Kathleen O' Neal & Michael W. Gear - People 4 - People Of The River

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People of the River

W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Books by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear from Tom Doherty

Associates the first north americans series

People of the Wolf

People of the Fire People of the Earth

People of the River

People of the Sea

People of the Lakes

People of the Lightning

People of the Silence

People of the Mist

People of the Masks The Anasazi Mysteries

The Visitant The Summoning God forthcoming

Books by Kathleen O'Neal Gear from Tom Doherty Associates Thin Moon and

Cold Mist

Sand in the Wind This Widowed Land Books by W. Michael Gear from Tom

Doherty Associates

Coyote Summer

The Morning River

Big Horn Legacy

Long Ride Home people of the river

W Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear

TOR

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware

that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and

destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in

this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events

is purely coincidental.

PEOPLE OF THE RIVER

portions thereof, in any form.

Cover art by Royo

Maps and interior art by Ellisa Mitchell

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 0-812-50743-6

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-2968

First edition: August 1992

First mass market printing: May 1993

Printed in the United States of America 0 9

To Harold and Wanda O'Neal

For all of the years you spent sitting in the dust, explaining

potsherds, yucca sandals, styles of architecture, and the astronomical

alignments at prehistoric sites.

Those wide-eyed children never lost their sense of awe.

Acknowledgments

None of the books in the First North Americans series could be

completed without the extensive fieldwork of our colleagues in the

archaeological community.

We would like to thank Drs. James B. Griffin, Melvin Fowler, Robert

Hall, Richard Yerkes, John Kelly, Thomas Emerson, R. Barry Lewis, Neal

Lopinot, Christy Wells, William Wood, Timothy Pauketat, George Mimer,

George Honey, Fred Finney, James Stoltman, Henry Wright, and Bruce

Smith for their comprehensive work on Cahokia. And P. Clay Sherrod and

Martha Ann Rolingson of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey for their

work on the archaeoastronomy of the Mississippi Valley.

Special mention goes to Ray Williamson for his thoughtful comments on

prehistoric North American astronomy over dinner in New Orleans at the

1991 Society for American Archaeology meetings. Bill Butler of the

National Park Service provided us with source material on Plains/

Woodland trade patterns. John Walthall has done superb work on

aboriginal trade in North America, and we have drawn from his

material.

In addition, National Forest Service archaeologists H. Gene Driggers

and Anne Wilson spent hours in researching and procuring books and

articles for us. Many thanks.

Dr. Dudley Gardner, Sierra Adare, Jeff Corney, and Bill Blow of the

Cahokia staff graciously helped us hone the ideas. Katherine and Joe

Cook of Mission, Texas, and Katherine Perry provided encouragement and

critique. Special service was done by Harold and Wanda O'Neal, who

ransacked their library for archaeoastronomy information.

Michael Seidman made this series possible during his days at Tor Books.

We would also like to acknowledge Linda Quinton, Ralph Arnote, and the

field force for their hard work. Tom Doherty, Roy Gainsburg, and the

staff at St. Martin's Press/Tor have believed in the project and given

us unflinching support.

Last, we offer our deepest gratitude to Harriet McDougal, the finest

editor in New York. We couldn't do it without you, Harriet.

Foreword

During the Archaic, around five thousand years ago, the native peoples

of the Eastern Woodlands were hunter gatherers They lived in small,

scattered villages and subsisted on a diet of white-tailed deer, wild

turkey, opossum, raccoon, turtle, and other animals, supplemented with

native plants. The introduction of corn, about 1500 b.c." dramatically

changed that life-style and led to the rise of an agricultural

civilization that embraced not only the most complex religious

ceremonialism, social organization, and economic sophistication ever

seen in prehistoric North America, but also the most expansive

political influence heretofore known. We call these people the "

Mississippians."

Mississippian culture flourished from roughly a.d. 700 to a.d. 1500.

During that time, the largest earthen structures in North America were

built, mounds a hundred feet high and containing over 21,000,000 cubic

feet of earth.

