1. hobbies and interests
2. arts and crafts
3. pottery

Prehistoric Ceramics:
It was during the Woodland Period that pottery making became more widespread
in the Southeast. As native groups became more settled, pottery vessels became essential
for cooking, storage and preparation of foods. It was also readily crafted from raw
materials found in the environment and decorated with traditional patterns.
Surface treatment is a particular type of decorative technique applied to pottery
and is primary importance in dating and identification. Archeologists use surface
treatment as formal designation generally associated with geographical distribution of the
form and can account for cultural changes and influences on pottery making from other
groups.
Surface Treatments:
Simple Stamped (1000 B.C.-1200 A.D.):
Linear indentations. Patterns can be parallel, converge or cross.
Check Stamped designs are 300-2500 years old and have been identified in North and
South Carolina, Florida, and East and West Tennessee. These patterns were made using
carved wooden paddles.
Complicated Stamp (1000-1720 A.D.):
Complex angular and curvilinear stamps applied with a similarly curved paddle.
Filfot Complicated Stamped Pottery (above) is found in Georgia, South Carolina, and
related areas. This technique is related to Irene-Lamar Complicated Stamped techniques.
Incised
Late Woodland pot with Reed Punctate
Thoms Creek Punctated (1500B.C.-500 B.C.):
Thoms Creek Punctated is found in South Carolina and Georgia. These patterns were
made using river cane or sticks to push designs into the clay.
Fabric-Impressed or Cord Marked (100B.C.-1200A.D.):
Pressing a fabric-covered paddle onto the surface of the clay made this design.
The design varies depending on the fabric. Or, small cord or rope wound around a paddle
would create a textured design.
Appliqué Surface Treatment (1250-1700 A.D.):
Often rim treatments are made by attaching separate pieces of clay to the vessel wall and
raised above the surface.
Tempering:
Native Americans used a variety of materials to add strength to their pottery.
Some of the earliest pottery types were tempered with fibers from grass, roots and
Spanish moss which was kneaded into the clay to add strength prior to firing. The
irregular markings on the surfaces indicated that the pottery was fiber-tempered.
Stallings Island pottery from South Carolina is some of the oldest in North America,
dating from the Archaic Period. The addition of sand and gravel into the clay was typical
of pottery produced in the Woodland Tradition as well as fabric and crushed shell. Shard
tempered pottery (inclusions of crushed pottery pieces), were also produced in our area.
Charcoal
Sand
Moss
Historic Period Ceramics (Colonoware):
European contact with Native Americans produced changes in traditional pottery
making such as the addition of handles to vessels. Bowls with flat bases as well as plates
were made for the first time. Many pieces seem to bear similarities with not only
European influences, but African as well. It is quite possible that many historic ceramics
were slave made.
Clay Pipe Bowls:
Pipe bowls were made from a variety of materials including stone, bone and clay. Clay
bowls were intricately shaped into effigies of human and animal form and fitted for reed
stem. The tobacco used by Southeastern Indians was native to the central Andes and is
unknown when it reached Eastern United States.
In the Cherokee belief system, there existed a creature so horrible that merely to
see one brought about misfortune and to smell the breath of this mystic beast
brought death. This was the “Uktena”, a creature of the underworld, part reptile,
part bird, part deer that was a fearsome enemy to human beings. Uktena’s are
frequently depicted in Southeastern ceremonial motifs inscribed shells and
pottery.
Head of Uktena on Native American Pottery Shard
Native American Pottery (Condensed Version):
The first Americans are believed to have come to this continent by foot over a
land bridge across the Bering Strait. These immigrants were nomadic and were always
on the move behind migratory herds of animals. They lived a lifestyle of hunters and
gatherers taking what they needed from nature as it became available in their continuous
travels. Over time bands of people began traveling in smaller circles where food was
plentiful throughout the seasons. As time passed some of these groups began
manipulating the plant cycles to propagate a food crop. The introduction of agriculture
provided a reliable and predictable food source. Agriculture allowed for many cultural
and social changes to take place within Native American society.
Agriculturally based society could no longer follow the herds of game because
they had to stay close to the crop to prevent damage and assure a healthy harvest.
