Prehistory of Ohio

9,500 BC – 1650 AD = 11,150 years

Paleo Indians →
Archaic Indians →
Woodland Indians →
Prehistoric Indians →
Historic Indians
Archaeology in NW Ohio
Archaeology in NW Ohio
Archaeology in NW Ohio
 Regions of Ohio
• Glaciers covered most of
North and Western Ohio until
about 14,000 years ago

• Ice thickness over 8,000 feet

thick at Cleveland at one point
> 1 mile

• This scooped out the Great

Lakes

• Lake Erie was 2 lakes just

after glaciers left, could walk
to Canada

Flint Ridge
Upper
Mercer
Southeast
Paleo Indians:

• First arrival in Ohio about

9,500 BC
• Climate very unstable, Ice is
gone from Ohio
• Hunter-gatherer people,
chasing Megafauna
– Animals now extinct
Paleoindians:
• The first people most likely
entered Ohio from North or
West, following animals
• Most evidence suggests that
People came to North America
from Asia to Alaska and went
South
• People were in North America
by 12,400 BC, and Ohio by
perhaps 9,500 BC
 Paleoindians: Tools
• Tools were carefully made
• High quality flint
• Built in Recyclability = Mobile
Hunters and Gathers
• More Paleoindian Fluted
points found in Ohio than any
other state

Clovis Points
Paleoindians: Other Tools

Drills and Blades

Side Scrapers

End Scrapers Gravers

 Archaic Indians:
8,000 – 1,000 BC
• Climate begins to stabilize
• People begin using
seasonal camps, less
mobile
• Very little Archaic found in
Northern Ohio
• No pottery yet – Stone
bowls
• People begin to use plants
+ hunt deer
• First Dogs

Late Archaic dog

burial
Archaic Indians: Tools
• Many different styles and sizes
of points, lower quality flint =
regional settlement
• Serrations
• Corner Notches
• No more gravers, drills, etc.
 Archaic Indians: Other Tools
• Ground stone tools = use of
plants, wood technology
– Axes
– Grinding stones
Nutting stones • Atlatl Weights = Bannerstones
• Smoking Pipes
• Stone boiling
Axes

Slab grinders
Bannerstones/Atlatyl
Weights Smoking Pipes
Archaic Indians: Atlatyl
Woodland Indians:
1000 BC –1000 AD
• First Ceramic/Pottery Appears
• Increasing use of Plants
• Flattening of Foreheads
• Cemeteries = Less Mobile
• Ceremonialism and the
Beginning of Mound-building
– Adena: 1000 BC - 0
– Hopewell: 0 – 400 BC
Woodland Indians: Pottery
• First pottery appears around this
time (1,000 BC)

• Starts out very thick and large,

and later becomes thinner

• Grit Temper

• Decorations:
– Cordmarking
– Punctates
– Dentates
– Incizing
– Crosshatching
– Stamping
Woodland Indians: Moundbuilding
• 1914: 3,500 mounds in Ohio
– Mostly in Southern Ohio along
Rivers
– Less than 1,000 survive today
• “Vertical Cemeteries”
• Items of significance buried with
people
• First Europeans believed it was a
“lost civilization”
• Chillicothe, Ohio = center of it all
 Woodland Indians: Exotic
Materials, Art, and Rituals

• Mica from the Southeast

• Obsidian from Wyoming
• Shells and Barracuda Jaws
from Florida, Atlantic Coast
• Copper from Michigan
• Meteoric Iron from Kansas
• Galena from West
• Quartz Crystals from the South
• Grizzly Bear teeth from Rocky
mountains
• Freshwater Pearls from
Mississippi
Woodland Indians: Exotic
Materials, Art, and Rituals
Woodland Indians: Earthworks
• Hills, Ditches, and Platforms
• Often Aligned with Moon
Prehistoric Indians: 1,000 AD -1650 AD

• Movement to fortified hilltop

enclosures with defensive
fortifications
• This suggest warfare or threat
of attack
• Use of bow and arrow around
700-1000 AD
• Houses were often smaller
family unit dwellings
• Underground Storage Pits
• Shell-tempered Pottery