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Mississippian village with mounds and plaza "Yuchi Town, circa 1776" public awareness poster [76K]
History of Investigations The 1963 National Historic Landmark Theme Study characterized Mississippian cultures (then called "Temple Mound" cultures) as different from the Woodland cultures on the basis of distinctive ceramic vessel forms, the use of ground shell as a tempering agent in ceramics, rectangularly shaped structures, and ceremonial earthwork complexes. The earthworks contained flat-topped pyramidal mounds used primarily as the bases or platforms for wooden temple structures. Archeological excavations at these complexes uncovered high-status burials, sometimes containing ceremonial materials that appeared to exhibit shared iconography from site to site. It was speculated that these artifacts represented a "Southern Cult" or shared religious manifestations that linked these sites throughout much of the eastern United States. One major problem noted in this study was the uncertainty of the place of origin of the Mississippian culture. Archeological investigations over the last thirty years have given us a very different picture than that characterized in the 1963 study. First, although certain ceramic forms and tempering agents and rectangularly shaped structures are still considered indicators of Mississippian period sites, there now appears to be nothing dramatically new in the way Mississippian cultures lived as opposed to the previous Woodland cultures. Walthall (1990) has divided Mississippian cultural chronology into Early Mississippian (A.D. 900 - A.D. 1200), Middle Mississippian (A.D. 1200 - A.D. 1500), and Late Mississippian (A.D. 1500 - A.D. 1700). Mississippian sites appeared almost simultaneously throughout the Southeast ca. A.D. 900 and were mainly located within river floodplain environments.
Mississippian Culture It is now generally believed that a form of chiefdom government operated within the Mississippian period. These chiefdoms, operating out of temple mound complexes, such as Moundville or Etowah, apparently controlled specific territories usually associated with a defined floodplain environment. Chiefs were responsible for the redistribution of food between outlying communities and the major community. Whether these chiefs were able to control exchanges of goods within their territory and with other chiefdoms, employ full-time artisans and specialists, or function as both the religious and political head, are questons requiring more research. In all probability, Mississippian chiefdoms controlled only small geographical areas and were in constant states of change because their power rested on fragile agricultural adaptations. Failure of crops due to weather or other natural forces would have imperiled population stability in the chiefdom. In the past, much was made of the idea of a "Southern Cult" or pan-Mississippian religious phenomenon, based on the finding of similar iconography on artifacts of shell, copper, and ceramic from high-status burials in large Southeastern temple mound centers. It is now realized that postulating a religion on the basis of similar types of burial artifacts may be an erroneous assumption. More likely, similarity in exotic artifacts was due to a Mississippian exchange network linking hundreds of large and small communities, which functioned to promote the exchange of prestige goods for food. A similar exchange system probably functioned in the Middle Woodland period and similarly accounted for the exchange of exotic goods that were similar in appearance from site to site. Another earlier aspect has to do with the origin of the Mississippian culture. The 1963 study noted that in earlier studies radiocarbon dating was inadequate for dating Mississippian-type sites before about A.D. 900, and it was then proposed that the Mississippian culture origin was based at the great site of Cahokia near East St. Louis, Illinois, or in western Kentucky and Tennessee. Today, archeological investigations and radiocarbon dating have identified "proto-Mississippian" sites within the Weeden Island culture area of the Gulf Coast of Florida and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee valleys of Alabama and Georgia, which date from the Middle to Late Woodland period of ca. A.D. 150-750. Excavations have identified flat-topped or platform ceremonial, rather than burial, mound complexes that are similar in layout to early Mississippian period earthworks. Another important result of the work conducted on Mississippian sites in the last thirty years has been the differentiation of the Mississippian culture into distinctive cultural areas. The Middle Mississippian area, represented by the major sites of Cahokia and Moundville, covers the central Mississippi River Valley, the lower Ohio River Valley, and most of the Mid-South area, including western and central Kentucky, western Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi. This appears to be the core of the classic Mississippian culture area, containing large ceremonial mound and residential complexes, sometimes enclosed within earthen ditches and ramparts or a stockade line. The lower Mississippi River Valley contains the Plaquemine Mississippian culture area in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Plaquemine Mississippian earthwork sites are similar in appearance to Middle Mississippian complexes, except the former are ceremonial in nature and usually lack a residential aspect. Good examples of this culture are the Emerald Mound and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites located in Mississippi.
Other Late Prehistoric Cultures Coeval Mississippian areas include the Fort Ancient culture area of southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, and the Caddoan Mississippian of eastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas, western Arkansas, and western Louisiana. The Fort Ancient culture emerged about A.D. 1400 as a response by local Late Woodland populations to an increasing reliance on agriculture, increasing sedentism, and the accompanying rise in socio-political complexity associated with the Middle Mississippian culture area. The Fort Ancient culture produced ceramics distinct from Middle Mississippian wares, with a settlement pattern of villages organized into a circular or elliptical configuration of structures surrounding a central plaza. The Caddoan culture appears to have emerged from the local Middle Woodland cultures in the western Louisiana area ca. A.D. 800. Mississippian culture traits common to the Caddo people primarily along the Red River drainage, such as the use of maize agriculture, burial mounds, and temple mound complexes, appear to have been derived from the Plaquemine Mississippian culture area more so than the Middle Mississippian core area. However, the Caddoan culture is generally viewed as a separate culture area from the Mississippian culture of the Southeast. Other coeval Mississippian culture areas are the St. Johns culture area of northeastern Florida, the Glades and Calusa culture areas of southern Florida, and the coastal cultures of North Carolina. Many of these cultures constructed temple mounds and/or burial mounds and, to a certain extent, utilized maize agriculture; however, to a larger extent they continued a Woodland type of subsistence in Late Prehistoric times until European contact.
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Outline of Prehistory and History
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Carved marble statues from a Mississippian mound