Although still not settled, this encouraged the development of more permanent dwellings
and larger camps. The surplus of food brought about by experienced cultivation required
storage containers for grain and staples. The development of pottery bowls and jars
fulfilled this need.
The first pottery containers were simple and somewhat crude but were successful
at storing food for winter. This success was evident in an increase in population. As the
population grew the workforce grew. As the amount of people available for labor
increased the experience level of farmers rose also resulting in greater yields and better
chances for survival. The cultural impact this had on native people was tremendous.
Traditions and social practices began evolving. For the first time a surplus in
food and labor allowed for leisure time. This is evident in the arts, crafts, and religion of
social groups. As more time was made available for leisure activities craftsmen became
better at their work and higher quality items and more artistic objects became available.
Pottery best portrays these advances in cultural prosperity. Techniques in form and
design are evident in remaining shards of Native American pottery. Clay pots became
progressively better in build as potters learned how to temper or strengthen the pots by
adding materials to the clay. The materials added to the pot can be identified to create a
timeline for the archeologist to identify when the object was created. As the quality and
lifespan of the pot increased so did the desire to decorate it. Therefore design techniques
went from simple to complicated. These decorations also help archeologists determine
how old a piece of pottery is.
NATIVE AMERICANS OF THE COASTAL PLAIN:
The landscape of what we know today, as Horry County is vastly different that it
was when the first people occupied this land. Along the coastal plain of South Carolina,
the land has been shaped by glacial activity that began approximately 200 million years
ago and ended with the Wisconsin Glaciation, about 12,000 years before the present. At
the end of the last glacial period, sea level may have been as much as 25 meters lower
than it is today, extending the land of the coast some 15 miles seaward. Carved by the
rising and falling of the ocean levels, the geography of South Carolina coast is varied and
supports plants and animals of both upland and lowland environments. This rich
diversity of resources proved beneficial to the first people of the land, who maintained
their hunting and gathering lifestyles here for at least 12,000 years.
THE COLONIZATION OF THE CONTINENT:
One of the first wanderers had trickled across to Alaska, how long did it take to
occupy the rest of North and South America? Given the extraordinary diversity of
American Indian cultures, most archeologists believe that successive waves of migrants
from the Old World moved into North America over a period of many years, each of
whom introduced new ideas and lifestyles to settle populations. Consider that among the
Indians of North America there were more than 200 identifiable languages, some as
markedly different from the others as Chinese is from German.
It was during the Pleistocene Epoch, which lasted between two and three million
years ago, that much of the world’s water was locked in glacial ice while sea levels fell
considerably. The Bering and Chukchi Seas, shallow bodies of water today were dry
then, and, in their place lay Beringia, a continent whose land would be submerged and
reemerge several times during the relatively brief glacial periods. Beringia should not be
viewed as simply an avenue to transit for the first immigrations to the new world. Rather,
it was a place where people lived, some of who moved on following the herds of large
game animals on which their livelihoods depended.
Humans may have come to North America as early as 35,000 years ago and were
clearly present in South Carolina and Horry County by about 12,000 years ago. The
earliest of these people were known to anthropologists as Paleo-Indians and were thought
to have been hunters and gatherers who formed small, mobile groups. These small bands
of people followed the herds of mammoth; elk and bison until the game began to die out
or leave the area with the climatic changes that marked the end of the Pleistocene and the
beginning of the Holocene.
Sites intensively occupied by the Paleo-Indians are notably lacking in South
Carolina, although numerous surface finds have been reported. A site in Surfside Beach
produced possible stone tools, and the remains of extinct forms of mammoth, bison, bear
and big cats.
As human populations increased people began broadening their subsistence base
to include different kinds of animals and more plant foods. Territorial ranges of these
people became smaller as population began to increase. The amount of land that was
necessary to hunt became smaller while human populations grew larger.
The traditional beginning of agriculture is usually placed sometime in the Archaic
Period. Both in times of plenty and in times of want, prehistoric people would be
compelled to find ways to feed themselves that were not purely dependent on the whims
of nature. People of the Southwest, who first practiced rudimentary agriculture remained
mobile much of the year, planting seeds in the course of springtime wanderings and
returning to the planting sites when the seeds were ripening in the same manner as they
knew to arrive at places where they knew wild food grew in time to harvest them.
