Moundbuilding Tradition.

Beginning around 2300 B.C. the Archaic inhabitants of the South domesticated the bottle gourd from which they made light and sturdy containers that did not break like ones made of pottery. They also domesticated sunflowers and added native squash and chenopodium to their diets. The horticultural bounty as well as the countless stocks of whitetailed deer, bear, and other small mammals that roamed the forests provided the Archaic societies of the region with the food supply necessary to increase their populations rapidly. In fact, the environment was so rich that the Archaic bands that had evolved into tribes developed further into chiefdoms, a form of organization archaeologists consider the pinnacle of political and social organization in Native North America. The chiefdoms were characterized generally by nucleated settlement patterns, mound building, and strong lines of social stratification between chiefs and...