations by their OTL names.
[2]: The alternate package is pretty OTL; it has Cucurbita pepo (already long since cultivated), Hordeum pusillum, Chenopodium berlandieri, Polygonum erectum, Phalaris, Iva annua, Helianthus annuusm, and the new addition of Apios Americana.
[3]: As other members of the Apios genus will be cultivated later, Apios Americana will be identified as the Hopniss.
[4]: The Adena culture was a semi-sedentary culture that rose during this era in OTL. They are fairly similar to their OTL counterparts in the beginning but will diverge more and more as time passes.
[5]: The American Hazelnut (Corylus Americana) produces edible nuts that are smaller than the more commonly grown filbert of OTL. In OTL It is planted by wildlife enthusiasts to attract and keep game in an area.
[6]: The male catkins of Corylus Americana are a food staple of ruffed grouse throughout the winter.
[7]: Sambucus canadensis (American Elderberry) produces edible berries but other parts if the plants are toxic and contain calcium oxalate crystals.
[8]: The art of tattoo has independently evolved all over the world.
[9]: The Chalcolithic is the term used to describe the Copper Age. The Chalcolithic period is known to have independently arisen in Europe, South Asia, South America, and East Asia. It was previously believed that Africa never had a Copper Age and went simply from Stone Age to Iron Age, but this has since proven falls, the oldest African Copper Age site goes back to 2000 BCE.
[10]: The preservation process is very similar to the process of making Chuño which evolved in the Andean mountains. Small tubers were gathered. These small tubers were spread closely on flat ground, and allowed to freeze with low night temperatures. Between the freezing nights, they were exposed to the sun, and they were trampled on by foot. This process eliminated what little water was still retained by the tubers, and removed the skins, enabling successive freezing. This process provided a food supply during times of famine as well as giving rise to Hopniss flour based, which provided yet another use for the Hopniss in the diet of the native peoples.
[11]: With the rise to prominence of the Adena and the advance of their culture around the great lakes region and the Ohio River Basin we see the Algonquian languages sub-family being the most prominent in the region. Pkon'wisnawen translates to “Snow Food”, reflecting both the fact that it is largely eaten during the winter months and its white coloration.
[12]: We do know that the Adena used stylized zoomorphs and curvilinear geometric designs in their tablets and nested-diamond designs on their pottery in a larger more sedentary society these glyphs could, and likely would, be used to identify ties between families and ownership of goods. It starts out almost as branding, but overtime symbols are used to describe more than ownership they are used to describe attributes and animals eventually evolving into a written language.
[13]: The time being roughly 500 BCE.
[14]: The written language of the Adena is a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements.
[15]: Many pieces of Adena art seemed to revolve around shamanic practices, and the transformation of humans into animals—particularly birds, wolves, bears and deer—and back to human form. Early Adena Shaman in OTL wore pieces of animals to reconnect with the world before them. The religion of the Adena featured here uses what we know about early Adena religion and combines it with later religions of the region as well as adding in new elements.
[16]: The OTL Adena Shaman used a distinctive tubular smoking pipe, with either flattened or blocked-end mouthpieces, to smoke the hallucinogenic plant.
[17]: In OTL we don’t really see this until the Hopewell Tradition, but with the earlier and faster rise of sedentary lifestyle as well as a larger populous we see it occur earlier and with greater pronouncement.
[18]: In OTL we don’t really see the building of cities around the mounds until the Mississippian Culture. For the most part The Adena and the Hopewell of OTL had their town separate from their burial mounds. The difference here is that the Adena have developed large cities and towns earlier than OTL. The mounds are not what they once were; they have now become vanity projects of the elite families who govern the cities as well as points of religious significance for ancestor worship.