Evidence from Central Mexico indicates that perhaps as long ago as 9,000 years ago,
people began to manipulate the ancestral stocks of corn (maize) to produce a larger ear.
By 5,000 years ago domesticated plants in Mexico included corn, beans, squash and
many others.
Tools of the Hunter Gatherers:
Stone tools, projectile points, scrapers, drills and blades tend to be the most
prolific evidence of archeological sites of early Native American lifestyles because the
lasting nature of stone. The abundance of game animals was a major protein source for
these early people, however plant foods were also extensively gathered. The tools for
gathering and preparing and storing plant foods included digging sticks, nets, baskets,
and pottery. Because of the fragile nature of many of these objects, little is known of
their usage. The existence of grinding stones, hammer stones, and nutting stones all
show the dependence on gathered wild foods in the form of seeds, grain and nuts. Acorns
were especially valued as a food for the Southeastern Native American. After leaching
the bitter acids from the kernels, acorns could be made into edible highly nutritious oils,
milk, flour and nutmeats.
“ATLATL”:
A new killing tool arrived during the Archaic Period. A throwing device known today by
the Aztec word “atlatl”. Simple in form and function the throwing stick consisted of a
wooden handle with a hooked tip to fit the end of the spear or lance. Used as an
extension of the hunter’s own arm, the force and speed of the thrown spear was greatly
increased. The use of the atlatl permitted hunting from greater distances. Counter
weights, known sometimes as banner stones, have been associated with the atlatl.
As population density increased, Archaic people produced distinctive artifact types.
Points and knives, which exhibit first regional and later local variations, begin to make
their appearances. (While Paleo-Indian points from thousands of miles apart are quite
similar, by the middle Archaic, points from hundreds of miles show noticeable variation)
Artifact characteristics of the Archaic period are distinctive types of notched points.
Stone Axe:
Humans have used axes for thousands of years for heavy chopping and cutting
required for construction. Grooving the axe head facilitated hafting and lashing to a stout
limb. Mississippian cultures produced an axe that was unique to North American
Indians. The elongated head was polished to a cutting edge and was most likely used for
utilitarian purposes.
Mississippian Stone Celt
Flaking Tools:
The antlers of deer were often utilized as tools to produce arrowheads, points,
knives and scrapers. The heavier base was used as a billet to remove blanks of stone
from larger rocks. Blanks or preforms were generally taken from the quarry site to a
campsite where the work of chipping and flaking produced a fine point. The smaller
antler tip was used as a punch to flake the serrations.
Chunkee Stone:
Chunkee was, a Southeastern Indian game in which a disc of stone was rolled
across a playing field. Two players competed and threw a spear or pole at the rolling disc
to see who could hit the closest to the place it stopped.
Obsidian Knife:
Obsidian (volcanic glass) was highly prized as a raw material for fashioning
points, knives and scrapers. Artifacts made of obsidian are rare along the coastal plain,
and those found here were likely traded. Obsidian has a fine crystalline structure that
fractures clearly and produced a razor-sharp edge.
Drill:
Drills were used in a variety of applications and were often simplified to consist
of a stick with a sharpened or tipped point that was rubbed between the palms of the
hands to produce a spinning motion. This more advanced version resembles the “fire
drill” but can produce a clean hole using a stone tip in a matter of seconds.
Native American Lithics:
LIFESTYLES THAT DOMINATED THE
CONTINENT:
WOODLAND PERIOD: 500 B.C.
By 1,000 B.C., the people of North America were numerous and occupied a
variety of climates from the Arctic tundra to the subtropical regions with equally diverse
cultures and ways of living. Pottery making was well established by this time and village
life revolved around the time-honored traditions of hunting and foraging with the addition
of cultivated crops. Agriculture proved to be a dominant influence on the native groups
of the Eastern Woodlands. Here, the great cultures of the Adena-Hopewell dominated
the mid-west from the Mississippi to the Appalachians until nearly 500 A.D. Earthworks,
(burial mounds, temple mounds, animal effigy mounds) constructed by people of the
woodland tradition varied greatly in form and function, yet, indicated a high degree of
social organization and cooperation. Native foods, acorns, hickory nuts, blueberries,
persimmon, and a variety of seed plants, pigweed, smartweed, and canary grass were
intensively gathered and stored in large graineries.
