The Prehistory of West Virginia spans ancient times until the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century."West Virginia Timeline of State History." State Handbook and Guide Resources. (retrieved 24 Feb 2011) Hunters ventured into West Virginia's mountain valleys and made temporary camp villages since the Archaic period in the Americas. Many ancient human-made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston, and Romney. The artifacts uncovered in these areas give evidence of a village society with a tribal trade system culture that included limited cold worked copper. As of 2009, over 12,500 archaeological sites have been documented in West Virginia.Bryan Ward 2009:10The West Virginia Statewide, Historic Preservation Plan 2009–2014, West Virginia Division of Culture and History
Origins
The first evidence of humans in West Virginia dates back to the nomadic Paleo-Indians in 11,000 BCE. From 7000 to 1000 BCE, archaic Native American cultures developed in the Northern Panhandle, the Eastern Panhandle, and the Kanawha River Valley. They created temporary villages on the Kanawha region streams, Monongahela and Potomac tributary streams of the Allegheny Mountains. The early archaic people used tools, such as the atlatl.
Cultural anthropologists use the spread of cultural items to examine inter-cultural middleman trade, migration, direct trade and intermarriage, enslavement after warfare, and mutual absorption of cultural elements between the prehistoric peoples.
Geography
West Virginia is within the physiographic province of the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, which includes parts of the Allegheny Front and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. These western hills along the Ohio Valley climb east up tributary streams to the base of the Allegheny Mountains. The lowest altitude averages above the sea level, with the lowest point to the southwest along the Ohio River at above sea level. Below the eastern slopes of the Allegheny Front where approximately peaks stand, the Potomac River on the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia flows along a plateau. The plateau reaches from southeastern Ohio through western West Virginia to the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and is bisected with a summit level ranging from about .Ehlers and Gibbard 2004:237
The Allegheny Mountains have no volcanic peaks and have very little earthquake activity. These mountains were formed by an Orogeny effect of the North American Plate.Peter J Coney (1970). "The Geotectonic Cycle and the New Global Tectonics" . Geological Society of America Bulletin 81 (3): 739–748. Abstract: "Mountain complexes result from irregular successions of tectonic responses due to sea-floor spreading, shifting lithosphere plates, transform faults, and colliding, coupled, and uncoupled continental margins." The Taconic Orogeny near the end of Ordovician time formed a much higher mountainous area in eastern West Virginia approximately 350 million to 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey conducted in 2006 reported, "These highlands formed the main source of sediments for the succeeding Silurian Period (443 million years ago) and part of the Devonian Period (416 million years ago)." Devonian was about the time lobe-finned fish developed legs (Tiktaalik) as they started to walk on land as tetrapods. The Mesozoic Era (251.9 to 66 million years ago), the Age of Dinosaurs, is marked by Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and following Cenozoic Era with the dominant terrestrial vertebrates mammals from million years ago to the present: the Age of Mammals. Some of these ancient animal evidence are found as fossils between the geologic strata near the abundant sections of coal seams and nearby natural gas (fossil fuel ranges) in the state.
The Quaternary ice age (2.6 million BCE) began during the Pleistocene Epoch. Sitting snugly in the then much higher mountains was Glacial Teays Lake, extending from south Virginia through the New Kanawha River to its northerly drainage river, the ancient Teays River. It flowed through Ohio to central Indiana, then across Illinois to the Mississippi Valley. The Pittsburgh drainage basin is to the north of the river.Jacobson, Elston and Heaton 1988 The Mississippi River at the time was an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico reaching to Illinois. Glacial Teays Lake last occurrence was about two million years ago when it outburst and the wash build up created the final large prehistoric lake in the western part of the state. Lake Tight lasted 6500 years before it escaped its confines to form the Ohio Valley.Geofacts, Ohio Dept of Natural Resources, Division of Geology, Bul. No 10 The Ohio-Allegheny system (Ohio Valley) in western half of the state had its present form by the Middle Pleistocene, between 781 and 126 thousand years ago.White, George Willard (1968). "Pleistocene deposits of the north-western Allegheny Plateau, U.S.A." Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 1968; v. 124; issue.1–4; p. 131–149 The glacial Monongahela Lake was in the northern part of the state. It was blocked by ice terraces in the northwestern Pennsylvania. Upon the ice's retreat, it outburst through the basin to the north.
