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Coastal Plain cultures graphic organizer

As students read the article "Peoples of the Coastal Plain," this graphic organizer will help them develop an understanding of the cultures that existed in North Carolina's Coastal Plain hundreds of years ago.

A lesson plan for grade 8 Social Studies

By Pauline S. Johnson

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Two worlds: Educator's guide
Lesson plans and activities to be used with "Two Worlds: Prehistory, Contact, and the Lost Colony" -- the first part of a North Carolina history textbook for secondary students.
Page 2.5

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  • Peoples of the Coastal Plain When Europeans arrived in the late 1500s, North Carolina’s northern Coastal Plain was home to two different cultures. Speakers of Algonkian languages lived closest to the Atlantic edge, in the Outer Coastal Plain or Tidewater. Iroquoian speakers lived more inland, on the Inner Coastal Plain. Based on the distinctive items each group left, archaeologists call the Algonkian speakers Colington and the Iroquoian speakers Cashie.

Related pages

  • Intrigue of the Past: Teach your students about North Carolina's fascinating past. This edition contains lesson plans about the fundamental concepts, processes, and issues of archaeology, as well as essays for the teacher with detailed information about four periods in North Carolina's ancient history.
  • The village farmers: North Carolina sat on a crossroads by AD 1000. Cultural ideas from other places breezed through it and around it: how to decorate pottery, how to orient political and social life, how to honor the dead, how to structure towns.
  • Crafting North Carolina: A Hands on Exploration of North Carolina's Hand-made Heritage: North Carolina's geography, history, and resources brought to life through the crafts of the state.

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As students read the article “Peoples of the Coastal Plain,” this graphic organizer will help them develop an understanding of the cultures that existed in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain hundreds of years ago.

Coastal Plain cultures

  Colington Cashie
Time period    
Shelter/Settlement    
Food    
Containers/Tools    
Culture (including burial practices    

Coastal Plain cultures (teacher guide)

  Colington Cashie
Time period
  • 800 CE to 1650 CE
  • 800 CE to 1750 CE
Shelter/Settlement
  • Chief’s village was fairly large — other villages in the chiefdom nearby
  • Capital villages, common villages, seasonal villages
  • Some were stockaded and some weren’t
  • Villages — some stockaded, some not
  • Villages, farmsteads, hunting camps
Food
  • Agriculture
  • Hunting and fishing:
    • Shellfish, turtles, alligators
  • Gathering:
    • Nuts and berries
  • Agriculture:
    • Corn and beans
  • Hunting and gathering:
    • Hickory nuts, deer, bear, raccoon, possum, rabbit, fish, turtle and terrapin, mussel, and turkey
Containers/Tools
  • Pottery made with crushed shells and decorated with fabric impressions
  • Arrow points, blades, tools for woodworking, and milling stones
  • Bone and shell made into hoes, picks, ladles, fish hooks, sewing awls, and punches
  • Same tools as Colington
Culture (including burial practices
  • Algonkian language speakers
  • Pipes for smoking
  • Bone, shell, pearl, copper jewelry
  • Panther mask for ceremonies
  • Chiefs — ruled democratically, controlled larger areas than one village
  • Priests — formal religion
  • Burial in ossuaries — common burials
  • Mortuary temples
  • A few burial offerings in some burials
  • Iroquoian language speakers
  • Same jewelry as Colington
  • Ossuaries were for families
  • Each tribe controlled its own politics, there were no chiefdoms

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Social Studies (2003)

Grade 8

  • Goal 1: The learner will analyze important geographic, political, economic, and social aspects of life in the region prior to the Revolutionary Period.
    • Objective 1.02: Identify and describe American Indians who inhabited the regions that became Carolina and assess their impact on the colony.