The domestication of corn gave the Mississippians a high-energy food

resource and heightened the carrying capacity of the land. "Probably

for the first time in North American prehistory, people could reliably

produce an annual surplus of food. This surplus resulted in a

population explosion. Village size went from a few hundred people to

perhaps ten or twelve thousand. The diet became almost 90 percent

corn. This stable economic base provided the conditions necessary for

social stratification. Powerful chiefs arose and consolidated the

scattered villages into vast chiefdoms whose tribute to the Great Sun

Chief--a tax--funded widespread communal activities. Labor became

specialized. Certain artisans produced magnificent arrow points, ax

heads, shell beads, and perhaps the very special pottery that was

traded over thousands of miles.

Mississippians established trade routes that spanned the continent,

bringing olivella shells from Florida, obsidian from the Yellowstone

region of the Rocky Mountains, alligator and sharks' teeth from the

Gulf Coast, copper from Ontario, Canada, and Wisconsin, silver from

Michigan, grizzly bear teeth from Montana, conch shells from the

Carolinas, mica and quartz crystals from Virginia, chalcedony from the

Dakotas, pipestone from Ohio and Pennsylvania. They may have even

traded with the high civilizations of Mexico.

From Archaic roots--as is evidenced by the Poverty Point site in

Louisiana--Mississippians inherited, and then improved on,.a body of

mathematical and astronomical knowledge that allowed them to plan their

towns with a standard unit of measurement and to align each of their

mounds according to solar and stellar positions. At Cahokia, in

Illinois, the mounds were arranged so that it was possible for them to

chart the exact position of the sun when it rose and set on the equinox

and solstice. At Toltec Mounds in Arkansas, they knew the azimuths of

Vega, Aldebaran, Rigel, Fomalhaut, Canopus, and Castor, and built their

towns and ceremonial centers accordingly.

The Mississippians understood the basic principles of celestial

mechanics. For example, they observed that the full moon always rises

at precisely the same time the sun sets, which is why the lunar disk is

completely illuminated. They charted the 18.6-year lunar cycle and

positioned their mounds so that the time the moon reached its most

southerly position in that cycle could be ascertained.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mississippian peoples knew

more about astronomy than does the average modern-day American.

So, we must ask, given the sophistication of their culture, what

happened to them?

By 1541, when Hernando de Soto came up the Mississippi River, the

mound-builders' civilization had all but disappeared. The massive

population centers were abandoned, the thousands of acres of fields

left fallow. Why?

The answer revolves around corn and climate.

The rise of Mississippian culture corresponds to what we call the

Neo-Atlantic climatic episode. Beginning about a.d. 900, the earth

experienced a global warming, which brought moist, tropical air into

North America. This extended the length of the growing season and

increased the summer rainfall, allowing for substantial crop yields and

fostering a massive increase in population.

Then, between a.d. 1100 and 1200, the climate changed again. The

Pacific climatic episode, which lasted until about a.d. 1550, brought

strong, dry winds and drought. Rainfall declined by as much as fifty

percent. Crop yields plummeted. To sustain their population,

Mississippians expanded their trade routes and cleared more land for

crops. Deforestation increased erosion, which caused catastrophic

flooding when the rains did come. Around a.d. 1150, the people were

recycling wood. Red cedar had become so scarce that they were unable

to refurbish their sacred structures. Flooding resulted in stunted

corn growth, with ensuing malnutrition. Burials from the period are

rife with pathologies, including decreased stature, tooth loss, and

arthritis. Famine likely ravaged the population centers.

By a.d. 1200, all of the major towns and many of the small,

surrounding villages had been palisaded, surrounded with walls twelve

to fifteen feet high, and mounted with shooting platforms on all sides.

War followed. In one Illinois cemetery, dating to around a.d. 1300,

thirty percent of all adult deaths were due to trauma and mutilation

resulting from warfare.

Outlying villages began to disperse, and this led to changes in the

economic system, as well as in the varieties of plants cultivated. The

complex Mississippian way of life, with its emphasis on intensive

agriculture, was replaced by a simpler tribal structure. Once again

native American peoples mixed hunting with horticulture. Large temple

towns vanished and society devolved.

The story you are about to read is set in the vicinity of Cahokia,

Illinois, at the peak of the crisis. The rains won't come, the corn

won't grow, the people are hungry and desperate.. ..

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Kathleen O' Neal & Michael W. Gear - People 4 - People Of The River

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