The Blue Earth focus, along with the
Orr focus, are parts of the
Oneota aspect. The focus is located in
south central Minnesota, in Blue Earth County. From 1050 BP to about 350 BP the
Blue Earth culture flourished. The Oneota peoples replaced the Cambria and Great
Oasis peoples. The methods of this are unknown but it has be postulated that it
was done by force. The Oneota people were thought to be much more war-like than
the others.
The climate in the region was much like it was today. It was warm and
wet in the summers and cold in the winters. The glaciers had long ago
receded
leaving behind lush top soil and deep scars in the landscape. There were
many lakes in the area, some
possibly formed by large chunks of buried ice left behind by the glaciers.
These lakes and rivers where usually surround by dense forests, with large
expanses of prairie filling the spaces in between. There have been several
excavations of Blue Earth focus sites. The
Blue Earth site is
a good example.
The Blue Earth people most likely subsisted on large harvests and seasonal hunting. They had large base camps from which they sent out smaller parties to hunt. The smaller groups lived in semi-permanent sites near the seasonal resources. Some examples of the diet in the area are plums, nuts, cherries, dear, bison, beaver, and elk.
They utilized farming, grit tempered pottery, shell tempered pottery, and
burial mounds. The seasonal harvest and seasonal hunts produced large amounts
of food that needed to be stored. The Blue Earth people processed the food then
put it in clay jars, which were stored in underground pits lined with grass and
bark. There it was stored for use during the winter months. The Oneota people
also were unique because they did not show the influence of the Hopewellian
people (exotic burials and large earthen structures), which so many peoples in
the Mississippian time period did.
Schirmer, Ronald C. 1996 "Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Two Blue Earth County, Minnesota Sites." Thesis Paper, Minnesota State University