- Hey everybody, I'm Dr. Michelle Rathgaber and I am with the Arkansas Archeological survey.

And today I'm here at Toltec Mounds Archaeological State Park, near Little Rock and I'm gonna talk to you about some cool archeology.

So if you don't know, archeologists study ancient human cultures.

And so what we wanna learn about is how people lived in the past.

And usually we do that by looking at artifacts that people left behind.

So when archeologists find the site that they wanna know more about the people who lived at it, then they'll dig excavation units.

And those are usually squares kind of like this table.

And then in those squares, they'll dig really thin layers so that they can find the artifacts inside the layers.

And once they find those artifacts and they see what their relationships are to each other, then we can talk more about how people were doing things in the past and what kind of things that they had available to them and what kind of tools they were making.

So, what we've found out from archeology is that the Native American people who lived in Arkansas for hundreds and thousands of years, were so smart and so resourceful and they invented all kinds of cool stuff.

And so one thing that they did was they were really big farmers.

And so they had to invent farming tools.

Right now, if I wanted to make a garden, I would just go to the store and I would probably buy a hoe and buy a rake and buy a shovel and I would plant a garden.

But if you were a Native American person a thousand years ago, there was no store.

So you had to make all of those tools yourself.

So I've got something here and it's a digging tool and it's made out of a mussel shell and they'd find that mussel in the river, and after they ate the mussel, they would tie it to the stick and you could use this to clear weeds or to dig holes in your garden.

And then a similar kind of tool that's even bigger is made out of a piece of a deer bone.

So you could use this in the garden and you could use it to clear weeds or you could use it to help you plant seeds or just keep the soil turned over so it stays fresh all year.

One thing that they grew a lot of about 500 years ago or so was corn and corn can be used to make a lot of things, but you had to start from scratch.

So if you take all of the little pieces of the kernels off the corn and put it on this big grinding stone, then you have to take this other stone and grind those kernels down into flour.

And then after they made all that flour, they had to gather it up and then they could bake it into a cake or into bread or mix it into a stew.

And that was a big part of their diet in addition to the fish and the animals that they hunted.

Can you imagine if you had to go out and make your own things for hunting, but people here did, and first they would start with a piece of cane and you can find that all over the place in Arkansas on where there are rivers or streams.

You take this piece of cane and you have to attach an arrowhead to it and some feathers.

And an arrowhead is something you probably have seen before and you might have even found some yourself if you've gone out walking in fields.

So people would make these arrows and they'd make a bow and then they'd be able to go hunting.

People would also go fishing.

And so we find in the archeological record, fish hooks.

If you look at this, it looks pretty much like a modern fish hook, but this one is made out of a deer bone.

So can you imagine if you had to take a deer bone and whittle it down til it was this tiny little thin thing, but it's got a point right here.

And then it has a little notch at the top where you could attach the string and then attach it to your pole.

So it works the same way as a fishing line does today.

And if you had a good day at the fishing hole, then you would have a good dinner that night.

So, so far we've talked about things that are needs, right?

But Native American people also had wants and had fun things as well.

And so one thing that they did with a corn cob when they were finished is you can make corn husk dolls and you wet the corn husk and you can shape it into these dolls.

And you can add some different string for decorations and you can even sometimes put some different clothing on them with different materials.

And this would have been a toy for children.

And they also had pins.

And these could have been for decorating your clothes or they could be for decorating your hair.

And so, you know, if you had longer hair, you could flip it up and put the pin through there, make it look nice or if you had some kind of cape or blanket, you could put your pin through there and hold it shut.

And we find these archeologically 'cause again, they're made of bone so they last a long time.

So, I think that's a really cool thing that archeology lets us see and it really gives us an idea of how people lived in the past and that's what archeology is all about.

So next time that you are at a museum or you come across an artifact, I hope that this helps you really think about what that artifact might've been and who made it and what it was used for in the past.

And I hope that we see you soon out at Toltec Mounds Archaeological State Park Museum.

Bye everybody.