Water Bottle

This water bottle was sitting upright with just about an inch of the neck sticking out of the ground. Amazing that the plows had missed it without destroying it. It is a Mississippian period pot, you can see the white specks of muscle shell the Indians ground up to mix with their clay to make it more durable. They rolled clay in strings just like our children do today then used smooth stones to work the coils into a smooth surface. They took the finished product, piled dirt around it then built a fire on top and kept it burning until it was baked hard.

American Indian archeology has been divided into basically four time periods by archeologists – The Paleo Period – Prehistoric to 20,000 years BC – Archaic Period – 20,000 to 10,000 years BC – Woodland Period 10,000 BC to 1000 AD and the Mississippian Period – 1000 AD to 1600 AD

The Paleo period was primarily found in the American southwest because of the cold that existed over much of the north part of America at that time. The later Paleo and other periods spread across the entire continent.

The woodland period was when the Indians started growing crops and staying in one location instead of traveling and hunting all the time. Their stone work was of a much poorer quality but they started making pottery from clay. They tempered their pottery with sand so it didn’t last like the later period pottery did.

During the Mississippian period the American Indians began to come together into tribes from their former existence as extended family groups.