[19]: The Fallow Deer (Dama dama) was domesticated in the Mediterranean around 100 BCE, so the domestication of deer can be done. The domestication, for the most part, ended after the Europeans domesticated better beasts of burden. Since the Aden don’t really have access to better pack animals the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) won’t be getting pushed aside anytime soon. Like the fallow deer it is used for its meat, its hide, and its antlers. Along with these uses, the white-tailed deer is used in a similar way as the llama is used in the Andes.The deer are mostly ranged animals during this era. That being said traders typically have their animals penned in when traveling the distances between chiefdoms. War is still a very primitive institution during this time and the city-states and chiefdoms don't generally exert enough control over the typically pastoral deer herders to fight over the lands they are found in. While the deer herders have their roots in sedentary life the need ranging larger herds has resulted in this pastoral life that keeps them fairly autonomous of the chiefdoms and city-states. Since these pastoral herders generally sell to the highest bidder they are generally kept out of the limited conflicts between the chiefdoms and city-states of the Ohio River basin. That being said, the nomadic herders do come in conflict with sedentary populations over grazing grounds as well as coming into conflict with non-sedentary horticultural tribes that compete with them in the regions away from the cities and town. There are smaller non-nomadic herders that raise deer near the cities, but because of the limitations of having penned in herds, they can only raise 10 to 12 individuals.
In these farm raised herds, most of the individuals are females. Castration of most of the farm raised males outside of the buck servicing the females is typical. It is generally pre-puberty and these males are generally slaughtered after a year. Because it is fairly still early in the domestication process so males in rut are still very dangerous and generally kept away from other males. The antlers are prized and used as religious emblems so the nicer the antlers the greater the profit, but because they also mean more dangerous animals, there has been the slow artificial selection of males with smaller antlers to reproduce. So over time you see ceremonial antlers getting smaller and less ornate, unless they are traded from nomadic horticulturalists outside of the confines of the Ohio River Basin. Males can be dangerous in rut, but not as dangerous as most modern farmed deer, thanks to some 450 years of domestication. Accidents still happen and farmers and herders can still be killed by males, but it isn't as large a risk and is a risk worth taking by the farmers considering the profit.
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Empires on the Ohio:
Permaculture and the rise of Empires
Permaculture and the rise of Empires
Despite the Eastern Agricultural Complex being the backbone of Eastern American horticulture, with the arrival of Mesoamerican crops into the region we see the Eastern Agricultural Complex disappear. But could something have been done to prevent the obliteration of the EAC? Could the EAC agricultural package have harmonized with the introduced Mesoamerican agricultural package and created a more sustainable and stable agricultural package that would foster the rise of civilizations in eastern North America that would rival those in Mesoamerica? To provide you a possible answer to this question, I present Apios Americana. This grows a large potato-like tuber and produces edible seeds. It grows in an abundance across eastern North America with a range stretching from as far north as Nova Scotia to as far south as Florida. It was never domesticated and cultivated by cultures who had domesticated many plants that existed in the Eastern Agricultural Complex, but what if it had been?
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Our story begins in a place that in another time would be known as Ohio. Welcome to the Late Archaic -Early Formative Transitional Period between 1500 BCE and 800BCE. The people of the Ohio Valley [1] have begun to settle, shifting from hunter-gatherer bands to horticultural tribes. It is during this era that the eastern North America agriculture package [2] begins to be cultivated by the sedentary people of Ohio River Basin. While anthropologists and archaeologists never know what sparks the domestication and cultivation of Apios Americana, they can approximate the beginning of the plants domestication in the Ohio River Basin. Some speculate a shift in climactic conditions made the basin more conducive to the growth of fatter tubers, but there isn’t proper climatological or sedimentary evidence to show any kind of dramatic shift that made the valley more conducive to the cultivation of the Hopniss [3]. There is a young theory that proposes a fungal blight devastated the population of Hopniss in and around the Ohio River Basin thus prompting the cultivation of the Hopniss by the native people around the northern reaches of the Ohio River Basin.