The last maximum extent of glaciation, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, was approximately 18,000 years ago.Glaciation of Wisconsin, Lee Clayton, John W. Attig, David M. Mickelson, Mark D. Johnson, and Kent M. Syverson, University of Wisconsin, Dept. of Geology This last returning advancement of glacial ice approaching the Ohio Valley began 30,000 years ago. West Virginia had no ice sheet buildup during this time. During the Last Ice Age smaller glaciation impounded lakes continued to collect precipitation on the plateau.Jürgen Ehlers, Philip Leonard Gibbard, Quaternary glaciations: extent and chronology, Volume 2, Elsevier, 2004:237. These chilly lakes among mountain peaks were separated from the continental ice sheet to the north. The deeply carved river valleys, such as the upper Canaan Valley to Blackwater Canyon and the Dolly Sods Wilderness to Cheat River areas, are called Paleozoic Plateaus. The "Driftless Area" drains into rivers having rugged regions of bluffs and valleys. According to the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, the two large Ice Age lakes varied throughout the epoch. The last glacial lake, Monongahela, has been dated by Carbon-14 testing to between 22,000 and 39,000 years old. It reached as far south as Weston, West Virginia. The first ice-damming event was a pre-Illinoian (Stage) lake, which outburst during the earlier ice retreat towards the northwest Pittsburgh drainage basin. The last occurrence of the Monongahela Lake outburst was an outwash gravel dam backed up slackwater at Allegheny-Monongahela confluence during an Illinoian ponding event during the last glacial retreat. The last outburst drained the water to its present course in the central Allegheny Mountains or northern tributaries of the state feeding the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.
The Cirque and Tarn (lake) were two of the heads of smaller outwashes through the Allegheny Plateau. Some of these backed waters cut through, leaving higher flatland or terraces among ridge tops above the major river bottoms from which runoff sheds. Higher in the state is Cranberry Glades which lay between Mountain ridge top and peaks with five small, boreal bogs. These feed the Cranberry River. The Allegheny Plateau has eroded and settled from these mountain and hill formations. In Pennsylvania, the Titusville Till was formed by very ancient Monongahela Lake sediment and is around 40,000 years old. There are several different strata of till layers across the region. Outflow of melt and weather contributed to the hill and mountain erosion. On top of the layers of geologic strata, settled drifts of kame (or gravel shoals) lay under soil sediments along the valley bottoms. "As one proceeds westward, the rocks are younger and younger," states Peter Lessing, July 1996, West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey. Below outcrops of the Paleozoic Plateaus are the largest kind of sediment by erosion, the large boulders peeking above the rivers surface. A variety of stones for lithic tool making are found across the state in valleys (Brockman, US Forest Service, 2003). From this stone, artifacts are found, providing evidence that Paleo-Indians passed through West Virginia. State universities and the U.S. Geological Survey paleoanthropologists have found evidence of early Archaic people habitating the region during the Holocene Climate Optimum — a rough interval of 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P.
Ecosystems and migration
The state's ecosystems influenced the movement of the semi-nomadic Archaic Indian. The land gradually changed from a tundra to an evergreen forest, and eventually to forests of oak, hemlock, rhododendron, nut, berries, and Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests.Dwyer 1999:14 The vegetation attracted modern game animals by 7800 BCE. Modern decididuous forests grew south and east of the Allegheny River.2009 Historic Preservation Plan Carbonized nut hulls from the St. Albans Site in Kanawha County date to 7000 BCE.
The New River (Kanawha River) flows from the Ridge and Valley Province, and the head of the Tennessee River, (Powell, Clinch and Holston Valleys) and drains southwesterly through the Ridge and Valley Province. The upper branches of the Big Sandy River drain this province's northern slopes. While emptying near the mouth of the Ohio River, the Tennessee River and north Cumberland River reaches from the west-draining Cumberland Plateau opposite the Big Sandy watershed. The Tennessee River reaches easterly to the Ridge and Valley Province of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Potomac River, James River, and Dan River basins drain the eastern slopes of these mountain ranges. Ancient mountain trails through eastern Kentucky and West Virginia allowed Native American passage between the northern Till Plains of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and the Piedmont Plateau and Atlantic Ocean coastal plains. Trails through the region facilitated migration, trade, warfare, and hunting.