The Americas

Mississippian Culture (Classic & Post-Classic) (North America)
c.AD 600 - 1400

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The mound-building tradition of the Americas was a feature of many Native American woodland tribes - including those of the Mississippian culture. Mound building had begun in North America's middle 'Archaic Period' around 3500 BC, when the people who were responsible for the appearance of this practice 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 people of the non-Mississippian Chacoan culture were also mound-builders, as were the Chancay people of Peru.

The mounds in question were platforms, similar to small pyramids of the Mesoamerican kind, and their construction required a concerted effort by hundreds of people who were working in unison to complete each mound. They could be flat-topped, or with elongated ridges, or they could be conical, or even follow other designs.

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. Echoes of it lingered for at least a century after its end amongst tribes which formed in the wake of that ending.

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.

At its height it accommodated around twenty thousand people and this was about five hundred years before the arrival of Columbus. It appears to have been highly dependent upon good rains thanks to a climatically-wet period, and would suffer when those rains failed to arrive or arrived too enthusiastically.

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(Information by Mick Baker and Peter Kessler, 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), from Coles Creek antecedents of Plaquemine mound construction, Lori Roe (Plaquemine Archaeology, Mark A Rees & Patrick C Livingood (Eds), University of Alabama Press, pp 20-37, 2007), and from External Links: Mississippian Period (Encyclopaedia of Alabama), and Study challenges the narrative of Cahokia's abandonment (Heritage Daily), and Oneota Lifestyle Changes (Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center), and The Oneota Culture (Thought Co).)

AD 800 - 900

The Caddoan and Oneota cultures first appear around this time. Both are influenced by and linked to the core Mississippian. The first is localised along the lower Mississippi valley, while the second is focussed on the eastern plains and Great Lakes of North America. Both go on to form major components of upper Mississippian culture.

People of the Adena, Hopewell, Oneota, and Old Copper cultures had extensive art, making great use of sculptured stone pipes, polished ornaments both of stone and copper, and incised shell decorations

c.1050 - 1100

The transition from late Woodland to early Mississippian is complete by this period. The related Fort Ancient mound-building culture has already formed along the Ohio river valley (from about AD 1000).

The Caddoan has similarly appeared in north-western Louisiana, eastern Texas, and south-western Arkansas, evolving from older Woodland period origins.

The South Appalachian has also emerged from former Woodland traditions, in their case in the south-eastern chunk of North America. This overlaps with the core Mississippian zone of influence along its entire north-western edge.

Tribal living has been exchanged to an increasing degree in favour of a sedentary, pastoral lifestyle. Corn production is high which allows 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 second millennium AD. 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 around Cahokia.

Several large towns spring up within the vicinity of the city. Fortifications are built around the city with a wall which is 4.5 metres high, and 3.2 kilometres in diameter. 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 and a few subsequent internal factors too

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. The Plaquemine culture emerges in eastern and southern Louisiana and western Mississippi, directly on the southern edge of the core Mississippian itself.

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

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.

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 after they have been captured in battle. 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 plays a part in destroying 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.

SunWatch Village in Dayton, Ohio, recreates lath-and-mud-daub structures with grass thatched roofs, standing in precisely the same location as the originals, and with the 'SunWatch Indian Village and Archaeological Park' nestling amongst mature trees along the Great Miami River to the south of Dayton

c.1400 - 1700

The Mississippian is over by 1400. Aside from the Caddoan culture which terminates around the same time, its influenced descendants usually fare better. The Fort Ancient shows continuation until about 1650.

The Oneota similarly survives until about 1650-1700, principally thanks to its people migrating westwards and spreading their culture there. Its people are generally absorbed into large 'nations' which include the Ioway, the Oto, and the Ho-Chunk.

The Plaquemine also survives to about 1700, with its surviving population becoming the Natchez and related Taensa tribes. The South Appalachian gradually transforms into the Cherokee nation during the seventeenth century.

The twenty-two hectare Etowah Mounds site in Georgia was home to several thousand native Americans between AD 1000-1550, with six of those mounds surviving into the present day along with various central areas such as a plaza, a village site, borrow pits, and a defensive ditch (click or tap on photo to read more on a separate page)

Such staggered declines allow cultural and even language traits to survive in many of the former Mississippian groups. As those groups coalesce into the Native American tribes which exist to greet the Europeans in the next three centuries, many of their Mississippian traits are recorded.