woodland period moundbuilders of the bluegrass - Kentucky ...

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like copper bracelets and marine shell beads, were particularly valuable.Adena groups could get these only through trade.Snake skeletons placed in some graves probably representedritual symbols. Smoking pipes may have been ritual paraphernalia.Undoubtedly, all burial offerings took on important symbolic or ritualmeanings, whether placed with cremated individuals or those buried inthe-flesh.A clay- and bark-covered burial wihin a Montgomery County mound.Relatives laid the lower bark strips lengthwise on a clay platform.Then they covered the body with bark strips, laid crosswise, and alayer of clay.36
a necklace of disk-shaped shell beadsLog TombsLog tombs deserve special mention here.They were the most elaborate Adena burialform and were the most common type usedtoward the end of Adena history.Most were rectangular. They built them ina variety of sizes: from 7 by 4 feet to 16 by 16feet. They ranged from shallow (a foot) to verydeep (eight feet). Some tombs were completelylined with logs, and others were only partiallyso. The following description broadly outlineshow Adena tomb builders might have built alog-lined tomb like the one shown on page ??.They began by digging a square orrectangular pit into the ground or into a mound.After removing all of the loose soil, the builderswere ready to construct the tomb. For this, theyneeded different sizes of logs. They also neededpure, clean, moist, moldable clay. It was similarto the kind they used to make clay-sealedgraves.The tomb builders selected locally available trees, such as walnut, ash,elm, and hackberry, for the straightness of their trunks. A species’ ritualsignificance undoubtedly was a factor in its selection, too. Using woodhandledstone axes, they cut down trees with a diameter of 6-12 inches.Leaving the bark intact, they neatly trimmed off all the branches usingsmaller, hand-held stone axes or celts. They dug the clay locally usingdigging sticks. Because they had no domesticated animals, they hauledthese materials to the tomb site themselves.Now they could begin tomb construction. The tomb builders linedthe pit walls with logs of matching lengths: longer ones for the lengthand shorter ones for the width. They put a log at the base of each wall.Then, they neatly stacked additional logs of matching length on top of it,leaning them or pushing them against the pit walls. Often, they used clayto fill the spaces between the logs and to hold the logs in place.After finishing the walls, they moved on to prepare the tomb floor andburial platform. The body would lie on the platform.They had many options. They might lay down a several-inch-thicklayer of pure clay to form a rectangular platform that nearly covered thepit bottom. Or they could arrange several logs on the floor to form the37
Page 5 and 6: Over time, these people will return
Page 7 and 8: However, Adena people kept no writt
Page 9 and 10: As people debated the Moundbuilders
Page 11 and 12: archaeologists supervised the excav
Page 13 and 14: DAILY LIFEAdena lifeways were firml
Page 15 and 16: Adena peoples were mobile hunter-ga
Page 17 and 18: Preparing a garden space took sever
Page 19 and 20: Focus On Adena GardeningAdena peopl
Page 21 and 22: Focus On Adena FabricsThere is no q
Page 23 and 24: Health and DiseaseAlthough Depressi
Page 25 and 26: a cone-shaped MontgomeryCounty moun
Page 27 and 28: Based on the materials found inside
Page 29 and 30: does not accurately reflect the num
Page 31 and 32: extend nearly 8 feet below thegroun
Page 33 and 34: Adena groups probablyworked-out mor
Page 35 and 36: What we do know of Adena burial pra
Page 37: separate, or mixed with the remains
Page 41 and 42: The keys to that discovery are vari
Page 43 and 44: Focus On Adena Engraved TabletsAden
Page 45 and 46: Focus On An Adena ShamanIn 1950, be
Page 47 and 48: county, or state law enforcement of
Page 49 and 50: The KENTUCKY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY

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