In any case, it appears that the Macon Plateau had again demonstrated its advantages as a habitation site, and that a people with a material culture similar to that of the Shellfish Eaters dwelt here at intervals during the period 2000 B. C. to 100 B. C. Their residence was not continuous for very long at any one time, however, since their lives depended on hunting. Instead they probably moved about over a fairly large area, returning every so often to the familiar banks of the Ocmulgee to set up their village again and to hunt the surrounding region until the game once more became scarce.
[Illustration: Simple stumping, as in this Mossy Oak jar, often appears like crude scratching. Height, 10 inches.]
[Illustration: The woven basketry fabric which produced these impressions is among the earliest recorded in eastern North America.]
The next period which can be clearly identified on the Macon Plateau is the one whose inhabitants we have called _Early Farmers_. It lasted for roughly 1,000 years and naturally witnessed considerable change; yet the evidence for this change in middle Georgia is tantalizingly slender. There are more and larger sites, and the increase of population reflected in these might be thought to signify an increased food supply such as the beginnings of planting and tending a few crops could produce. Direct evidence for the introduction of such hoe cultivation, however, is lacking; and we can only say that a number of different lines of reasoning lead us to believe that some plants—possibly pumpkins, beans, sunflowers, and tobacco—probably were being cultivated before the period ended. Through the provision of increased leisure and stability, an assured food supply may well have been one of the factors permitting an enrichment of Indian life at this time. Since this cannot yet be demonstrated, however, we must turn to what we do know. Perhaps the reader will not be too surprised to learn that we shall again be talking about pottery, since we have already mentioned it as one of the archeologist’s most unfailing sources of information.
Like most archeological field work the excavations at Ocmulgee did not result in an independent body of information which could be added unchanged to the total fund of our archeological knowledge. We know in detail what was found; but we must turn to work in nearby and more distant areas for assistance in its correct interpretation. In the present case, four main types of pottery occurred more or less intermixed at almost the deepest levels excavated on the plateau. The first of these was the fiber-tempered ware described in the previous section. The other three are tempered with sand or with “grit” (finely crushed stone) in varying amounts. Like the fiber-tempered pottery these three types are important time markers in the Southeast. It would be tedious to go in detail through all the steps involved in placing them in their proper position in the time scale; but some idea of the nature of the problem might help us to gain an understanding of its complexities. It could help us, too, to realize what a jigsaw puzzle an archeological reconstruction is likely to be.