This Mini Ice Age Turned Humans Against Each Other
Jun 30, 2025
By: Greg Schmalzel
What happens when the climate suddenly turns against you and there’s nowhere left to run? A sudden cold snap wipes out your crops. The game disappears. Food stores dwindle, and hunger sets in. As desperation grows, the rules begin to change. Do you wait and hope for relief? Or do you take what you need, no matter the cost?
Around 700 years ago, long before modern climate change debates, the Earth slipped into a brief but brutal cooling period now called the Little Ice Age. It brought colder summers and shorter growing seasons. It even triggered a devastating collapse of food systems across much of the Northern Hemisphere. And while that sounds like the start of a climate documentary, it also set the stage for something far more disturbing: a massacre.
In the Great Plains of North America, archaeologists uncovered the human remains of this massacre. They were tossed into a mass grave with horrifying signs of violence. Known today as the Crow Creek Massacre, this tragedy may be one of the earliest examples of how environmental stress can push people to do unspeakable things. It’s a haunting reminder of what happens when the bonds of society snap under the weight of hunger and fear.
In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart."
Evidently, this is even true of prehistoric societies.
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The Crow Creek Massacre
Perched on a triangular plateau above the Missouri River in South Dakota, the Crow Creek site offered prime real estate for Indigenous communities—elevated, defensible, and close to water. Excavations in the 1950s revealed two major occupations: the Initial Middle Missouri tradition (1100s–1200s AD) with small pit houses and shared pottery styles, and the later Initial Coalescent tradition (1300–1500 CE) marked by nearly fifty square houses, double fortification ditches, bastions, and palisades, reflecting heightened security concerns.
Archaeologists unearthed thousands of artifacts, from bison bones to over 30,000 pottery sherds, confirming a classic Plains village. But at the western end of the outer ditch, they made a chilling discovery: a “bone bed” containing the remains of around 486 men, women, and children. Many showed signs of brutal violence—scalping, decapitation, limb removal. Dating places the massacre around 1400 AD, during the Initial Coalescent period. While the victims were likely ancestors of today’s Arikara, the attackers remain unknown. Was it a surprise raid by a rival group? An unrecorded act of prehistoric terror? Even now, the Crow Creek Massacre stands as a haunting mystery on the Northern Plains.
It’s extremely difficult to get into the mind of a group willing to commit such a slaughter. Not only because of how long ago it occurred, but also how uncomfortable it makes us. Not knowing who committed these murders doesn’t make it any easier. That said, we do have some clues into what may have been their motivations, and they point to climate instability. The Crow Creek massacre occurred during the transition from one climate extreme to another. First was the Medieval Warm Period. Second was the Little Ice Age.
The Medieval Warm Period
From around 800 to 1350 AD, the Medieval Warm Period brought prolonged higher temperatures and severe drought across much of the Northern Hemisphere. Tree rings, lake levels, and fire scars reveal two major drought episodes—one from 892–1112 and another from 1209–1350—with temperatures peaking around 1150, worsening water shortages and fueling wildfires. These environmental shifts dramatically impacted Native American societies. Crop failures, dwindling game, and scarce water led to food crises and fierce competition.
Archaeological evidence points to increased violence, abandoned settlements, and collapsed trade networks. On the Colorado Plateau, people built and then deserted fortified villages; in California, vibrant shell-bead economies fell apart; in the Mojave, communities clustered desperately around reliable springs. The Medieval Warm Period wasn’t just a time of hotter weather—it triggered deep cultural upheaval and forced Indigenous communities to adapt to an increasingly harsh and unpredictable world.
The Little Ice Age
By the 1300s, the climate shifted dramatically with the onset of the Little Ice Age, a prolonged cooling period lasting from about 1300 to 1850 AD. Average temperatures in the North Atlantic region dropped roughly 1 °C below those of the Medieval Warm Period, bringing harsher winters, shorter growing seasons, and frequent extreme cold years. Proxy records—from tree rings to ice cores—show landscapes were transformed across Europe, North America, and beyond.
This chill was triggered by a mix of factors: lowered snowlines allowed permanent ice to spread, volcanic eruptions pumped sunlight-reflecting aerosols into the atmosphere, and reduced solar activity—highlighted by the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715)—diminished solar warmth. Changes in ocean currents further cut northward heat transport, creating a feedback loop of persistent cold. Together, these forces forged the centuries-long grip of the Little Ice Age, reshaping environments and challenging human societies worldwide.
