In describing Mississippian culture in Louisiana, it is sometimes possible to draw a distinction between Plaquemine culture sites with Mississippian influence and sites that were occupied by intrusive Mississippian culture peoples, although distinguishing the two can get complicated. Courtesy of the artist. 46. The three most important crops for Mississippian cultures. Maize-based agriculture. Rees, Mark A. By the time more documentary accounts were being written, the Mississippian way of life had changed irrevocably. Many funerary items from the Spiro site were decorated with motifs representing the local expression of a ceremonial complex that drew participants from a wide area. Typical settlements were located on riverine floodplains and included villages with defensive palisades enclosing platform mounds and residential areas. The historic and modern day American Indian nations believed to have descended from the overarching Mississippian culture include: the Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Chickasaw, Catawba,[citation needed] Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Ho-Chunk, Houma, Kansa, Missouria, Mobilian, Natchez, Osage, Quapaw, Seminole, Tunica-Biloxi, Yamasee, and Yuchi. Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rockies, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean. Scholars have studied the records of Hernando de Soto's expedition of 15391543 to learn of his contacts with Mississippians, as he traveled through their villages of the Southeast. prime 400 years before the onset of Mississippian culture. The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.[5]. The people constructed 13 earthen mounds, 6 of which are large platform mounds, and hundreds of residential dwellings over an area of 100 acres. The Mississippi period is the chronological stage, while Mississippian culture refers to the cultural similarities that characterize this society. Major sites such asSpiroand theBattle Mound Siteare in theArkansas RiverandRed RiverValleys, the largest and most fertile of the waterways in the Caddoan region, where maize agriculture would have been the most productive. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010. Ceremonial items made around Cahokia were decorated using a specific set of design criteria called the Braden style. The settlement consists of 140 identified structures of varying sizes, covering an area of 54-acres that were constructed from AD 1000 to AD 1550. The soldiers were at the fort about 18 months (15671568) before the natives killed them and destroyed the fort. While most Mississippian Indians were farmers, archeological evidence indicates that some people specialized in other occupations. "The people who lived [in Spiro] came to control what we call the Mississippian culture. Some of the mounds are low, simple cone shapes. [1]The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Native Americans living in Louisiana at this time are associated with Caddo and Plaquemine cultures. The "Mississippian period" should not be confused with the "Mississippian culture". The Coles Creek culture was a Late Woodland archaeological culture in the Lower Mississippi valley emerging from Troyville around A.D. 700. Encyclopedia of Arkansas Link
The site lends its name to a widespread late . Widespread trade networks extending as far west as theRocky Mountains, north to theGreat Lakes, south to theGulf of Mexico, and east to theAtlantic Ocean. Platform Mounds. Archaeologists believe that the Plaquemine culture builders were the ancestors of the historic Natchez, who inhabited the area using Emerald Mound site . Pauketat, Timothy R.; "The Forgotten History of the Mississippians" in, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 20:26. Now, new evidence suggests a dramatic change in climate might have led to the culture's collapse in the 1300s. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in adoption of some or all of the following traits: Mississippian Cultures. House, John H.