Over time the people of the Basin learned to farm Hopniss, first by moving the more scarcely available tubers to areas where they could be kept safe from other foragers. From there, cultivation evolved beyond transplanting pre-existing tubers to harvesting of Hopniss’ seeds and the cultivation through Direct-seeding. Hopniss seeds took between 10 to 30 days to germinate, unfortunately seedlings were small and early seedling growth was not vigorous presenting a vulnerability that would see many seedlings die from insects and disease. It was observed that plants that were spread farther apart and were prevented from twining on each other grew deeper roots and were more resistant to insects and disease. As a result a technique for managing Hopniss grew out of this observation. After germination, when the shoots first began elongation, the plants were pinched back to the first leaves. This prevented the plants from twining on each other, allowing for better root development and allowed plants from slower germinating seed to reach sufficient size to transplant. Along with the transplant method was the division of tubers into sections which allowed for the safe production of greater crop yields. Along with the development of methods of domestic cultivation came farming techniques that allowed for larger growth of the Hopniss tuber. This came about through two techniques. The first of these techniques was the artificial selection of plants that grew larger tubers and were more readily divided into section for replanting. The second was the careful consideration of where the Hopniss would be replanted. While Hopniss can be found growing in water-logged and acidic soils in the wild it soon became evident to growers in dryer regions of the Ohio River Basin that the tuber grew best in well-drained soils. This is because excess moisture resulted in the growth of longer, stringy rhizomes rather than the more greatly desired fat tuber.
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The transition from a purely hunting and gathering way of life to a more settled farming way of life sometimes is referred to as the "Neolithic Revolution," but in Ohio, the process was more evolutionary than revolutionary. The increased level of control over their food supply, along with the necessity of cultivating their crops during the growing season, allowed (or required) the Early Formative people to settle in one place for longer periods of time. During the Late Archaic-Early Formative transitional period we see the rise of the Adena [4] in southern Ohio. The Adena lived in small villages near their gardens, but they moved frequently as they continued to follow a hunting and gathering way of life, which they supplemented with the harvest from their gardens. Adena pottery consisted of large, thick-walled vessels that were used to cook the ground-up seeds of many of the Eastern Agricultural Complex into gruel something like oatmeal. With the advent of Hopniss farming the switch from horticulture to permaculture was far faster and far more drastic among the Aden than the “Neolithic Revolution” and far more Revolutionary.
The advent of permaculture in the Ohio River Basin definitively marked the beginning of the Formative Period. During the early to middle Formative era we see the Adena domesticate more plants to supplement their diet which had become slightly more limited with permanent settlement. With the more sedentary lifestyle came larger towns and with the larger town came a sense of permanence that fostered the domestication and cultivation of new crops that the Adena had taken advantage of as a source of food, but never bothered domesticating. Of these new crops the one that would affect the Adena the greatest would be Corylus Americana [5]. Corylus Americana’s cultivation did not drastically affect the lives of the Adena in and of itself. Rather, it was the secondary effects of its domestication that changed affected the Adena so greatly. While the Adena had become sedentary and had begun to build larger and larger sedentary towns, meat was still an important part of the diet of the Adena, but it became harder to supply meat year round for the populous of the sedentary villages. Fishing the Ohio River did not provide nearly enough and hunting game was not a stable enough source of meat to be dependable. This is where Corylus Americana comes in; it was noticed that in fields where the multi-stemmed shrub were grown, wildlife was attracted. During the winter months Ruffed Grouse [6] (Bonasa umbellus) flocked to the Corylus fields. At first the grouse were merely killed, but overtime the male grouse were fed by the Adena. Female grouse captured in the summer months were bred with male grouse, which had overtime developed to stay around the almost never ending food supply that the Adena threw their way. The eggs of the grouse were both eaten and raised by the Adena providing both a stable food source and a source of ceremonial feathers which could be sold or traded to non-sedentary peoples. Not long after the domestication of the grouse we see the domestication of the larger Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Like the grouse the Turkey provided a source of food and feathers that would make them vital aspects of the Adena’s food supply. One plant that was not truly domesticated by the Adena, but played a large role in the hierarchy and art of their culture was Sambucus Canadensis [7]. Though the berries of the tree were edible they were most often crushed and used with the sap of the tree to create a dark purple dye. This dye would be used in early Adena artwork as well as in early Adena tattooing [8].
