Georgia -- Antiquities; Mounds -- Georgia; Ocmulgee National Monument (Ga.)
Beside their large and thriving religious center, we can reconstruct
many aspects of their daily lives in which the Master Farmers were
different from their predecessors. This difference is noted in their
tools, weapons, and household utensils. These have survived because they
were made of such durable material as stone and pottery. The many
smaller projectile points now making their appearance suggest that the
bow and arrow were in general use at this time. Greater range and
accuracy have been advanced as possible reasons for adopting this weapon
in place of the spear thrower and dart, which preceded the bow in most
parts of the world. Perhaps equally important was an increase in tribal
unrest and strife which made a larger quantity of relatively small and
light missiles more effective in the brief skirmishes of Indian warfare
than two or three of the bulkier darts. With regard to their other
equipment, surprisingly few bone tools have been preserved; but this may
be due to their greater use of cane, which was very effective for
knives, awls, and other implements but did not last as well as bone.
Evidence has also been found to show that they manufactured and used
basketry and a simple twined weave type of cloth fabric.
[Illustration: Pottery for everyday use was plain but well made and came
in a large variety of pleasing shapes. Diameter of jar on right, 14
inches.]
The pottery obtained in excavation has already been studied in
considerable detail because of the recognized importance of this time
marker to the archeologist. It is here that we find one of the most
noticeable differences between these people from the Mississippi Valley
and the native Georgia tribes whose pottery had developed along very
different lines for some thousand years or more. Now, in place of the
many forms of surface roughening which marked the history of the latter,
plain surfaces become the rule. Jar forms have rounded bottoms, are
often as broad as they are tall, or broader, and show a tendency toward
constricted openings. One common form has a straight sloping shoulder
which turns in from the rounded body contour of the pot rather suddenly.
Its slope may continue without change to the rim, but more often it will
turn upward again to form a slight lip or even a short neck. These
contrast with the deep jars of the preceding period in which the mouth,
regardless of neck or rim treatment, tends almost to equal the largest
diameter, and in which the base is conoidal, i. e., rounded to at least
the suggestion of a point.
[Illustration: The clay figures which often adorned the rims of open
bowls represented all manner of creatures both real and imaginary. About
one-third actual size.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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