Many regional variations arose in form and decoration of the pottery of the
woodland tradition. Nevertheless, there were certain characteristics shared in pottery
types of different regions. Woodland pottery was usually tempered with crushed rock or
grit instead of vegetable fibers, and it was finished with several characteristic surface
decorations. Cord-marking and fabric-marking were produced by paddling the wet clay
surface of a vessel with a paddle or stick wrapped with cord or fabric, a trait that was
introduced into Alaska around 1,000 B.C. Stamped pottery was made in a similar way,
only the wooden paddles had designs carved directly into them, and these designs were
then stamped into the wet clay. Other decorations consisted on incised or punctuated
lines made with a sharply pointed instrument.
Lithics, stone artifacts and the debris associated with the manufacturing process
(flakes and chips) are useful elements to the archeologists in our understanding of early
cultures. Stone artifacts include formal tools such as projectile points (arrowheads),
scrapers, blades, drills, hammer stones, mortars, pestles, and atlatl weights. By grouping
similar types of projectile points together, typologies are created by archeologists that
may display general trends in artifacts, rather than variations or local “types”.
Woodland-Waccamaw House:
Foraging and gathering for a living required moving from place to place to
harvest (or hunt) the best available food source. Woodland groups, like the Waccamaw,
probably occupied seasonal campsites in various areas along the coastal plain to
maximize their gathering. Houses were therefore constructed of the best available
resource: cut poles, branches, thatch and stripped tree bark. Prehistoric Americans
started out as big-game hunters, turned to foraging as populations expanded and large
game grew scarce, and eventually became farmers in a succession of developments, each
with unique ways of life
MISSISSIPPIAN PEOPLES AND THEIR WAY OF LIFE:
The Mississippian tradition, with its beginnings around 800 A.D. along the middle
course of the Mississippi River, represents the highest cultural achievement by native
peoples of North America. Mississippian towns would contain between 1 & 20 flattopped mounds that served as platforms for temples and other public structures. These
sites were often stockaded, with residences both inside and out. Horticulture in the
surrounding fields was extensive; in some cases corn was planted twice in a single
season.
Mississippian societies were apparently ranked societies with permanent offices
of religious priests and officials who directed the activities of the townspeople and those
living in the surrounding areas. These groups were highly aggressive, often expanding
along established waterways and either assimilating or annihilating smaller tribes.
Entailed into the new religious and social elements of the culture were also economic
elements. Mississippian peoples began to rely heavily upon agriculture particularly the
cultivation of corn, beans and squash. Their main agricultural tools were the digging
stick and a short handled hoe with a blade made of chipped flint or the shoulder blade of
a large animal. Other artifacts included polished stone axes, bowls and pipes. Pottery
continued with the decorative techniques of earlier periods, but with new ideas in the
form of trophy-head vessels, long-necked water jugs, round-bottomed pots and other
forms with later sites containing painted vessels.
Circular Mississippian-Creek House:
The cultivation of food crops brought with it the ability to feed large numbers of
people with a relatively consistent supply of food. It also meant abandoning their seminomadic way of life and living in permanent villages close to the fields. The
Mississippian-Creek house was constructed of cut-poles, placed in the ground and woven
with the branches and vines between upright timbers. The mixtures of mud and fiber
were used to plaster the walls providing for thick insulation against winter winds and
summer heat.
EUROPEAN CONTACT AND THE HISTORICAL PERIOD:
While there is evidence of Norse settlements in parts of North America as early as
1000 A.D., the first contact with Europeans by the Native Americans of the South
Carolina coastal area was the Spanish in the early 1600’s. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon
landed somewhere along the coast of what is now South Carolina (the exact site is open
to debate). DeSoto passed through parts of South Carolina on his ill-fated expedition,
and Juan Pardo in his two expeditions from St. Helena (near Beaufort, SC) in 1566-68,
covered most of the state and mentioned in his writings with leaders of villages called
Sanpa (Sampat) located at the mouth of the Pee Dee and Huaca (Waccasa or Wachesaw).