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It’s the Chalcolithic era [9] in the Early Formative Period Wisconsin and the region is host for a civilization that will never be known to as the Old Copper Complex. Thousands of years before the dawn of the Chalcolithic in the eastern North America, the people of the Copper Culture used the copper veins and nuggets they discovered in gravel pits and streams to craft tools and weapons. Yet, Overtime this practice began to dissipate and was replaced by the use of copper for jewelry and other status-symbols. This trend that almost strangled the Chalcolithic would be halted and reversed with the spread of Hopniss farming. For the Adena of the Ohio River Basin copper farming tools were a rarity with stone slabs being used in the labor intensive process of farming Hopniss, but as their method of farming spread east and south so to would the use of copper tools in Wisconsin used after the plants introduction spread as well. For the Copper Culture the most beneficial aspect of Hopniss farming was that it provided a stable food source during the winter. It is unknown how the Copper Culture stumbled upon the process of preservation that allowed them to stock up on Hopniss tubers, but it emerged not long after the arrival of Hopniss farming to the area [10]. Though archaeologists will never know the Copper Culture name for the preserved tubers it would come to be known as pkon'wisnawen [11] by the modern people of the region. With the emergence of a more sedentary lifestyle among the Copper Culture we see the reemergence of copper tool use in the form of both knives and garden tools. For much of the Early Formative the method of tool making never get more advanced than hammered tools, but these tools spread eastwards with trade between the Copper Culture and the Adena Culture.
Although some Archaic cultures originated the techniques for making ceramics, Early Formative people, with their more settled ways, found pottery vessels to be very efficient for storing and cooking food. Though originally these pots were undecorated it is not long after the rise in trade between the Adena and the Copper cultures that we see the rise of artistic pottery. This Formative Period pottery displayed rounded geometric patterns and stylized zoomorphs painted with a purple Elderberry sap based paint. As time goes on we begin to see the use of these patterns come to indicate ownership [12]. From this primitive indication of ownership and family relationship we see the rise of the written word in North America. For the time being [13] the symbols are nothing more than an indication of ownership amongst the people that helps the elite of villages settle disputes, but by 350 BCE a written language of the Adena people had evolved into a system of writing that was just as complex as that used by the Egyptians[14]. With the beginning of writing we see the first stories written down by the Adena and an end to prehistoric North America. While most of these ancient writing don’t survive to the modern day, the few stone tablets that do tell us a little of the religion of the Adena.
The Adena believed in a great Dreamtime [15] when men could become animals and animals could become men. The stories covered a diverse range of themes and topics, ranging from the creation of sacred places to the origin points of ancient law and custom. They believed that every person that existed was going to eternally exist in the Dreaming. This eternal part existed before the life of the individual began, and continued to exist after they passed away. In this state of existence prior to birth and after life, it was believed that the spirit existed in this ethereal plane waiting to be reborn through a mother. The Shaman of the Aden believed they could reconnect with the Dreamtime and by extension their past lives by smoking the hallucinogenic plant Nicotiana rustica [16].
Along with knowledge of Adena religion written proof of social stratification within the Adena Culture is exposed by the Adena tablets. This increased social stability and reinforced sedentism, social stratification, specialized use of resources and probably, population growth. The Adena peoples had leaders, but they were not like powerful rulers who could command armies of slaves and soldiers. In most of the cities and towns of the time these leaders were families. These families acquired their position because of their ability to persuade others to agree with them on important matters such as trade and religion [17]. They also were able to develop influence by the by the creation of reciprocal obligations with other important members of the community.
At this point in the Formative Period we see a number of Adena towns throughout the Ohio River Basin as well as three major cities which take tribute from the smaller towns. The largest of these cities lies in a relatively flat terrace in an area of hilly terrain in the southeastern Ohio’s Hocking River valley. It is the city of Shkupkujigwe. At the center of the urban environment of Shkupkujigwe is a massive burial mound [18]. It was supposedly to tomb of a great hunter who fought with Black Bear during the dreamtimes and tricked him into teaching man how to farm Hopniss. Around the great city are smaller mounds that acted as mortuaries for the great families of Shkupkujigwe. The second largest city is WishkIs'nsoegen. WishkIs'nsoegen lies in the Paint Creek Valley just a few miles from what in another world would become Chillicothe, Ohio. WishkIs'nsoegen is run much like Shkupkujigwe; the family factions struggle for dominance and control over a stratified city each trying to prevent another from exerting too much control on the city.
