This Ancient Land

At about the time Charlemagne was Holy Roman Emperor, the Woodland people of Camp Creek were experimenting with some new vegetables: squash and corn. This part of the Tennessee Valley, therefore, was literally the cradle of agriculture in our fair state. Prior to this time, evidence suggests that people cultivated several native plants, including sumpweed, lamb's quarters, and sunflowers. But the squash and corn, which originated far to the south of Tennessee, were acquired by trade.

The Woodland people also brought new technology to the region. Their distinctively decorated pottery, created by pressing the wet clay with a wooden paddle wound with twine, exhibits several different styles. Perhaps these indicated ownership. The Woodland people retained the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of their ancestors from the Archaic period, supplementing their diet of game, fish, crayfish, periwinkles and foraged plants with cultivated plants. The improvement in diet apparently led to an increase in the population, and a tendency to remain in one place over long periods.

Another technical innovation accredited to the Woodland people is the bow and arrow. An obvious improvement over spears for hunting, the bow made food-getting easier.

Mound-building also first appeared during the Woodland era. Pinson Mounds in West Tennessee is a good example, but there are others. Mound building, as well as the cultivation of corn, would reach its zenith with the successors to the Woodland culture, the Mississippians.

When I first laid eyes on the site of the Camp Creek settlement, it was a farmer's plowed field, littered with bits and pieces of the lives of the Woodland folk. Anything of archaeological value had already been removed by the researchers from UT a few years before. I only found one point that day, but I have a handful of similar ones from our farm, a dozen miles from the Camp Creek site. The Woodland people occupied the Tennessee Valley for about 2000 years. Their points are scattered all over Greene County.

These days, I often think about what life must have been like for the Camp Creek people. The forest surrounding them would have had trees far larger than anything most of us modern folks have ever seen. There were American chestnuts 12 feet in diameter; the tree is nearly extinct now. Tulip poplars towered 100 feet overhead, with no branches for half that distance. Only tiny scraps of that magnificent forest now remain.

When you head out this summer for the mountains, lakes and rivers around East Tennessee, take a moment to remember the people who walked the trails and fished the rivers a millennium ago.