Even by the time of the DeSoto expedition in 1539-40, the effects of European contact
upon the native cultures were already being felt. Diseases introduced either by Ayllon in
1526 or by contact with other groups in Spanish Florida, had devastated the once
mightily chiefdom of Cofetachequi. The English settlement in what is now Horry County
only made things worse for the Waccamaw. (Probably the descendants of the Muskogean
people of Waccasa). The primary problem lay in the European views of land ownership
and religion. Most Native American groups lacked the concept of ownership of land.
Land was controlled by the group, and could be used as needed by anyone. European
claimed exclusive rights to the land and prevented native groups from occupation of their
territories. In addition Europeans held that anyone that was not a Christian or would not
accept Christianity, were savages, had no legal rights, and were to be converted, enslaved
or consequently destroyed. These views, coupled with the technology of the Europeans
spelled doom for many of the local populations of Native Americans. By the middle
1700’s the Waccamaw, after a series of conflicts with the British, disappeared from
historical accounts although small bands may have survived as isolated settlements or by
joining other tribes.
The introduction of new religions, social structures, and languages was
accompanied by a tradeoff of new species of animals and new varieties of food. Some of
which were:
From the Old World:
From the New World:
Horse
Cattle
Pig
Chicken
Wheat, Asian Rice
Sugar Cane
Watermelon
Citrus Fruit
Olive
Sheep
Corn
Potato
Chocolate
Tobacco
Peanut & Pecan
Pumpkin
Sunflower
Avocado
Marigold
Quinine
NATIVE AMERICAN SUBSISTENCE:
Living from the resources of the Coastal Plain
For over 8,000 years, Native American people living within the coastal plain of
what is now South Carolina lived a lifestyle that was virtually unchanged until the arrival
of corn agriculture. This cultural phenomenon was possible primarily because of the
richness and diversity of the food resources available to these early inhabitants of the
coast and an amazing understanding and knowledge of the land in which they lived.
The cycle of subsistence in the Coastal Plain
Seasonal Food Resources:
Fall: acorns, hickory nuts, persimmons, grapes, prickly pear, marsh elder, wild
potato and goosefoot.
Winter: dried seeds, chestnuts, oysters, clams, acorns and fish.
Spring: cattail, pokeweed, dewberries, maygrass, bird eggs and turtle eggs.
Summer: Jerusalem artichoke, maypop, cabbage palmetto, wild honey, water lily,
blackberries, huckleberries and groundnuts.
Shell Hoe
Shell Hoe:
The soft, sandy soils of the Coastal Plain could be cultivated with a tool made
from available shells and pieces of wood.
Digging Stick:
A simple sharpened stick becomes a tool for gathering wild roots and tubers. The
tip of the digging stick was fire-hardened for longer usage.
Women’s Work:
Corn was the principal crop of the Southeastern Indians, and it was the woman’s
responsibility to plant, tend and harvest the crop. Corn that was harvested and dried for
winter storage was made into gruel or into bread dough that was baked on a stone in a
fire, wrapped in cornhusks and boiled or fried in bear grease to make a kind of flat cake.
Aside from tending crops, children and preparing meals, women were responsible for
making pottery, weaving baskets and mats, tanning animal skins and making shirts for
themselves and breechcloths, leggings and cloaks for their men.
Grinding Stones:
Used to grind a variety of seeds, grains and nuts; even the bones of small animals
were dried and ground into meal. Often referred to as mano and metate from the Spanish
words for “hand and flat stone”, the stones were an essential part of food preparation for
Native Americans from the Archaic Period up to historic times.
Creating a Pinch Pot
Materials:
Potters clay
Water
Newspaper
Sponge
Native American Surface Treatment Tools
•
Beginning with a ball of clay approximately the size of your fist, knead it
thoroughly to force out any air bubbles. Do this by squeezing it over and over. If
air bubbles are left in the clay they will expand when fired and make your pot
explode.
•
Take your thumb and push down in the middle of the clay.
•
While holding the clay in the palm of your hand use the other hand to shape a
bowl. Be sure to keep the walls of your pot even in thickness by feeling with your
thumb and fingers. You may need to add a little water on your fingers if the clay
is hard to move.
•
As the shape of your pot develops pat it out on the newspaper to form a flat
bottom.
•
Using a little water and a soft sponge smooth the inside and outside of your pot.
