woodland period moundbuilders of the bluegrass - Kentucky ...

Adena families might have stayed at camps like the Pike Countyexample for several months. This may have been particularly true in thelate summer and early fall, when many of the plants they grew wouldhave been ready to harvest.They would have camped briefly in some places for very specificreasons, like to be near important natural resources. These resourcesmight have included good hunting grounds; groves of nut-bearing trees;or places where they could collect or quarry chert (a stone, commonlyknown as flint, used to make stone tools).FoodInformation from Adena campsites provides a glimpse of what theyate. The main animals were white-tailed deer, black bear, and elk. Smallmammals included squirrel, raccoon, and rabbit. They also ate wildturkey, fished, and ate reptiles and amphibians, like turtles, snakes, andlizards. Adena hunters used the atlatl, or spearthrower, to hunt the largeranimals. They may have used snares, traps, or nets to capture the smallerones.Many different kinds of wild fruits, such as blackberry, strawberry,grape, and persimmon, also were part of their diet. Their favorite nutswere hickory nuts and walnuts. Women could have used a variety ofcontainers, such as baskets, and skin or net bags, on their wild plant foodcollecting trips.Adena peoples also grew some of the foods they ate. In comparison totheir ancestors’ diet, plants made up more of theirs.Just as Kentuckians do today, Adena people prepared their gardensin the spring. Naturally open sunny spots on the landscape made goodgarden spots. So did the places they cleared themselves.They made their copper bracelets from Great Lakes copper.