Maize did not become an important part of the Southeastern diet until around 1000 CE, when it was incorporated into preexisting gardens of domesticated squash and seed plants such as little barley and goosefoot (lambsquarters). The termMiddle Mississippianis also used to describe the core of the classic Mississippian culture area. The Plaquemine Culture occupied the rest of Louisiana not taken by the Caddoan Mississippian culture during this time frame. The briny waters from a saline on Avery Island attracted one or more Mississippian culture groups from the Tensas River Valley or Lower Yazoo Basin around 15501650 CE. The Caddoan people were speakers of one of the manyCaddoan languages. Thousands of Mississippian-era graves have been found in the city, and thousands more may exist in the surrounding area. The only mound site to be used and maintained into historic times. By that time, however, most mid-South and Southeastern societies were less complexly organized than their predecessors. Proceeds are donated to charity. one size fits all definition of these Mississippian cultures. Ceramic bowl with spider motif (left), reproduction embossed copper plate with Birdman motif (center), and ceramic rabbit effigy jar (right). Chastain, Matthew L.; Deymier-Black, Alix C.; Kelly, John E.; Brown, James A.; Dunand, David C. (July 2011). It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. 36-43. Mississippian culture: Ocmulgee National Monument, Take a look at researchers studying Mississippians copper work from the Cahokian mounds in southwestern Illinois, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mississippian-culture, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture - Mississippian Culture, Mississippian Culture - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Mississippian culture - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Monks Mound, Cahokia State Historic Site, Illinois. A typical Mississipian town was built near a river or creek. and the occurrence of numerous burials often accompanied by elaborate grave goods. This was true, for example, in the lower Mississippi Valley region (extending into Southeastern Arkansas), where a civilization called the Plaquemine culture thrived mainly by hunting, gathering, and fishing. The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture. Mississippian cultures lived in the Mississippi valley, Ohio, Oklahoma, and surrounding areas. The result is a clay that allows the potter to make a thinner, harder vessel, and to create more elaborate vessel forms. Around 1100 or 1200 A.D., the largest city north of Mexico was Cahokia, sitting in what is now southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Most well known are the Natchez and Caddo chiefdoms encountered by Spanish and French explorers in the early 18th century. Plaquemine and Mississippian. In Archaeology of Louisiana, edited by Mark A. Rees, 172194. A Plaquemine/Mississippian site approx. The final occupation at Transylvania may represent a late migration of Mississippian people down the Mississippi River into Louisiana. SECC items are found in Mississippian-culture sites fromWisconsin(seeAztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and fromFloridatoArkansasandOklahoma. It is considered ancestral to theNatchezandTaensaPeoples.[18]. The late prehistoric cultures of the southeastern United States dating from ca. Indirectly, however, European introductions dramatically changed these native societies. The site was occupied by the Macon Plateau culture from around AD 950 during the Early Mississippian-culture phase, although archaeological evidence suggests that there has been near continuous occupation by various peoples going back 17,000 years from the Paleo-Indian period. The Great Serpent Mound in rural, southwestern Ohio is the largest serpent effigy in the world. The Transylvania mound site is in East Carroll Parish. These items, especially the pottery, were also copied by local artists. This inevitably produced a retaliatory attack. Others are tall, wide hills. Is Mississippi poor? Other precolonial cultures in Louisiana adopted maize much later, perhaps initially for ceremonial uses. The three examples presented here, the Transylvania, Salt Mine Valley, and Sims sites, are all late, occurring in what archaeologists call the protohistoric or early colonial period, when Europeans were present but their direct contact with American Indians was limited. The chronicles of de Soto are among the first documents written about Mississippian peoples and are an invaluable source of information on their cultural practices. Maize-based agriculture. Nature 316:530-532. Privacy Policy. An amazing assortment of large mounds of earth lies in parts of the eastern United States. However, some archaeologists argue that the shell-tempered pottery assemblage at Transylvania owes more to Plaquemine culture precedents than Mississippian culture innovations. Discussions of these cultures can be found in their respective essays. Updates? The type of structures constructed ran the gamut: temples, houses, and burial buildings. Formations made of earth that were used as foundations for Mississippian culture structures. However, as discussed for the Transylvania site below, distinguishing a Mississippian culture site from a Plaquemine culture site with some Mississippian influence is difficult, and involves more than a simple presence-or-absence accounting of traits. This plastered cane matting is called wattle and daub. Angel mounds was a regional trading centre, built on the banks of the Ohio River in the present-day State of Indiana. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level ofsocial stratification. This settlement pattern was typical of most of Middle America (central and southern Mexico and Guatemala) since as early as 850 bce, but it had not diffused into North America until the advent of the Mississippian culture. Further Reading:
