Monongahela tribe
Encyclopedia
The Monongahela culture were a Native American
cultural manifestation of Late Woodland
peoples in present-day western Pennsylvania
, eastern Ohio
and West Virginia
from AD 1050 to 1635. The culture was named by Mary Butler in 1939 for the Monongahela River
, whose valley contains the majority of this culture's sites.
The Monongahela practiced maize
agriculture, and lived in well laid out villages, some of which consisted of as many as 50-100 structures. They also traded with other groups who in turn traded with Europeans, but they seem to have disappeared some time during the 1620s or 1630s before having significant direct contact with Europeans. Many scholars believe this to be the result of the spread of European infectious disease
s. Others believe that most of the Monongahela were killed by or assimilated into either the Iroquois
or the Algonquian
-speaking Lenape tribes during warfare, as the more powerful tribes competed to control area hunting grounds for the fur trade. Still others claim that two severe droughts, one from 1587–1589 and another from 1607–1612, drove the Monongahela from the region in search of a more habitable area.
decorative attributes.
The Monongahela culture extended in the area of the upper Ohio River
system that includes the Monongahela
, Youghiogheny and Casselman
tributary rivers. Their region was of western Pennsylvania
and the adjoining areas of eastern Ohio
, West Virginia
, and western Maryland
. Nearly four hundred archeological sites have now been recorded. The culture was contemporaneous to the bordering Fort Ancient
culture in the Ohio Valley. The Monongahela is a Late Woodland
horizon that coincides with the Mingo homeland and distinguishes it from the Iroquois League homeland, centered in New York state. Monongahela villages originated on flood plains, but by 1250, the people had migrated to the watershed highlands and often lived on gaps between ridges. Archaeologists speculate that the move to these areas, and to larger, fortified villages at this time is a symptom of intergroup warfare.
The Fort Hill Site (46MG12) in Morgantown, West Virginia
is a nearly 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) site that includes what appears to be a Monongahela village. The site has good preservation. A human burial, animal bones, bone beads, a marginella-shell bead, shell-tempered pottery and triangular arrow points have been recovered during excavations at the site. In 2002 the site was endangered with being destroyed by commercial development.
The majority of the 18 known sites within the Osage USGS Quadrangle and the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle on the environs of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border are of the Monongahela Culture. The Worley village Complex (46Mg23) dates to about AD 900. It sits within the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle, as does the recently found Wana village site. It was located by infrared photography
. A field test confirmed pottery, shell, and flint present. It has not yet been studied. The LaPoe (46Mg21) village complex in Monongalia County, West Virginia
is a circular village occupied during the 16th and 17th centuries, with trade items recovered. Nearby LaPoe, 46Mg18 is a stone burial mound. Also located at LaPoe is the village site 46Mg20. Pyle Farm, 46Mg15, is a late prehistoric village site that is located in the Osage USGS Quadrangle. In addition, hundreds of undocumented archeological sites exist in the Dunkard Creek
Watershed of Greene County, Pennsylvania
and Monongalia County, West Virginia.
According to the collaborative research of 2009 of William C. Johnson (Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology) and D. Scott Speedy (Grave Creek Mound Archaeology Complex Research Facility in West Virginia), Monongahela tradition women favored the production of final Z-twist cordage production. On the upper Ohio River drainage basin subareas, some pottery apparently represents the incorporation of local Late Woodland groups with their own distinctive cordage-manufacturing traditions. As Johnson and Speedy say in their abstract, "In the absence of elaborately decorated ceramics, variations in the relative frequency of the predominant cordage twist direction peculiar to some subareas also suggest that twist direction may function as a group signature, thus permitting identification of individual or related village removals that may be synonymous with tribes."
d villages with a central plaza
. These villages' entry point often had a maze-like structure that overlapped the stockaded outer walls. Differing from Fort Ancient
methods, some entrances were covered. Some of the villages had elevated observation platforms. Charnel house
s have been found in the larger villages. Black bear masks have been found in some graves, showing a possible indication of a rank. Of the average adult burials, it is not clearly understood where they might have been buried. To distinguish the characteristics between Fort Ancient and interior Monongahelan of West Virginia, Dr. McMichael writes, "A reflection of the Monongahela's greater Woodland heritage was the continued use of small stone mounds in the Monongahela drainage area, well into the Late Prehistoric." Child burials were sometimes inside the village and sometimes under the house contrasting Andaste burials which were outside their palisaded village found east of the Allegheny Mountains
stemming from 1450/1550. By 1450, petal-shaped attachments to their houses became common and were used for storage or perhaps a smokehouse. Monongahela pottery and tools were well crafted and included decorated clay pipes for smoking. Glass trade beads have been found at some villages, although there is no record of European contact.
