Whittlesey culture

Whittlesey culture is an archaeological designation for a Native American people, who lived in northeastern Ohio during the Late Precontact and Early Contact period between A.D. 1000 to 1640. By 1500, they flourished as an agrarian society that grew maize, beans, and squash. After European contact, their population decreased due to disease, malnutrition, and warfare. There was a period of long, cold winters that would have impacted their success cultivating food from about 1500.

The Whittlesey culture people created a distinctive style of pottery and built defensive villages, set high on promontories with steep cliffs and surrounded by ditches or stockades. Their villages were on the Lake Erie plain or overlooking rivers and streams. About 1640, Whittlesey villages were abandoned and due to the displacement of Native groups during the early contact period with Europeans, it is not known where or how they relocated.[1]

South Park Village, a Whittlesey culture site in Cuyahoga County, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[2] A historic marker about the Whittlesey people is located on Seeley Road in LeRoy Township, Lake County, Ohio.[3][4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference OHC - Whittlesey was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nris was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "27-43 The Whittlesey People Marker - Remarkable Ohio". remarkableohio.org. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  4. ^ "Lake County History Center - Indian Point & the Whittlesey People". lakehistorycenter.org. Retrieved January 30, 2020.