| Home | How do we learn about the past? Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 534-544. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Mississippian culture, the last major prehistoric cultural development in North America, lasting from about 700 ce to the time of the arrival of the first European explorers. Shell tempering may have been widely adopted because it was functional. It covered about ten acres of ground, and was surrounded by a palisade, a fence made of wooden poles placed upright in the ground. Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built the mounds dotting the landscape. In the western Ozark Highlands, for example, Marvin Kay and George Sabo studied mound centers constructed by local Mississippian communities. Mississippian cultures, like many before them, built mounds. In the best-studied Plaquemine culture village in south Louisiana, the Discovery site, corn was present but was not a staple even as late as circa 1500 CE. Composed of many tribes, the Caddo were organized into three confederacies, theHasinai,Kadohadacho, andNatchitoches, which were all linked by their similar languages. The site was occupied from AD 1100 to around AD 1450, inhabited by up to 1000 individuals at its peak. In Louisiana, the influence of Mississippian culture was evident by 1200 CE. In historic Southeastern Indian towns, such rituals were performed to renew and reaffirm relationships between humans and the spirit world. Archaeologists believe that the Plaquemine culture builders were the ancestors of the historic Natchez, who inhabited the area using Emerald Mound site as their main ceremonial centre when the first Europeans explored the region. After the destruction and flight of the de Soto expedition, the Mississippian peoples continued their way of life with little direct European influence. Living on the western edge of the Mississippian world, the Caddoans may have faced fewer military threats from their neighbors. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. 1985 University of Illinois Press 2004 Prehistory of the Western Interior after 500 B.C. And is Mississippi still living in the past? [18] Emerald Mound: A Plaquemine Mississippian period archaeological site located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Stanton, Mississippi. Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. The chronicles of de Soto are among the first documents written about Mississippian peoples and are an invaluable source of information on their cultural practices. Five regions are considered, the focus being the Natchez Bluffs of western Mississippi. 14, Southeast, edited by Raymond D. Fogelson, pp. Although a minor amount of shell was present in the pottery made by earlier cultures in the southeastern United States, shell was used widely, and in many areas exclusively, in the Mississippi period after circa 1000 CE. Villages with single platform mounds were more typical of the river valley settlements throughout the mountainous area of southwest North and South Carolina, and southeastern Tennessee that were known as the historic Cherokee homelands. The walls of a house were built by placing wooden poles upright in a trench in the ground. One of the earliest known phases in eastern North America in which corn cultivation appears to have had a role in subsistence is the Adena, which occupied . Typical settlements were located on riverine floodplains and included villages with defensive palisades enclosing platform mounds and residential areas. The second largest pre-Columbian structure in the USA and is the type site for the Emerald Phase (1350 to 1500 CE) of the Natchez Bluffs region. The adoption of the paraphernalia of theSoutheastern Ceremonial Complex(SECC), also called the Southern Cult. Some communities numbered in the thousands, and tens of thousands of people lived at the Cahokia site near modern St. Louis. Middle Mississippian cultures, especially the Cahokia polity located nearEast St. Louis, Illinois, were very influential on neighboring societies. The briny water was boiled in specialized clay pans placed on rocks over large hearths. The Spread of Shell-Tempered Ceramics along the Northern Coast of the Gulf of Mexico.Southeastern Archaeology27, no. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. Harvard University, Peabody Museum Press. A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one.
Washington, Smithsonian Institution. [16] The sites generally lacked wooden palisade fortifications often found in the major Middle Mississippian towns. Though other cultures may have used mounds for different purposes, Mississippian cultures typically built structures on top of them. Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been recovered from the site, marking the first European colonization in the interior of what became the United States.[20]. There is other evidence for Mississippian influence in extreme southeastern Louisiana, again mostly in the form of shell-tempered pottery and Mississippian designs that appear on both shell- and grog-tempered vessels. Their societies may also have had a somewhat lower level of social stratification. Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas. Mound-building Native American culture in Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States, Learn how and when to remove this template message, list of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition, List of burial mounds in the United States, "Mississippian Period Archaeological Sites", "Southeastern Prehistory:Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period", "Revisiting Platform Mounds and Townhouses in the Cherokee Heartland: A Collaborative Approach", "Tejas-Caddo Fundamentals-Caddoan Languages and Peoples", "Tejas-Caddo Fundamentals-Mississippian World", The Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period, Indian Mounds of Mississippi, a National Park Service, Animation: Towns and Temples of the Mississippian Culture-5 Sites, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mississippian_culture&oldid=1141967145, History of indigenous peoples of North America, Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, 8th-century establishments in North America, 16th-century disestablishments in North America, Articles lacking in-text citations from October 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2009, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the. The best evidence for determining cultural occupations is a combination of cultural artifacts and settlement patterns. Chronologically this area became influenced by Mississippian culture later than the Middle Mississippian area (about 1000 CE as compared to 800 CE) to its northwest. [14], The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now easternOklahoma, westernArkansas, northeasternTexas, and northwesternLouisiana. 2003 Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection. [13]South Appalachian Mississippian area sites are distributed across a contiguous area including Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, South Carolina, central and western North Carolina, and Tennessee. The inhabitants built two earthen mounds, one encircled by a unique spiral ramp, the only one of its kind still known to exist in this country. That salt production took place is apparent by the literal pavement of broken bowls and other briquetage (by-products of salt-making) in Salt Mine Valley. A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one. Herb Roe. Good examples of this culture are theMedora Site(thetype sitefor the culture and period) inWest Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and theAnna,Emerald Mound,WintervilleandHolly Bluffsites located in Mississippi. Corn, or maize, was indisputably domesticated in Mesoamerica thousands of years before it became a Mississippian staple. People also gathered at the larger towns for community rituals and ceremonies. The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture (circa 1200 to 1700 CE) centered on the Lower Mississippi River valley. Corn, which can yield abundant harvests with simple agricultural techniques, is deficient in lysine, an amino acid that humans require. (The designs on some of the shell-tempered pottery match designs commonly found in those areas.) [21] Other Native American groups, having migrated many hundreds of miles and lost their elders to diseases, did not know their ancestors had built the mounds dotting the landscape. They grew corn, beans, and squash, called the three sisters by historic Southeastern Indians. Good examples of this culture are the Medora Site, in West Baton Rouge Parish, La, and the Emerald Mound , Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites located in Mississippi. The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds. Most tellingly, no burials have been found that have the abundance and kinds of high-status artifacts found at major Mississippian sites in the Southeast. Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer who, from 1539-43, lived with and spoke to many Mississippian cultures. | Indians Before Europeans | First Encounters | Historic Arkansas Indians | Indians After Europeans | Current Research | Writing Prompts | Learning Exercises | Project Background and History |, The Mississippi Period: Southeastern Chiefdoms, Last Updated: February 17, 2013 at 10:58:45 PM Central Time, The Daughters and the Serpent Monster (Caddo), Lightning Defeats the Underground Monster (Caddo), The Calumet Ceremony in the Mississippi Valley, Gentleman of Elvas: Chapter XXXII and XXXIII, Smoking Ceremony from the Songs of the Wa-Xo'-Be (Osage). The Hopewell Culture, centred in the southern region of Ohio, was in its dying stages in 500 AD. In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with adoption of comparatively large-scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization. [14], The Caddoan Mississippian area, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture, covered a large territory, including what is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeastern Texas, and northwestern Louisiana. 2 (2008): 202221. The people who lived in this now largely forgotten city were part . Cahokia was a large city complex, founded around AD 1050 in what is now western Illinois. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. 2006 Mortuary Ritual and Winter Solstice Imagery of the Harlan-Style Charnel House. These connections made it possible for many late prehistoric communities, regardless of their size and location, to participate in pan-regional religious systems and other widespread traditions of Mississippian culture. https://www.boundless.com/world-history/textbooks/boundless-world-history-textbook/, Describe the economies of Mississippian cultures. Even at Plaquemine sites that show a lot of influence from the Mississippian culture, the primary tempering [10] Through repeated contacts, groups in Mississippi and then Louisiana began adopting Mississippian . The local population increased dramatically and there is strong evidence of a growing cultural and . Hernando de Soto led an expedition into the area in the early 1540s, heencountered several native groupsnow thought to have been Caddoan. The termSouth Appalachian Provincewas originally used byW. H. Holmesin 1903 to describe a regional ceramic style in the southeast involving surface decorations applied with a carved wooden paddle. Its people are considered descendants of the Troyville-Coles Creek culture. In one example, de Soto negotiated a truce between thePacahaand theCasqui. The earthen hills contain burials, funerary objects and iconographic artifacts. [19]Political structures collapsed in many places. 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