Adena Way of Life

Adena Way of Life. Midland Trail - An Illustrated History. , Prehistoric Kanawha Valley , Adena People (Mound Builders) lived in the Kanawha Valley during the Woodland Period (500 B.C. - A.D. 1). They were not the first inhabitants. Archaic era (8,500 B.C. - 1,000 B.C.) encampments have been discovered all along the Kanawha River, including nearby St. Albans., Farmsteads , Small Adena farmsteads, like this, were scattered along the Kanawha River Valley, where fish and small game were abundant. Unlike the hunter-gatherer Archaic, the Adena learned to grow crops, which allowed them to stay in one place longer, permitting semi permanent dwellings., Mound Building , Numerous earthworks and over 50 burial mounds, stood as monuments to the innovation and ingenuity of the industrious Kanawha Valley Adena, who built them without the aid of modern equipment. From their burial mounds we know Adena honored their dead and recognized a social hierarchy., Clothing , Deer hide was used to make loincloths for men and skirts for the women. In cold weather both wore animal skins robes. Textiles were made from fibrous plants, like milkweed. Seashells, traded from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, sometimes decorated their clothes., Homes , Adena wigwams were framed by sticking poles into the ground, and bending and tying them at the top. This circular frame, ranging 13 to 32 feet in diameter, was covered with large slabs of tree bark or mats woven of cattails and bulrush.