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In our world Maize came into the Ohio River basin and changed the native people’s way of life dramatically. It surpassed the Eastern Agricultural Complex as the main source of food and became a dietary staple to the people of the Ohio River Basin. The only plant Maize did not supplant was the sunflower. This would lead to a dependency on the plant and eventually the rise of the Fort Ancient and Mississippian Cultures who would collapse, never giving rise to a civilization that matched those of Mesoamerica and the Andes, though their successors would still be present when de Soto arrived in the region.
Things are very different in what we would call the Eastern United States. By the time Maize came to the Ohio River Basin and to the Great lakes region, sedimentary life had already taken hold and Hopniss was the staple of the Adena culture’s diet. Thanks to Hopniss more plants had been domesticated by the Adena and they had moved from horticulture to permaculture in the blink of an eye. Maize didn’t supplant the Ohio River Basin Agricultural Package, instead it added to it. Maize added yet another stable and reliable crop to the ranks of domesticated flora that grew in the fields of the Adena.
Along with Maize the Adena had started cultivating more crops since the start of the Early Formative. The cultivation of Prunus serotina (the Black Cherry) started around 500 BCE and by the start of the Middle Formative Period was grown by many of the Adena farmers. Cyanococcus (the Blueberry) had come to be grown in both the cities and in farm fields all over the Ohio River Basin. Towns did not necessarily grow the same crops allowing for trade and greater interaction between various town and cities of the Ohio River Basin.
For centuries the Adena had domesticated turkeys and grouses, but by the middle formative they had domesticated their first large mammal. Like the ruffled grouse Corylus Americana was a staple of Odocoileus virginianus ‘s (the white-tailed deer) diet. Following a pattern similar to that set up by the domestication of the grouse and the turkey the Adena slowly domesticated the deer adding a much larger meat staple to their food supply [19]. The deer became a multi-purposed animal, supplying the Aden with food, clothing, jewelry, fertilizer, and a pack animal. The domestication of the deer made trade between cities faster now that the deer were able to carry the brunt of the load and connected the various city states in a way they had never been connected before. The time was right for a technological revolution.
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[1]: For the sake of convenience I’m going to refer to geographical locations by their OTL names.
[2]: The alternate package is pretty OTL; it has Cucurbita pepo (already long since cultivated), Hordeum pusillum, Chenopodium berlandieri, Polygonum erectum, Phalaris, Iva annua, Helianthus annuusm, and the new addition of Apios Americana.
[3]: As other members of the Apios genus will be cultivated later, Apios Americana will be identified as the Hopniss.
[4]: The Adena culture was a semi-sedentary culture that rose during this era in OTL. They are fairly similar to their OTL counterparts in the beginning but will diverge more and more as time passes.
[5]: The American Hazelnut (Corylus Americana) produces edible nuts that are smaller than the more commonly grown filbert of OTL. In OTL It is planted by wildlife enthusiasts to attract and keep game in an area.
[6]: The male catkins of Corylus Americana are a food staple of ruffed grouse throughout the winter.
[7]: Sambucus canadensis (American Elderberry) produces edible berries but other parts if the plants are toxic and contain calcium oxalate crystals.
[8]: The art of tattoo has independently evolved all over the world.
[9]: The Chalcolithic is the term used to describe the Copper Age. The Chalcolithic period is known to have independently arisen in Europe, South Asia, South America, and East Asia. It was previously believed that Africa never had a Copper Age and went simply from Stone Age to Iron Age, but this has since proven falls, the oldest African Copper Age site goes back to 2000 BCE.
[10]: The preservation process is very similar to the process of making Chuño which evolved in the Andean mountains. Small tubers were gathered. These small tubers were spread closely on flat ground, and allowed to freeze with low night temperatures. Between the freezing nights, they were exposed to the sun, and they were trampled on by foot. This process eliminated what little water was still retained by the tubers, and removed the skins, enabling successive freezing. This process provided a food supply during times of famine as well as giving rise to Hopniss flour based, which provided yet another use for the Hopniss in the diet of the native peoples.
