The Americas

Mississippian Culture (Classic & Post-Classic)
c.AD 600 - 1400
Incorporating the Caddoan, Fort Ancient, Oneota, Plaquemine, & South Appalachian Cultures

First Millennium BC/AD Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The mound-building tradition was a feature of many Native American woodland tribes - including the Mississippian culture. Mound building had begun in the Middle Archaic period around 3500 BC, when the people responsible were still hunter-gatherers. Their successors throughout the subsequent Woodland period all practiced farming and animal husbandry, and their collective cultures covered the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and its various (many) tributaries, and the Ohio river valley.

The mounds were platforms, similar to small pyramids of the Mesoamerican kind, and they required a concerted effort by hundreds of people working in unison to complete each mound. They could be flat-topped, or with elongated ridges, conical, or even some other designs. The practice continued right up until the first European settlements had been established on the eastern coast of North America. First appearing along the Mississippi River before spreading outwards, the Mississippian was also the last of the mound-building cultures of North America in the mid-western, eastern, and south-eastern United States.

The cultural capital of the Mississippian was Cahokia, near what is now Collinsville, Illinois. Cahokia was the largest pre-Columbian settlement to the north of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico - the largest city on North America until Philadelphia in the 1790s. It is not called the mound city for nothing, as some one hundred and twenty mounds have been identified by archaeologists.

Archaeological finds are constantly being made, and archaeological cultures are frequently being updated with new information. Get in touch here if this page also requires updating.

(Information by Peter Kessler and Mick Baker, with additional information from Osage Texts and Cahokia Data, Alice B Kehoe (2007), from Wind Jewels and Paddling Gods: The Mississippian Southeast in the Postclassic Mesoamerican World, Alice B Kehoe (2005), Mississippian Period: Overview, Adam King (New Georgia Encyclopaedia, 2002), and from External Link: Mississippian Period (Encyclopaedia of Alabama).)

c.1050 - 1100

The transition from Late Woodland to Early Mississippian is complete by this stage. The related Fort Ancient mound-building culture has already formed along the Ohio river valley. Tribal living has been exchanged to an increasing level in favour of a sedentary, pastoral lifestyle. Corn production is high, allowing regional chiefdoms to form, around which cultural centres coalesce.

The Mississippian culture and its related neighbours essentially had Cahokia as their capital, this being the largest pre-Columbian settlement to the north of the Aztec empire (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Cahokia expands in terms of growth and organisation during what has been shown to be one of the wettest half centuries of the last millennium. Migrants flock into the area in this time of plenty as agriculture and fishing reach their zenith.

c.1150

Tree-ring data suggests that the rains fail around this time, resulting in drought and crop failure - around Cahokia at least - which in turn leads to unrest and civil disturbance as people struggle to find sufficient food. Within a quarter of a century the population has plummeted, as shown by archaeology in abandoned dwellings and other areas of the Cahokia.

Several large towns spring up within the vicinity of the city. Fortifications are built with a wall which is 4.5 metres high, and 3.2 kilometres in diameter around the city. Calculations show that it takes twenty thousand trees and around six years for twelve men working eight hours a day to complete the work.

Cahokia is known as the mound-building city, after the Mississippian culture to which it belonged between AD 600-1400 until collapse occurred due to several external factors

c.1200

The frequent rains of eleventh century Cahokia would seem to increase even further in intensity after that period. There is evidence of a catastrophic, almost Biblical flood of the type which had been seared into the memory of ancient Sumerians. The dating for this event is imprecise, with it being placed within a span which covers 1100-1260, but the effect is the same - instability and suffering. In the half century after 1200 there is a definite downturn in upland farming.

However, for the culture as a whole, the start of the Middle Mississippian at this point shows it reaching its peak. Regional chiefdoms are at their most evolved, with traits which have been developed at Cahokia being disseminated throughout the entire culture. Palisades are beginning to appear, but ceremonial complexes are still being built and centrally-produced pottery is being copied on a local basis.

Cahokia at the start of the Middle Mississippian was reaching its peak, with regional chiefdoms having emerged but ceremonial complexes still being built

c.1300 - 1400

There is evidence that a number of men are killed in a group in the 1200s. They are decapitated, perhaps suggesting executions, possibly for rebellion or for being captured in war. Many arrowheads are also found by archaeologists. It would seem that the increasing instability of the rains and the resultant food shortages have triggered some form of civil war which ultimately destroys this civilisation.

The Late Mississippian is a period of decline. By 1300 Cahokia is a ghost town. A second massive flooding event takes place between 1340-1460, which probably helps to terminate the already-fading Mississippian culture itself.

Cultural and even language traits survive in many former Mississippian groups, however. As those groups coalesce into the Native American tribes which exist to greet the Europeans in the next three centuries, many of those traits are recorded.