•
While the pot is still moist and pliable it is ready for decoration. Choose your
favorite Native American decoration technique and decorate your pot using the
tools provided.
Tips:
•
•
•
Do not get your clay too wet, it will not hold its shape and will crack as it dries.
Be sure to keep the pot from getting too dry or too wet when you decide how to
decorate it. If it is too dry the design will not show up, if it is too wet the design
will be blurred.
If you decide to use appliqué on your pot be sure to score the surface of the pot
where you intend to apply a piece and wet it slightly. Then press the piece firmly
onto the pot and smooth out the edges so that it does not fall off when it dries.
Native American Time-Line
35,000 B.C. – 1500 A.D.
-Paleo-Indian Period 35,000 B.C.
One of the first wanderers had trickled across to Alaska, how long did it take to
occupy the rest of North and South America? Given the extraordinary diversity of
American Indian cultures, most archeologists believe that successive waves of migrants
from the Old World moved into North America over a period of many years, each of
whom introduced new ideas and lifestyles to settle populations. Consider that among the
Indians of North America there were more than 200 identifiable languages, some as
markedly different from the others as Chinese is from German.
It was during the Pleistocene Epoch, which lasted between two and three million
years ago, that much of the world’s water was locked in glacial ice while sea levels fell
considerably. The Bering and Chukchi Seas, shallow bodies of water today were dry
then, and, in their place lay Beringia, a continent whose land would be submerged and
reemerge several times during the relatively brief glacial periods. Beringia should not be
viewed as simply an avenue to transit for the first immigrations to the new world. Rather,
it was a place where people lived, some of who moved on following the herds of large
game animals on which their livelihoods depended.
-Archaic Period 25,000 B.C.
Humans may have come to North America as early as 35,000 years ago and were
clearly present in South Carolina and Horry County by about 12,000 years ago. The
earliest of these people were known to anthropologists as Paleo-Indians and were thought
to have been hunters and gatherers who formed small, mobile groups. These small bands
of people followed the herds of mammoth; elk and bison until the game began to die out
or leave the area with the climatic changes that marked the end of the Pleistocene and the
beginning of the Holocene.
Sites intensively occupied by the Paleo-Indians are notably lacking in South
Carolina, although numerous surface finds have been reported. A site in Surfside Beach
produced possible stone tools, and the remains of extinct forms of mammoth, bison, bear
and big cats.
-8,000 B.C.
The traditional beginning of agriculture is usually placed sometime in the Archaic
Period. Both in times of plenty and in times of want, prehistoric people would be
compelled to find ways to feed themselves that were not purely dependent on the whims
of nature. People of the Southwest, who first practiced rudimentary agriculture remained
mobile much of the year, planting seeds in the course of springtime wanderings and
returning to the planting sites when the seeds were ripening in the same manner as they
knew to arrive at places where they knew wild food grew in time to harvest them.
Evidence from Central Mexico indicates that perhaps as long ago as 9,000 years ago,
people began to manipulate the ancestral stocks of corn (maize) to produce a larger ear.
By 5,000 years ago domesticated plants in Mexico included corn, beans, squash and
many others.
-Late Archaic 4,000 B.C.
-1,000 B.C.
A new killing tool arrived during the Archaic Period. A throwing device known
today by the Aztec word “atlatl”. Simple in form and function the throwing stick
consisted of a wooden handle with a hooked tip to fit the end of the spear or lance. Used
as an extension of the hunter’s own arm, the force and speed of the thrown spear was
greatly increased. The use of the atlatl permitted hunting from greater distances. Counter
weights, known sometimes as banner stones, have been associated with the atlatl.
As population density increased, Archaic people produced distinctive artifact types.
Points and knives, which exhibit first regional and later local variations, begin to make
their appearances. (While Paleo-Indian points from thousands of miles apart are quite
similar, by the middle Archaic, points from hundreds of miles show noticeable variation)
Artifact characteristics of the Archaic period are distinctive types of notched points.
-Woodland Period 500 B.C.
Foraging and gathering for a living required moving from place to place to
harvest (or hunt) the best available food source. Woodland groups, like the Waccamaw,
probably occupied seasonal campsites in various areas along the coastal plain to
maximize their gathering. Houses were therefore constructed of the best available
resource: cut poles, branches, thatch and stripped tree bark. Prehistoric Americans
started out as big-game hunters, turned to foraging as populations expanded and large
game grew scarce, and eventually became farmers in a succession of developments, each
with unique ways of life
-Mississippian Period 800 A.D.
