Emergence of Agriculture.

Between 200 B.C. and A.D. 700 the native people of eastern North America began to adopt agricultural techniques and increased the prominence of harvested plant food like squash and sunflowers in their meals. Between 700 and 1200 the Woodlands cultures began to add cultivated corn and beans to their diets. By 1200 Indians in the east were growing corn almost everywhere that the climate would allow, from the present American border with Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The availability of a reliable source of vegetable food allowed the population of Woodland communities to expand dramatically. As the population grew, these societies required more complicated systems of government. In some locations these societies developed severely stratified social classes and a hierarchical political structure. These societies were called chiefdoms.

The Chiefdom.

In a chiefdom a paramount chief of great authority required the...