Food Scarcity
The dramatic climate swings of the Medieval Warm Period and its aftermath brought food uncertainty to Indigenous communities, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers Larry Zimmerman and Lawrence Bradley argue that such chronic malnutrition and environmental stress were key drivers behind the Crow Creek Massacre.
Archaeological evidence supports this: many of the victims showed signs of long-term food shortages, including growth disruptions in bones, iron-deficiency anemia, and even scurvy. These health markers reveal a community living on the edge, with children experiencing repeated metabolic stress.
Compounding the problem, most Initial Coalescent villages relied on fertile river valley land for crops like corn, beans, and squash. As populations grew, the Missouri River Valley likely hit its carrying capacity, intensifying competition for limited arable land. In such desperate times, neighbors could easily turn into enemies—setting the stage for violent conflict at Crow Creek.
A Worldwide Struggle
Native Americans at Crow Creek left no written records—only oral traditions that didn’t preserve firsthand accounts of the massacre. But European chronicles help us understand the era’s environmental pressures. In England, monk John of Trokelowe described the Great Famine of 1315–1317, when relentless cold and rain destroyed crops, starved animals, and left even royal households without bread. Mortality soared, and social order crumbled. As the Little Ice Age deepened, Europe saw witch hunts erupt, scapegoating those blamed for controlling the weather.
Across the Atlantic, early colonists and Native groups alike struggled through harsh droughts and brutal winters. Food shortages fueled conflict at Roanoke and strained alliances in Virginia. Even during the American Revolution, freezing conditions threatened armies and shaped military strategy.
This context matters. While Indigenous people at Crow Creek didn’t write down their fear or hunger, the massacre’s archaeological record—fortifications, mass graves, signs of malnutrition—tells a stark story. The Little Ice Age wasn’t just colder weather; it was a centuries-long trial of human resilience, showing how scarcity and stress can fracture communities and turn neighbors into enemies.
Sources:
[1] Zimmerman, L., et al. 1981. Crow Creek Site (39 Bf 11) Massacre: a Preliminary Report. ( tDAR id: 36636)
[2] Willey, P., and Emerson, T. E. 1993. “The Osteology and Archaeology of The Crow Creek Massacre.” Plains Anthropologist, 38(145):227–269.
[3] Bamforth, D., and Nepstad-Thornberry, C. 2007. “Reconsidering the Occupational History of the Crow Creek Site (39BF11).” Plains Anthropologist, 52(202):153–173.
[4] Gregg, J., et al. 1981. “Otolaryngic osteopathology in 14th century mid-america. The crow creek massacre.” Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 90(3 Pt 1):288-93.
[5] Zimmerman, L. and Whitten, R. 1980. “Mass Grave at Crow Creek in South Dakota Reveals How Indians Massacred Indians in 14th Century Attack.” Smithsonian 11(6):100-109.
[6] Jones, T., et al. 1999. “Environmental imperatives reconsidered: demographic crises in western North America during the medieval climatic anomaly.” Curr Anthropol. 40(2):137-70.
[7] Miller, G. et al. 2012. “Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks.” Geophysical Research Letters. 9, L02708
[8] Zimmerman, L. and Bradley, L. 1993. “The Crow Creek Massacre: Initial Coalescent Warfare and Speculations About the Genesis of Extended Coalescent.” Plains Anthropologist, 38(145):215–226.
[9] Zimmerman, L. 1985. Peoples of Prehistoric South Dakota. University of Nebraska Press.
[10] Gregg, J. and Zimmerman, L. 1987. “Malnutrition in Fourteenth-Century South Dakota: Osteopathological Manifestations.” North American Archaeologist 7(3):191-214.
[11] Behringer, W. 1999. “Climatic Change and Witch-hunting: the Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities.” Climatic Change 43, 335–351.
[12] Johannes de Trokelowe, Annates, H. T. Riley, ed., Rolls Series, No. 28, Vol. (London, 1866), pp. 92-95. Translated by Brian Tierney.
[13] The Little Ice Age and Colonial Virginia
[14] Cunningham, J. 2007. The Uncertain Revolution: Washington & the Continental Army at Morristown. Cormorant Publishing.
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