[11]: With the rise to prominence of the Adena and the advance of their culture around the great lakes region and the Ohio River Basin we see the Algonquian languages sub-family being the most prominent in the region. Pkon'wisnawen translates to “Snow Food”, reflecting both the fact that it is largely eaten during the winter months and its white coloration.
[12]: We do know that the Adena used stylized zoomorphs and curvilinear geometric designs in their tablets and nested-diamond designs on their pottery in a larger more sedentary society these glyphs could, and likely would, be used to identify ties between families and ownership of goods. It starts out almost as branding, but overtime symbols are used to describe more than ownership they are used to describe attributes and animals eventually evolving into a written language.
[13]: The time being roughly 500 BCE.
[14]: The written language of the Adena is a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements.
[15]: Many pieces of Adena art seemed to revolve around shamanic practices, and the transformation of humans into animals—particularly birds, wolves, bears and deer—and back to human form. Early Adena Shaman in OTL wore pieces of animals to reconnect with the world before them. The religion of the Adena featured here uses what we know about early Adena religion and combines it with later religions of the region as well as adding in new elements.
[16]: The OTL Adena Shaman used a distinctive tubular smoking pipe, with either flattened or blocked-end mouthpieces, to smoke the hallucinogenic plant.
[17]: In OTL we don’t really see this until the Hopewell Tradition, but with the earlier and faster rise of sedentary lifestyle as well as a larger populous we see it occur earlier and with greater pronouncement.
[18]: In OTL we don’t really see the building of cities around the mounds until the Mississippian Culture. For the most part The Adena and the Hopewell of OTL had their town separate from their burial mounds. The difference here is that the Adena have developed large cities and towns earlier than OTL. The mounds are not what they once were; they have now become vanity projects of the elite families who govern the cities as well as points of religious significance for ancestor worship.
[19]: The Fallow Deer (Dama dama) was domesticated in the Mediterranean around 100 BCE, so the domestication of deer can be done. The domestication, for the most part, ended after the Europeans domesticated better beasts of burden. Since the Aden don’t really have access to better pack animals the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) won’t be getting pushed aside anytime soon. Like the fallow deer it is used for its meat, its hide, and its antlers. Along with these uses, the white-tailed deer is used in a similar way as the llama is used in the Andes.The deer are mostly ranged animals during this era. That being said traders typically have their animals penned in when traveling the distances between chiefdoms. War is still a very primitive institution during this time and the city-states and chiefdoms don't generally exert enough control over the typically pastoral deer herders to fight over the lands they are found in. While the deer herders have their roots in sedentary life the need ranging larger herds has resulted in this pastoral life that keeps them fairly autonomous of the chiefdoms and city-states. Since these pastoral herders generally sell to the highest bidder they are generally kept out of the limited conflicts between the chiefdoms and city-states of the Ohio River basin. That being said, the nomadic herders do come in conflict with sedentary populations over grazing grounds as well as coming into conflict with non-sedentary horticultural tribes that compete with them in the regions away from the cities and town. There are smaller non-nomadic herders that raise deer near the cities, but because of the limitations of having penned in herds, they can only raise 10 to 12 individuals.
In these farm raised herds, most of the individuals are females. Castration of most of the farm raised males outside of the buck servicing the females is typical. It is generally pre-puberty and these males are generally slaughtered after a year. Because it is fairly still early in the domestication process so males in rut are still very dangerous and generally kept away from other males. The antlers are prized and used as religious emblems so the nicer the antlers the greater the profit, but because they also mean more dangerous animals, there has been the slow artificial selection of males with smaller antlers to reproduce. So over time you see ceremonial antlers getting smaller and less ornate, unless they are traded from nomadic horticulturalists outside of the confines of the Ohio River Basin. Males can be dangerous in rut, but not as dangerous as most modern farmed deer, thanks to some 450 years of domestication. Accidents still happen and farmers and herders can still be killed by males, but it isn't as large a risk and is a risk worth taking by the farmers considering the profit.
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