The Dakota Conflict Trials
How the Native Americans of the Southeastern United States Lived with Nature
By Richard L.Thornton, Creek Indian Architect & City Planner
Going Easy on Mother Nature
Certain types of natural environments were selected by the Indigenous Peoples for the locations of their settlements. These reflected optimum locations for obtaining food, and later agriculture, but also were often located at the intersections of major regional trade routes. Climate, terrain and vegetation also affected the plans of villages, ceremonial sites and town. Distinct design traditions evolved from successful efforts that adapted to local conditions.
Although the use of earthen and organic building materials makes it much more difficult for archaeologists to discern the patterns of the past, it also means that the Southeastern Native Americans co-existed with Mother Earth. The mild climate and usually frequent occurrence of rainfall meant that soil organisms thrived and quickly broke down and digested the abandoned creations of indigenous peoples. These humans usually did not do irreparable harm to the ecology of their natural environment. What they took from the forests to build with soon grew back. There were no toxic substances released when they mixed clay, sand and water to make plaster. Except in the case of a few large conurbations like Cahokia - if a particular location eventually became depleted of game or soil fertility, the regional population density was sufficiently sparse to allow a village to move to another location, a town to send out colonists, or even disperse its entire population. Within a few years, Mother Earth would quickly conceal most evidence that mankind had dwelled in her midst - except for the telltale moats and mounds of clay, sand, soil and humus.
This tradition of self-sustaining community development contrasts sharply with the impacts of contemporary indigenous cultures in the Southwestern United States and the Yucatan Peninsula. When the Anasazi concentrated hundreds of people into one timber framed, stone masonry apartment building, they put severe stress on the capacity of an arid environment to maintain itself. Forests were denuded for miles away from communities by building construction and cooking fires. When a major drought did come, the ecology was permanently altered and the forests did not return.
The Mayas originally lived in a lush tropical environment of wetlands, coastal plains, rolling hills and cool mountain highlands. However their obsession with covering all public structures with lime plaster finishes created a demand for enormous volumes of firewood. This practice, along with slash and burn agriculture, denuded the region of trees and turned the Yucatan into a wasteland. It probably took several centuries for the Northern Yucatan’s environment to recover because the soil was very thin to start with, and the damage was so extensive over the landscape.
Perhaps it is the fact that Southeastern towns returned to the natural elements from which they were created, has made their original appearance so obscure in the public’s mind. What tourists see from their automobiles are rounded mounds of earth, often covered with grasses that originally were imported from Eurasia in the late 1800s. However, the Southeastern indigenous people DID create architecture and they DID consciously plan the development of their towns.; while going easy on Mother Nature,
The author has written six books on Native American architecture, town planning and culture. He is also an expert on the architecture of the ancient indigenous cultures of Mexico and Central America. In the past, he has taught that subject at the university level.