, the Monongahela made a leap in agriculture by adopting seed crops from Mesoamerica, which had been obtained through their ancestral trade network. The women cultivated varieties of crops such as maize
, beans, squash, and sunflower
, while they also collected wild plant foods, such as nuts and berries, to complete their diets. As with many contemporary groups to the west and south, maize was by far the largest component of their diet. The Monongahela hunted animals including deer, turtles, fish, and shell fish. They made advances in the cultivation of tobacco
and hemp
braid
crops and traded with the east coast agriculturists. In 1898 the historian Richard Hakluyt
reported on Native American
foods of the mid-Atlantic coastal people with whom they also traded. Sea shells from the mid-Atlantic have been found in some Monongahela sites as evidence of that trade.
may have caused inter-group battling over food, according to some scholars. The crops did not prosper as well during this colder period, causing food shortages for populations that had grown after their introduction. Some studies show that the culture began failing due to poor health conditions.
The Monongahela culture was progressively disappearing before the time the Iroquois League invaded the Allegheny Plateau
through to the Lake Erie
region in an effort to control new hunting grounds. About the year of 1635, it appears that a group of Monongahela refugees resettled in south-central Virginia
at Halifax County. They were likely absorbed by a Siouan-speaking tribe of the area, but historians do not know for sure, as there were also Algonquian
and Iroquoian tribes nearby.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
cultural manifestation of Late Woodland
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
peoples in present-day western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...
, eastern Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
from AD 1050 to 1635. The culture was named by Mary Butler in 1939 for the Monongahela River
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
, whose valley contains the majority of this culture's sites.
The Monongahela practiced maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
agriculture, and lived in well laid out villages, some of which consisted of as many as 50-100 structures. They also traded with other groups who in turn traded with Europeans, but they seem to have disappeared some time during the 1620s or 1630s before having significant direct contact with Europeans. Many scholars believe this to be the result of the spread of European infectious disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s. Others believe that most of the Monongahela were killed by or assimilated into either the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
or the Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
-speaking Lenape tribes during warfare, as the more powerful tribes competed to control area hunting grounds for the fur trade. Still others claim that two severe droughts, one from 1587–1589 and another from 1607–1612, drove the Monongahela from the region in search of a more habitable area.
Interculture chronology
An internal temporal subdivision of the Monongahela culture, based on ceramicCeramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
decorative attributes.
| Subdivisions | Dates | Ceramic markers |
|---|---|---|
| Late Monongahela | AD 1580 - 1635 | Characterized by plain pottery with decoration on lips and inside of the rim, also marks the appearance of ceramic traits that indicate contacts with the Iroquois |
| Middle Monongahela | AD 1250 - 1580 | Pottery surfaces usually undecorated, with some decoration on the lip of the pot including notching, incising, or stamping with a cord-wrapped paddle |
| Early Monongahela | AD 1050 - 1250 | Characterized by pottery decorated with rectangular incising and/or horizontal punctuated bands |
Location
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
system that includes the Monongahela
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...
, Youghiogheny and Casselman
Casselman
Casselman may refer to:Places*Casselman, Pennsylvania, a borough in Somerset County*Casselman, Ontario, a village in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell*Casselman River, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River in PennsylvaniaPeople...
tributary rivers. Their region was of western Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and the adjoining areas of eastern Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, and western Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. Nearly four hundred archeological sites have now been recorded. The culture was contemporaneous to the bordering Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000-1750 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Southeastern Indiana and Western West Virginia. They were a maize based agricultural...
culture in the Ohio Valley. The Monongahela is a Late Woodland
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
horizon that coincides with the Mingo homeland and distinguishes it from the Iroquois League homeland, centered in New York state. Monongahela villages originated on flood plains, but by 1250, the people had migrated to the watershed highlands and often lived on gaps between ridges. Archaeologists speculate that the move to these areas, and to larger, fortified villages at this time is a symptom of intergroup warfare.
The Fort Hill Site (46MG12) in Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown is a city in Monongalia County, West Virginia. It is the county seat of Monongalia County. Placed along the banks of the Monongahela River, Morgantown is the largest city in North-Central West Virginia, and the base of the Morgantown metropolitan area...
is a nearly 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) site that includes what appears to be a Monongahela village. The site has good preservation. A human burial, animal bones, bone beads, a marginella-shell bead, shell-tempered pottery and triangular arrow points have been recovered during excavations at the site. In 2002 the site was endangered with being destroyed by commercial development.
The majority of the 18 known sites within the Osage USGS Quadrangle and the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle on the environs of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border are of the Monongahela Culture. The Worley village Complex (46Mg23) dates to about AD 900. It sits within the Blacksville USGS Quadrangle, as does the recently found Wana village site. It was located by infrared photography
Infrared photography
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about...
. A field test confirmed pottery, shell, and flint present. It has not yet been studied. The LaPoe (46Mg21) village complex in Monongalia County, West Virginia
Monongalia County, West Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 81,866 people, 33,446 households, and 18,495 families residing in the county. The population density was 227 people per square mile . There were 36,695 housing units at an average density of 102 per square mile...
is a circular village occupied during the 16th and 17th centuries, with trade items recovered. Nearby LaPoe, 46Mg18 is a stone burial mound. Also located at LaPoe is the village site 46Mg20. Pyle Farm, 46Mg15, is a late prehistoric village site that is located in the Osage USGS Quadrangle. In addition, hundreds of undocumented archeological sites exist in the Dunkard Creek
Dunkard Creek
Dunkard Creek is a stream that flows through Greene County, Pennsylvania and Monongalia County, West Virginia, near the towns of Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, and Blacksville, West Virginia...