The cultivation of food crops brought with it the ability to feed large numbers of
people with a relatively consistent supply of food. It also meant abandoning their seminomadic way of life and living in permanent villages close to the fields. The
Mississippian-Creek house was constructed of cut-poles, placed in the ground and woven
with the branches and vines between upright timbers. The mixtures of mud and fiber
were used to plaster the walls providing for thick insulation against winter winds and
summer heat.
-European Contact 1500 A.D.
While there is evidence of Norse settlements in parts of North America as early as
1000 A.D., the first contact with Europeans by the Native Americans of the South
Carolina coastal area was the Spanish in the early 1600’s. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon
landed somewhere along the coast of what is now South Carolina (the exact site is open
to debate). DeSoto passed through parts of South Carolina on his ill-fated expedition,
and Juan Pardo in his two expeditions from St. Helena (near Beaufort, SC) in 1566-68,
covered most of the state and mentioned in his writings with leaders of villages called
Sanpa (Sampat) located at the mouth of the Pee Dee and Huaca (Waccasa or Wachesaw).
Even by the time of the DeSoto expedition in 1539-40, the effects of European contact
upon the native cultures were already being felt. Diseases introduced either by Ayllon in
1526 or by contact with other groups in Spanish Florida, had devastated the once
mightily chiefdom of Cofetachequi. The English settlement in what is now Horry County
only made things worse for the Waccamaw. (Probably the descendants of the Muskogean
people of Waccasa). The primary problem lay in the European views of land ownership
and religion. Most Native American groups lacked the concept of ownership of land.
Land was controlled by the group, and could be used as needed by anyone. European
claimed exclusive rights to the land and prevented native groups from occupation of their
territories. In addition Europeans held that anyone that was not a Christian or would not
accept Christianity, were savages, had no legal rights, and were to be converted, enslaved
or consequently destroyed. These views, coupled with the technology of the Europeans
spelled doom for many of the local populations of Native Americans. By the middle
1700’s the Waccamaw, after a series of conflicts with the British, disappeared from
historical accounts although small bands may have survived as isolated settlements or by
joining other tribes.
Native American History in a Box:
This project has been compiled with the idea in mind that the teacher will be
capable of taking this box and give the students a better insight into the lives of the local
Native Americans. The packet includes a comprehensive guide pertaining to the
technology, food, pottery, houses, and culture of the local prehistoric people. The box
contains the materials needed to make pottery and examples of Native American pottery
techniques. This project will allow the student to participate in hands on pottery building
to help reinforce the lesson. The packet also contains supplemental reading, coloring
projects, and videos.
Project Evaluation:
Could you please take a few minutes to fill out this evaluation? Your input is needed to
help us make this project more beneficial to your students. Let us know what the
strengths and weaknesses of this project are and how we could change it for the better?
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks,
The Horry County Museum
On a scale of 1-5 how would you rate the following? (1 being the lowest and 5 being the
highest.)
How helpful was the box? ____
How easy was it to incorporate into your lesson plan? ____
The text and information was easy to understand? ____
Would you like to see more of these programs provided and if so what subject matter
would be beneficial to your students?
Would you recommend this box to another teacher?
How did you incorporate the box into your lesson plan?
What changes do you feel need to be made to make this project better?
Additional comments:
Native American History in a Box Inventory
! Teachers Packet
! Collection of Pottery Shards
! Surface treatment kit
10 Textured paddles
Wooden blocks
River cane
Burlap
Seashell
Tree bark
Pinecone
! 4 Packets of student handouts to be used with the pottery decorating kit
! Video-Ancient America, Eastern Woodlands
! Video-The Native Americans, The Tribes of the Southwest
! Clay
Native American History in a Box
Written by: Stewart Pabst, Director
Terri Hooks, Deputy Director
R. Walter Hill IV, Curator of History
Compiled by: R. Walter Hill IV
Graphics by: Stewart Pabst
Photographs by: R. Walter Hill IV
Copyrighted, Horry County Museum