FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In 1000 B. C., the beginning of the Woodland period in eastern North America, Native Americans were hunter gatherers, living in small groups, bound mainly by collective burial rituals. By the end of the era in 1000 A.D., they had become skilled farmers, living in large, permanent towns governed by elite rules who had inherited their power.

Archeologist Robert Mainfort in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas has co-edited The Woodland Southeast, the first comprehensive synthesis of research on this era, featuring contributions by several of the top specialists in the field.

"It was during this period that many of the dead were buried in conical mounds," said Mainfort. "The importance of horticulture increased dramatically, initially with the intensive use of native plants such as squash, sunflower, goosefoot, and may grass, which were supplemented near the end of Woodland times by maize."

The volume, intended as a reference work for professional and amateur anthropologists alike, includes chapters from 37 specialists whose recent research has greatly expanded current understanding of the Woodland period. Geographic coverage extends from the Ohio River to Florida and from western Arkansas to the Atlantic Coast.

Mainfort is also an editor of another recently published collection of essays, Societies in Eclipse, in which archaeologists examine the cultural transformations among Eastern Woodland tribes before and after the arrival of Europeans. Among the tribes studied are the Mohawk, Monacan, Coosa, and Calusa.

"The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marked the end for many eastern Native American societies and the diminishing of a way of life for most of the others," said Mainfort. "With the Europeans came devastating epidemics and new trade goods that transformed existing Native trading networks."

The archeological evidence suggests that while European explorers, missionaries, and traders had a profound effect on Native tribes, they were already in the process of redefining themselves. Triggered by the Little Ice Age of 1500-1700, many tribes migrated to other territories, in the process redefining hunting and farming lands, warfare, and trading practices.

In Mainfort’s chapter, he presents evidence strongly supporting the hypothesis that a number of large, multi-mound towns throughout sizable portions of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee River valleys were largely abandoned during the 15th century.

"Europeans were responsible for many changes that occurred in Native American societies, sometimes directly, as in the case of military actions, other times indirectly, as in the introduction of numerous diseases against which Native Americans had little or no resistance," said Mainfort.

But, he adds, Native American were hardly passive victims. They often deftly played off one European power against another.

"We have many documents that present biased, Eurocentric views of Native Americans and interactions with them. This volume, however, uses archaeology to illuminate previously unknown aspects of long-term changes in Native American culture."