Saga of the Des Moines River Greenbelt

Chapter 3

Prehistoric Peoples in Iowa

10,000 B.C.-1,500 A.D.

"History is the today of another age. of people living lives on another level of eternity’s spiral.’’

Lewis C. Debo

Twelve thousand years ago, small groups of semi-nomadic hunters were passing through Iowa in search of big game. We know of them only through archeological finds of bones and stone projectile points. From these rather meager artifacts, scholars have been able to reconstruct the history of the earliest Iowans. (The Lake Red Rock Visitors’ Center has an excellent display of the artifacts of the various prehistoric periods).

Four major time periods of that 10,000 or more years of the prehistoric age in Iowa, each related to changing environmental factors, and thus of available resources for sustaining life, are as follows:

(1) Period of the Paleo-Indians, 12,000 to 8000 years ago.

The climate was cold. The Wisconsin glacier, which had covered the land as far south as the present site of Des Moines, was melting and retreating. Coniferous trees—spruce, larch, and fir—grew where the glacier had been. Huge ponderous animals with thick layers of fat and fur to withstand the glacial-like climate—the mastodon and the mammoth and the giant bison— roamed the land. The mastodons browsed the forests for food and the mammoths and bison fed on the post-glacial tundra vegetation. The first human beings appeared on the scene, and they hunted the large animals, as is deduced from the projectile points which have been found.

(2) The Archaic Period, 8,500 to 2,500 years ago, was drier and warmer than the preceding period. Deciduous trees—oaks and elms—replaced the conifers. As the climate continued to get warmer, prairie grasses of many types took over in certain spots and formed a park-like landscape. The mammoth, mastodon, and giant bison became extinct. Big-horn bison grazed on the prairie grass, migrating south in search of food in the winter. The Indians followed, hunting this smaller bison which supplied practically all their needs. Stone spear points,

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grooved axes, and hide scrapers record their way of life. They used the skin for clothing and shelters and blankets and for food containers; the bones for tools, though the majority of their tools were made of stone; and the meat, of course, for food. They gathered wild plants to supplement their diet.

(3) The Woodland Period, 2,500 to 1,000 years ago, marked a slightly cooler climate and an increase in oak trees, which took over some of the land previously in prairie. It was a period of transition from a nomadic hunting and gathering economy to a semipermanent occupancy. Hunting of bison, deer, and elk, fishing, and gathering of nuts provided a food supply. Three Greenbelt areas where archeological finds indicate this semipermanent living pattern are: (1) the Big Creek area in Polk County (2) the Scandia Bottoms in Dallas County, and (3) the Boone bottoms in Hamilton County. Artifact finds indicate a somewhat larger population than that of earlier times.

Man was for the first time making pottery, as indicated by finds of pottery shards. Pottery, because of its bulk as well as its fragility is not practical in a completely nomadic existence. The Woodland people went on hunting and gathering expeditions and returned to their food reserves, which they had placed in clay pots and stored in pits under the floors of their mud and stick dwellings. They made pots from a mixture of clay and sand and decorated them by pressing a plain fiber or cord into the clay pot while it was still wet.

Burial mounds also give evidence of some degree of settled life. At least 80 burial mounds have been found in the Lake Red Rock area, typically located at the crest of a bluff overlooking the Des Moines River or one of its tributaries. This type of location may have been chosen for the purpose of establishing a position of observation or as a pronouncement of territorial control.

Seventeen mounds have been found in the Saylorville Lake area, the largest of which is referred to as the Boone Mound, 130 feet by 160 feet and 15 feet high. The Boone Mound was excavated in 1908 in crude fashion (compared to present-day methods), but there appear to be no official records of the artifacts found, It is believed that it was a crypt and that cremations were performed at this place, and that it was the center of a comparatively large population, who used it for burial rituals (Benn: 1985, 41). The Sioux Indians who occupied this

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area in historic times told the white man that they had no knowledge of these mounds, and that they were already there when their people first came into the country (Andreas: 1875, 369).

It appears that the Woodland Indians carried on trade with other peoples in that some of the spear points which have been found are made of stones not present in the Des Moines River Valley.

(4) The Oneota, last of the four prehistoric periods, occurred 1,000 to 400 years ago (about 950 AD. to 1550 AD.). It is theorized that the Oneotas, in fact, persisted into historic times and were known to the incoming Europeans as the loways.

Archeological remains of this culture include pottery made from shells as well as from red sandstone. The pots are decorated in geometric designs. Stone scrapers~ which they used for tools, have also been unearthed. Camp sites including small villages and storage pits have been discovered in the area near State Highway 14 bridge near Red Rock, and continuing along the bottomlands to Des Moines.

Hunting of bison and small game was important, but plant-

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Excavation of Boone Mound in 1909. (Larry Adams)

ing corn, beans and pumpkins constituted an ever increasing element of the Oneota economy. Methods of agriculture were becoming more sophisticated in terms of choice of better seeds as well as the use of more effective tools, such as bones and antler horns for preparing the soil and hoeing the crops.

Prehistoric people in their confrontation with the environment had to be resourceful and clever for example, in killing the huge mastodons and mammoths (Paleo-Indian Period) with the crude tools at their disposal, and in using Nature to provide them not only with food but also with medicines, clay for pots, tools, and materials for shelters and clothing.