This activity will assist students in understanding Piedmont cultures as they read the article Peoples of the Piedmont.

Piedmont cultures

  The Hogue site The Wall site Pee Dee culture
Time period      
Shelter/Settlement      
Food      
Containers/Tools      
Culture (including burial practices      

Piedmont cultures (teacher guide)

  The Hogue site The Wall site Pee Dee culture
Time period
  • 1000 to 1200 CE
  • About 1600 CE
  • 950 to 1500 CE
Shelter/Settlement
  • A few houses -- may have been round
  • An acre village with seven round houses and a few small outbuildings
  • Stockade around whole village
  • Stockade surrounding platform mound
  • Thatch-roof huts -- a round burial hut is pictured in the article; rectangular houses and public houses are described in the reading
Food
  • Some agriculture (maize, sunflower)
  • Wild foods (acorns, hickory nuts)
  • Hunting (deer, squirrel, rabbits)
  • Agriculture (corn, bean, squash)
  • Gathering (nuts, berries)
  • Hunting (deer, small mammals, fish)
  • Hunting, fishing, and gathering, but mostly corn agriculture
Containers/Tools
  • Pottery (broken pieces were found)
  • Pottery -- simple stamped. This design consists of a series of parallel lines running in one direction that people etched on a wooden paddle; the design was transferred on the wet clay by striking the paddle against it.
  • Pottery with geometric designs, some were used to hold cremations.
  • It can also be inferred that there were projectile points because hunting is mentioned in the article, and either spear or hooks because fishing is mentioned.
Culture (including burial practices
  • Most archaeologists believe these were small villages
  • Pits used for food cupboards, then garbage pits
  • Burial practices -- round or oval graves, knees were brought up to the chest, some had large rocks at the feet of the deceased
  • Burials inside or just outside homes -- sealed with timbers or rocks, burial offerings, shell decorations on burial garments, clay pots of food
  • Community ceremonies which included feasts
  • Ceremonial and/or political centers -- Town Creek temples and civic buildings set atop earthen platform mounds
  • Social and political hierarchies, with priests and chiefs
  • Religious symbolism artistically represented in jewelry and ritual items
  • Corn agriculture and a variety of ceremonies surrounding it -- Busk ceremony

Citation

"Piedmont cultures graphic organizer." NCpedia. Accessed on June 1st, 2025. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/piedmont-cultures-graphic.