From Ohio History Central Painting from the Ancient Ohio art
series depicting a Late Woodland (AD 600 - AD 1200) village
along the Scioto River in central Ohio. A.D. 600 to A.D. 1200
The Late Woodland Period, though often regarded simply as the
time between the decline of the remarkable Hopewell culture and
the rise of the Late Prehistoric cultures, actually is a
fascinating period that witnessed dramatic cultural changes. For
reasons that are not yet clearly understood, Late Woodland
cultures did not continue the Hopewell practice of building
large geometric earthworks or importing large quantities of
exotic raw materials such as obsidian and mica. Cultures in
different regions began to diversify, probably because of the
decline in interregional trade and travel. Late Woodland people
lived in villages that frequently were larger than Hopewell or
Adena hamlets. They continued to grow crops such as sunflowers
and squash and, by around A.D. 800, they began to include corn,
or maize, in their gardens. Many commu