Pottery, Gardens and Burial Mounds
 The Early Woodland period
(1,000 to 300 B.C.) was a period of
"firsts." People planted the first gardens, made the first pottery,
and built the first burial mounds.
Gathering wild seeds for food during the Late Archaic period led to
planting gardens during the Early Woodland period. People first planted
squash, and probably sunflowers.
The first pottery was thick and heavy. It was not very well made, but it
was useful for cooking and for storing food.
The practice of building earthen mounds over graves began during this time.
Burial mounds may have been meant to show the importance of the people buried
under them. Or they may have been people's way of saying, "these mounds
mark our cemetery."
All of these things—heavy pottery, gardens and burial mounds—tell us that
people moved around less and stayed in one place more than they had in earlier
times.
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