Indian Cultures in Kentucky

Paleo-Indian Man is presumed to have been Kentucky's first human inhabitant. Scientists think he entered Kentucky from the general direction of Alaska around 13,000 B.C. They think he reached most of the state except the eastern mountains.

He probably hunted large beasts such as prehistoric elephants. We call those prehistoric elephants mammoths and mastodons. We know that these creatures roamed throughout most of Kentucky toward the end of the last ice age.

Scientists think he looked physically like a Shawnee, that he wore cloaks made of caribou hides. He is presumed to have been nomadic because the elephant herds wandered and because nobody ever found a place where he stayed very long. There is no evidence that he built any type of structure.

The next period in Kentucky pre-history starts around 6000 B.C. when the elephants and other big game became scarce. It's called the Archaic period.

During the Archaic period, which ran from 6,000 to 1,000 B.C., the big game had disappeared and the Indians began gathering vegetation -- even cultivating plants in the last part of this period -- to supplement their hunting.

Society became more complex and a division of labor, probably between men and women, developed, with some hunting and others gathering.

Gulf Coast shells from that period are found in Kentucky, and it is assumed that somebody had time to run down and get them or trade for them, which suggests merchants.

The Archaic peoples were more sedentary than the Paleo-Indians, but they still wandered a lot, mostly along the rivers.

It was the Woodland period, from 1,000 B.C. to 900 A. D. -- that Kentuckians started settling down. The Woodland Indians began cultivating the plants -- corn, beans, squash -- that had been developed in Mexico and further south. They had to develop or adopt a way of life that would get them back to their fields occasionally. As it happened, they lived in more of Kentucky than anyone until the time of the pioneers.

A Woodland subculture, called Adena, flourished from 800 B.C. to 800 A.D., and gave Kentucky some of its famous mounds. Some of the mounds were burial sites. The reasons for other mounds is unknown.

Another site that you may find interesting is the Adena site.

A better strain of corn developed in the south probably led to the culture we call the Mississippian Culture. This culture probably began about 900 A.D. and lasted until about 1600 A.D.

These people developed a dependence almost entirely on agriculture. They even built large stockades around their villages to protect them from other Indians.

A characteristic of the Mississippian culture was their extremely complex society. They were ruled by priests. They engaged in elaborate rituals and ceremonies and developed large temple mounds.

An excellent website for this culture has been created by Anthony Stein. You are encouraged to visit this site.

Some of the Woodland people ultimately took on some of the Mississippian ways, to the extent of building permanent villages and stockades of their own. They form the culture we call Fort Ancient. This culture began around 1200 A.D. and lasted until about 1650 A.D. Unlike the Mississippian Culture they imitated, the Fort Ancient peoples did not adopt the complex rituals and other elaborate trappings.

By the time the pioneers entered this area, all of these Indian cultures had disappeared. Except for a handful of Shawnee villages and Cherokee and Chickasaw bands, the state was uninhabited when the pioneers arrived.

French hunters and trappers had been all over this area before the English arrived. They usually got along better with the Indians than did the Englishmen. They seldom tried to take Indian land. They were content to hunt, trap animals, and trade with the Indians.

Before the English (later American) pioneers arrived, the Indians had been content to hunt, fish, and grow a few crops. They enjoyed making petty attacks on neighboring tribes. This was done more to show manhood and tribe superiority than to gain wealth or land.

This tendency to fight one another did much to cause the downfall of the Indians. The land between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers became a no-man's land. No tribe could control it. However, many tribes claimed it.

The Iroquois Indians sold or gave away to the English settlers lands which the Iroquois claimed in the Ohio River Valley. This was an attempt to send the settlers away from the Iroquois' homeland in the present New York state area.

The Cherokee Indians did the same with lands they claimed in the Tennessee River Valley. They hoped to protect their homeland in northern Georgia and western North and South Carolina. These acts hastened the downfall of the Indians even more. The pioneers moved through the gap in the mountains and down the Ohio River into this land between the two rivers.

This settlement was not without resistance from the Indians. Even Daniel Boone was captured by the Shawnee Indians and held hostage for many weeks. In 1777, the Indians made their greatest effort to drive the settlers from their hunting grounds. It failed. It would be many years before the Indian danger was completely ended. But the worst was over.

The Indians would be defeated. The pioneer's diseases would kill many. His better weapons would hold off Indian attacks. The Indians would continue to fight each other. Much of the strength they could have had would be wasted this way.

One other thing would help to defeat the Indians. Without it, the pioneers could not have long remained in the wilderness. That thing was salt.