Several readers commented on the article about the Sweet Potato Village near Atlanta. They questioned how the archaeologists could know that the Sweet Potato Village was a permanent farming settlement. How did it differ from any of the other early Native American communities, we have discussed in this series? The answer comes both from the artifacts and footprints left by the buildings in Sweet Potato.
A common characteristic of the mounds and villages constructed by Native Americans prior to the time of the Sweet Potato Village is that very little remains of the buildings. Even when Europeans began colonizing North America, most indigenous peoples of North America outside the Southwest and Southeast still framed their homes with saplings. Saplings were much easier to cut with stone tools and were transportable. Often all that archaeologists find at such sites are hearths and the detritus of daily living. Archaeologists assume there was once a hut or teepee, where now there is only a hearth.
Pottery and grinding stones are heavy. They are not something that most people would want to carry around if their camp site was constantly on the move. Baskets and gourds were much lighter and therefore, more appropriate for migratory peoples. One of the many cultural changes one sees when native societies became more sedentary because of farming is the increased quantity and quality of pottery. This is true both in the Southwest and the Southeast.
Archaeologists found many ceramic bowls and jars at the Sweet Potato Village. They found grindstones, mortars and pestles for processing grains and seeds. They found pits that were used for storing roots, nuts and seeds underground. This led them to believe that people lived in the village year round. Undoubtedly, bands of hunters or nut-gatherers would leave the village for days or weeks at a time, but there were always people living at the village.
There was also another very important architectural difference in the houses at Sweet Potato Village. They were framed with large wood posts that left black stains in the red Georgia clay after the wood had decomposed. See the photo above. The walls of the houses were made of sapling meshes packed with clay – a technique called wattle and daub. These houses were meant to last. They also left much more organic residue that could be tested by radiocarbon dating equipment.
The archaeologists not familiar with Sweet Potato Village site, refused to believe that it was more that 500 years old because the houses were so stoutly constructed. However, radiocarbon testing proved that they were over 2000 years old.
During the period when Sweet Potato Village was occupied, Native peoples of the Southwestern desert often lived in caves, or in pit houses – huts created by digging holes and putting roofs over them. Later the Southwestern peoples would start to build house walls out of field stones, while the Southeastern peoples would began building a variety of specialized structures – among them heavily insulated houses in the winter and breezy, screened porch type structures for the summer months. The remains of houses in both regions became much more substantial after agriculture was firmly established.
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