Ceramics The Armstrong people made clay pottery with a glazed yellow-orange color. Armstrong
pottery finish was similar in color to the Peters
Cordmarked and Peters Plain ceramics of late western Ohio Hopewell, an oxidized color.
Peters Cordmarked is related to
McGraw Cordmarked of that phase of classic Ohio Hopewell (c. 50 CE) and is considered to be a lineal descendant from that type.
Architecture Armstrong peoples primarily focused their human resources on long-distance trade rather than mass building. Their villages were scattered over a large area and consisted of small round houses. Another feature of their culture was the practice of cremation and the building of small
burial mounds in the Big Sandy Valley. They made small flaked knives and corner notched points from Vanport
chert from the greater
Muskingum River valley area. This period does see the enlarging of the large conical mounds by accretion cremating their dead, depositing their remains in the mounds and then adding new layers of earth over them.
Agriculture Their limited
agricultural staples were comparable to the previous Adena peoples, with most of its emphasis on vining crops like the climbing string bean, pumpkins (a
winter squash) along with some of the earlier summer
squashes. They also grew native cereal
grasses,
tubers,
bulbs and
gourds.
Maize, although a staple to many later groups of Native Americans in the area, would not reach this area for many centuries after the Armstrong peoples. ==References==