Local Landscapes

In the Local Landscapes lesson, learners will explore how precontact Indigenous people assessed the environment and selected the best places to live and to conduct other specific activities while practicing sustainable land use patterns and how they formed communities on the landscape. Building on previous lessons where youth learned what landscape resources were targeted for food, clothing, medicine, etc., learners will examine how people determined what landscapes were best for habitation sites, and which areas were best for specific land use activities, such as fishing, plant collecting, and hunting (to name a few). Learners will also draw on the information presented by Indigenous leaders, including Indigenous concepts on the linkage of objects to the living landscape. Youth will visit available site locations (or similar areas where sites have been found [e.g., riverine floodplain, uplands]) to understand the landscape where people lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Grade Level: 6-8

Objective: The goal of this activity is to better understand how precontact Indigenous people viewed the environmental variables to help them form sustainable communities on the landscape. This lesson will build on the previous lessons, such as how people made and used stone tools, their functions, and the faunal and floral resources expected, and hunted and gathered, within certain environmental contexts.

Learning Outcomes: Learners will be able to name the various landscapes used by Indigenous people and how these areas were used.

STEM: Spatial analysis, ecology, geography

Materials: Images of geographical settings (see below), USGS topographic maps (for the school region, if possible), ArcGIS Survey123

Time: 60-90 minutes

On these landscapes, people created sites, including villages, base camps, temporary camps, and resource procurement/processing locations. Villages were occupied by a large number of people year-round or nearly year-round. They were occupied for a decade or more and contain very dense concentrations of artifacts and features. A base camp is a large site with a high density of artifacts and features (e.g., hearths and storage pits). People occupied these sites for extended periods of time, especially when resources were abundant in the area (e.g., at confluences of creeks with major rivers near winter deer aggregation areas or dense spring fish runs). Temporary camps were smaller in size and occupied for shorter periods of time (e.g., a day or several days) by fewer people to hunt or gather a particular resource or conduct an activity, such as making stone tools or butchering animals. Resource procurement/processing locations were made when people left a camp or village for a short-term activity. These sites were typically occupied for less than a day.

Villages are expected on terraces above floodplains, higher areas on floodplains, uplands near drinkable water; inlets and outlets of major lakes.

Base camps are found at the confluence of major waterways; uplands near drinkable water; inlets and outlets of major lakes.

Procurement/processing locations are located within a day’s walk of any of the above; also near upland wetlands and the headwaters of streams.

Note that Indigenous people considered additional factors beyond the natural environment when selecting various locations for specific purposes (e.g., territoriality, protection, religious beliefs, etc.).

Archaeologists conduct landscape archaeology to examine how people in the past used different settings for specific activities. Landscape analysis focuses on how the landscape shaped people’s lives as well as how people have shaped their environment.

Vocabulary: flora, fauna, archaeological site, landscape, floodplain, terrace, valley wall, upland, base camp, village, temporary camp, resource procurement/processing location

Procedure: Review previous lessons on stone tool functions, floral and faunal resources, and traditional ecological knowledge. Discuss the landscape with learners – what are the various geographical settings (floodplain, terrace, valley wall, upland)? What are the types of sites identified in these areas(base camp, village, temporary camp, resource 3 procurement/processing location)? What factors beyond the natural environment may have influenced how precontact people selected sites (e.g., territoriality, protection, religious beliefs, etc.)? How might this increase the difficulty for archaeologists attempting to predict where Indigenous people settled in the past?

Show learners maps of the area around their school at various scales (Google Earth images, topo maps, and digital elevation maps [DEM]). A topographic map is a 2D representation of the 3D world. These maps use contour lines to show the shape and elevation of the land. The change in elevation between two lines is uniform. The closer the contour lines, the steeper the slope. A DEM is a 3D representation of elevation data showing relief. Ask learners to point out on the maps where they think a village would be; a hunting camp; a fishing camp; a camp to acquire basket-making materials; etc. and how might these locations be used. Visit some of these landforms around the school (e.g., floodplain, hilltop, wetlands, creek, etc.) to see if the learners still think they would have been advantageous for settlement, growing crops, hunting, fishing, etc. Ask learners why would people not set up a shelter on the side of a hill (slope)? Why would agriculturalists live on or near the floodplain? What resource do people need to live near? Where would they be able to find deer and other animals to hunt? Set up a survey in ArcGIS Survey123. Learners can answer questions about the landforms and even drop a pin at their location. The data can be downloaded into tables or shapefiles.

Extension: We already discussed where sites are found across the landscape. Now learners can begin to understand the geomorphology of site development. For example, flooding of rivers deposits sediment on the floodplain. This deposition buries sites over time. Therefore, we may find deeply buried sites on the floodplain; and may even find sites vertically stacked one on the other. On hilltop areas, we may find sites not far below the present surface because hilltops get less soil deposition.

Assessment Activities: At the end of the lesson, youth will restate on what landforms they thought certain site types would be located and whether they still think that after visiting the landforms. Download the Survey123 data and compare learner answers; create a map of all locations pinned by learners to share with the group as a whole.

Wrap up: Class will end with a restatement of the learning outcomes. Ask youth to describe the various landscapes used by Indigenous people, how these areas were used, and what areas around the school were good for each type of site.

Crosscutting Concepts: Stability and Change: For both designed and natural systems, conditions that affect stability and factors that control rates of change are critical elements to consider and understand. Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.

NYS Standards: MS.History of Earth : MS-ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying time and spatial scales. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on how processes change Earth’s surface at time and spatial scales that can be large (such as slow plate motions or the uplift of large mountain ranges) or small (such as rapid landslides or microscopic geochemical reactions), and how many geoscience processes (such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteor impacts) usually behave gradually but are punctuated by catastrophic events. Examples of geoscience processes include surface weathering and deposition by the movements of water, ice, and wind. Emphasis is on geoscience processes that shape local geographic features, where appropriate.]

Disciplinary Core Ideas: ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes ▪ Water’s movements—both on the land and underground—cause weathering and erosion, which change the land’s surface features and create underground formations. (MS-ESS2-2)