Neolithic - North America
A spring encampment lines a river terrace in the Eastern Woodlands, where several Indigenous families tend bark- and hide-covered shelters, smoke and dry fish, and gather around small hearths. Adults repair chipped-stone dart points and twist plant-fiber cordage while children carry firewood, illustrating the seasonal, mobile lifeways typical of the Early to Middle Archaic period, around 6000–4000 BC. In this era, communities across much of North America relied on fishing, hunting, and gathered foods rather than pottery or agriculture, returning to resource-rich places like rivers during key seasons.