The Americas

Oneota Culture (Mississippian) (North America)
c.AD 900 - 1700

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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 moundbuilders, as were the Chancay people of Peru.

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 the tribes which had formed in the wake of its ending.

Cahokia formed the cultural capital of the Mississippian, near what is now Collinsville, Illinois. This 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. But although it formed the heart of the Mississippian, various regional forms also existed.

Mississippian culture disseminated widely through eastern North America, generally following the river valleys to extend itself or to bump up against similar cultural groups. The Oneota form (sometimes labelled the 'Upper Mississippian Tradition') evolved on the eastern plains and Great Lakes from about AD 900 as a major component of upper Mississippian culture. Remains of Oneota villages are located in the modern states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

The semi-nomadic people of the Oneota adopted a mixed subsistence life of agriculture, hunting, and foraging. They lived in semi-permanent villages which were situated along the banks of major rivers, cultivating corn along with bean and squash crops on small planted hills or along ridges. They also grew plants which today are generally considered to be weeds, such as knotweed and lamb's quarters.

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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), and from External Links: Mississippian Period (Encyclopaedia of Alabama), and Study challenges the narrative of Cahokia's abandonment (Heritage Daily), and Archaeological History - Prehistoric Peoples (Milwaukee Public Museum), and Oneota Lifestyle Changes (Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center), and The Oneota Culture (Thought Co).)

c.AD 900

The Oneota culture first appears on the eastern plains and Great Lakes of North America around this time. It will go on to form a major component of upper Mississippian culture which spreads across much of central North America.

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)

c.1050 - 1100

The transition from late Woodland to early Mississippian is complete by this stage. 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.

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 the Mississippian heartland of 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.

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 for the central Mississippian people of the type which had been seared into the memory of ancient Sumerians.

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.

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.1300 - 1400

There is evidence of killings, possibly executions in the Mississippian centre of Cahokia in the 1200s. 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. Some Oneota groups have been migrating west since the 1200s, unwittingly encouraging the spread of Oneota material culture, which is thought to be partially due to forced assimilation and kin groups breaking away from the main migratory chain to form new settlements.

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

c.1700

Oneota culture has outlived the Mississippian by up to three hundred years, with a potential end in the period between 1650-1700. It is clear though that the culture is troubled in its final phase. The last village to be occupied in the La Crosse area is stockaded, suggesting a need for defence against an unrecorded enemy.

As Oneota descendant groups coalesce and disperse into the Native American tribes which exist to greet the Europeans in the next three centuries, many former Oneota and Mississippian traits are recorded, principally by a New France which has already laid claim to their entire territory.

Although not entirely accepted by all, the bulk of Oneota people are thought to be absorbed into large 'nations' or groups which include the Ioway (of modern Iowa), the Oto (who later merge with the Missouri in 1798), and the Ho-Chunk (of modern Wisconsin).

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle ('Lord of the Manor'), explored the Great Lakes, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico in 1669-1670, and claimed the entire Mississippi basin for New France