Watershed of Greene County, Pennsylvania
Greene County, Pennsylvania
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 40,672 people, 15,060 households, and 10,587 families residing in the county. The population density was 71 people per square mile . There were 16,678 housing units at an average density of 29 per square mile...
and Monongalia County, West Virginia.
Ceramics
Monongahela pottery was constructed using the coil method, tempered using crushed igneous rock (e.g., granite) or quartz temper, and usually decorated with cordmarking. (Mayer-Oakes’ 1955) To quote the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, "Monongahela ceramics are a complex series that begin with an early grit or limestone tempered group and end with a very anomalous collection of types found in southwestern Pennsylvania during the post-Contact period."According to the collaborative research of 2009 of William C. Johnson (Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology) and D. Scott Speedy (Grave Creek Mound Archaeology Complex Research Facility in West Virginia), Monongahela tradition women favored the production of final Z-twist cordage production. On the upper Ohio River drainage basin subareas, some pottery apparently represents the incorporation of local Late Woodland groups with their own distinctive cordage-manufacturing traditions. As Johnson and Speedy say in their abstract, "In the absence of elaborately decorated ceramics, variations in the relative frequency of the predominant cordage twist direction peculiar to some subareas also suggest that twist direction may function as a group signature, thus permitting identification of individual or related village removals that may be synonymous with tribes."
Village construction
Monongahela houses were small oval to round shaped and were built within palisadePalisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
d villages with a central plaza
Plaza
Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...
. These villages' entry point often had a maze-like structure that overlapped the stockaded outer walls. Differing from Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000-1750 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Southeastern Indiana and Western West Virginia. They were a maize based agricultural...
methods, some entrances were covered. Some of the villages had elevated observation platforms. Charnel house
Charnel house
A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves...
s have been found in the larger villages. Black bear masks have been found in some graves, showing a possible indication of a rank. Of the average adult burials, it is not clearly understood where they might have been buried. To distinguish the characteristics between Fort Ancient and interior Monongahelan of West Virginia, Dr. McMichael writes, "A reflection of the Monongahela's greater Woodland heritage was the continued use of small stone mounds in the Monongahela drainage area, well into the Late Prehistoric." Child burials were sometimes inside the village and sometimes under the house contrasting Andaste burials which were outside their palisaded village found east of the Allegheny Mountains
Allegheny Mountains
The Allegheny Mountain Range , also spelled Alleghany, Allegany and, informally, the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...
stemming from 1450/1550. By 1450, petal-shaped attachments to their houses became common and were used for storage or perhaps a smokehouse. Monongahela pottery and tools were well crafted and included decorated clay pipes for smoking. Glass trade beads have been found at some villages, although there is no record of European contact.
Agriculture and food
Like its sister culture the Fort AncientFort Ancient
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000-1750 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Southeastern Indiana and Western West Virginia. They were a maize based agricultural...
, the Monongahela made a leap in agriculture by adopting seed crops from Mesoamerica, which had been obtained through their ancestral trade network. The women cultivated varieties of crops such as maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, beans, squash, and sunflower
Sunflower
Sunflower is an annual plant native to the Americas. It possesses a large inflorescence . The sunflower got its name from its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. The sunflower has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads...
, while they also collected wild plant foods, such as nuts and berries, to complete their diets. As with many contemporary groups to the west and south, maize was by far the largest component of their diet. The Monongahela hunted animals including deer, turtles, fish, and shell fish. They made advances in the cultivation of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
and hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
braid
Braid
A braid is a complex structure or pattern formed by intertwining three or more strands of flexible material such as textile fibres, wire, or human hair...
crops and traded with the east coast agriculturists. In 1898 the historian Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt was an English writer. He is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and...
reported on Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
foods of the mid-Atlantic coastal people with whom they also traded. Sea shells from the mid-Atlantic have been found in some Monongahela sites as evidence of that trade.
Disappearance
This late prehistoric culture peaked about AD 1300. The colder weather of the Little Ice AgeLittle Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...
may have caused inter-group battling over food, according to some scholars. The crops did not prosper as well during this colder period, causing food shortages for populations that had grown after their introduction. Some studies show that the culture began failing due to poor health conditions.
The Monongahela culture was progressively disappearing before the time the Iroquois League invaded the Allegheny Plateau
Allegheny Plateau
The Allegheny Plateau is a large dissected plateau area in western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Ohio...
through to the Lake Erie
Lake Erie
Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
region in an effort to control new hunting grounds. About the year of 1635, it appears that a group of Monongahela refugees resettled in south-central Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
at Halifax County. They were likely absorbed by a Siouan-speaking tribe of the area, but historians do not know for sure, as there were also Algonquian
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
and Iroquoian tribes nearby.
External links
- Monongahela Culture, Virtual First Ohioans
- "Ghosts of the Mountains", a video of Somerset County Archaeology, Pennsylvania, the working of sites of Monongahela people